The Set Up (43 page)

I give him a nod and kiss his cheek as I pass by him, breathing in his fresh scent and taking in the sight of him. Wearing ripped jeans, a T-shirt, and black boots with his laces untied, he looks more like an Abercrombie & Fitch model than any mechanic I’ve ever seen, but he’s determined to get my car running. I hope he can because despite having the People Mover close by, being without a car is still an inconvenience.

Pulling my chair out for me, his eyes flash as he notices my gaze.

Heat.

Fire. A volcano about to erupt.

The glasses are cold in my hands and I hesitate a moment before setting the lemonades down to allow myself a moment to cool. With an inhaled sharp breath, I take a seat.

Mrs. Storm puts the small metal pie plates on festive summer plates and places one in front of each of us, along with salad bowls, and then takes a seat herself. “I hope you don’t mind that I didn’t cook. It’s just too hot to spend too much time in the kitchen,” she directs toward me.

“Not at all. This is perfect,” I tell her.

The house is secluded and very private, surrounded by miles and miles of pine trees. Birds sing all around and the summer sun beats down, but the umbrella shades us. The meal is eaten with casual conversation, nothing invasive for any of us.

Everyone finishes at about the same time. Jasper leans back in his chair. Hank plucks the last of the berries from the salad bowl and pops it into his mouth. I remain upright but relaxed as I sip on the last of my lemonade.

Setting her fork down, Mrs. Storm smiles over at me. “So tell me, Charlotte, where have you been all these years and why are you back?”

And just like that, I’m more nervous than I was before we arrived.

RIGHT TURN ONLY

Jasper

LOOKS LIKE I’M
going to have to take the bullet.

Avoiding telling my mother why Charlotte is back in Detroit and therefore avoiding the meltdown that is certain to accompany that conversation means shifting the focus off Charlotte and on to me.

Here I go.

Clearing my throat, I give Charlotte a quick wink and then turn toward my mother. “So, Mom, has Hank told you the schematics for the Storm have been finalized and that it’s ready for mass production?”

Blinking a few times as if she never expected that day would come, she switches her gaze toward Hank. “No, he hasn’t mentioned it at all.”

He gives her a shrug. “I wanted Jasper to be the one to tell you.”

Nice save.

Quickly, her gaze darts back to mine. My mother likes to talk about the Storm and wants to feel involved, but again, somehow this conversation always leads back to my father, and her going into meltdown mode, so normally, like Hank, I avoid it at all costs. “That’s really exciting, Jasper. Tell me everything.”

To save Charlotte from a further inquisition, I spend the next twenty minutes discussing the latest design. The factory. The plans for mass production. Although my mother says nothing about the land I want to build the factory on, she has plenty to say about everything else.

She’s worried that I’m too young for so much responsibility. Worried the production costs will be too high. Worried. Worried. Worried.

Shoving my plate away, I feel like I might be the one to go into meltdown mode if I don’t change the subject. Hank is unusually quiet, and I can only assume he’s worried about the potential argument that is brewing between my mother and myself.

Charlotte is quiet too. I can tell she’s worried she’ll say something to set my mother off.

Want to know what I’m worried about? Telling my mother what is going on in my life, and I know the time has come.

I shift in my chair. “Hey, Mom, mind taking a walk with me? I need to talk to you about something.”

“Sure, honey. Is everything okay?”

I glance toward Charlotte, who is squeezing her eyes closed. I take her hand under the table before looking back toward my mother. “Not really. That’s what I need to talk to you about.”

FLYWHEEL

Charlotte

I’M NOT MUCH
of a mechanic.

Although I like to think I can, I can’t fix my own car.

Heck, I bring it to Jiffy Lube to get my oil changed.

That doesn’t mean I don’t understand how a car works. I do. And there are only a few words that make the car owner in me want to crawl back into bed.
Transmission
is at the top of that list. There’s something about that mysterious box underneath the hood that incites an odd fear in me.

I can handle my oil light going on. I can handle having to rotate my tires. I can even handle the wear and tear of my brakes. But the transmission issue is out of my comfort zone.

Jasper looks up from under the hood.

I flash him an appreciative smile.

Wiping his brow, he motions behind me. “Can you hand me a flywheel?”

“Sure, one second.” I like being helpful. With an extra bounce in my step, I hop off the stool and quickly walk to the large red toolbox that I remember from his garage in Eastpointe. It was his father’s. I’m pretty certain a flywheel is a type of wrench, so finding it shouldn’t be hard. Once there I stare at all the different wrenches, pick one up, and bring it back to him. “Here you go.”

