Unsteady (The Torqued Trilogy Book 1) (3 page)

“Jesus, Red, did you brush her damn hair today?” Raven asks, trying to tame Nova’s hair down by running her fingers through it.

All that did was annoy Nova, who whipped her head around. She hates people touching her curls.

I glare toward Raven. “I did brush it.” I’m actually not sure if I did, or not. I might have just ran my fingers through it to get the knots out. Apparently, I didn’t do a very good job because I see a knot in it now.

Raven rolls her eyes and reaches to take Nova from my arms. “Sure you did.”

As we’re gathered by the cars now, arguing about whether or not I brushed my daughter’s hair, Mom approaches us. “Are we all ready?”

Raven smacks my