The cool look I receive tells me the tool in my hand isn’t a flywheel.

I tried.

Having lost his sense of humor after trying for almost thirty minutes to remove a rusted bolt from what he called a solenoid, with a curse word in front of it, he walks over to the toolbox and rummages through it.

Suppressing my need to laugh, I have to take a deep breath and look away, slowly blowing it out a little at a time before he turns around and sees me. This is his idea after all. Not that I don’t appreciate it. I do. I really do. And he looks really, really sexy under the hood. Did I mention how sexy he looks? Very, very, very sexy.

The quiet causes me to twist on my stool. Jasper is standing over the toolbox, holding a piece of paper.

“What is it?” I ask, concerned by how still he is.

Slowly, he turns.

Worried, I slide off the stool and walk toward him.

“What is it?” I ask again.

I take the paper he hands me and slap my hand to my mouth. It’s a picture of a man and a boy working on a car signed by Jasper, with the year written in block numbers under his name. The year his father died. The year my father became the black sheep of Detroit for something I know he didn’t do. The year both of our lives changed forever. With tears in my eyes, I look up at him and search for the right words. There don’t seem to be any. And this, this is the great divide between us. I know if we dig deeper into it, there’s a very real possibility that we discover something that could rip us apart. I should leave it alone. Let the past stay in the past. Yet, I can’t. I need to find out what happened. My need. My neediness. It’s always my neediness.

“Charlotte.” Jasper whispers my name before his head dips and his lips come down on mine.

I kiss him back.

Of course I do.

My emotions. His emotions. They feed into our kiss, and I wind my arms around his neck and curl my fingers in his hair that I love so much. Our tongues stroke in desperation as if we both know what I was thinking moments ago, and it makes the heat between us catch fire. But doesn’t raging desperation only lead to raging flames that eventually need to be doused?

His thumbs brush against my cheeks, seeming to swipe away the invisible track of tears.

The sound of the screen door opening from the house causes us to break apart. It’s Hank on the front porch, setting the vase of flowers that Mrs. Storm had put on the counter earlier on the table between the two rockers before going back inside.

Jasper looks at the flowers, and then at me, with his childhood drawing still between us. “My mother saved it. I didn’t think she saved anything.”

“You should frame this,” I tell him, finally finding the right words.

He swallows, sets the paper back in the drawer, grabs the wrench, and walks back toward the car. “I think it’s right where it belongs.”

I follow him, grabbing a water bottle and staring at him. I’ve overwhelmed by the strength he has, the fortitude he displays, and wish I could have just a little of those traits.

After ten minutes of silence he looks up at me. This time his mouth is set into a tight, hard line of determination. Sweat rings his neckline and extends down the front of his shirt. The sight of him makes my entire body tingle. There’s just something about a man working hard.

My legs dangle from the stool I’ve been sitting on since we came out here.

Lunch itself went fairly well. Maybe not great, but better than I thought it would. However, after Jasper told his mother that he was a person of interest in the murder investigation of Eve, she became hysterical. “That land is cursed. I told you to stay away from it,” she cried and then ran in the house.

Jasper and Hank chased after her. She’d gone into her room. While they tried to calm her down, I cleaned up. When Jasper finally emerged, he said she’d taken a sedative and was going to take a nap. She cares for him more than he realizes. It’s obvious. He just can’t see it after all the years of built-up animosity. I hope that changes. I really do. Forgiveness is hard, but sometimes it’s the only way.

“How old did you say this car is?” Jasper asks, interrupting my thoughts.

I tilt my head sideways to look at him better under the hood. “Jasper, the car is old. I already told you that.”

“I know that. I asked how old?”

I pull my lip to the side. “I think my aunt bought it the year I went to college and that was, oh yes, ten years ago, but I already told you that.”

With narrowed eyes he looks at me for a beat, and then he straightens to lift the hem of his shirt and wipe his face. My eyes dart to his body. His belly is taut, with the faintest, ever so faintest, single line of hair trailing from his navel into the waistband of his low-slung jeans. And that belly button. That belly button is perfection.

“See something you like?” Gone is the melancholy. In its place is a flirtation I can’t help but want to participate in.

My pulse starts to race. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

He catches my flirty tone and grins at me in the most delicious way.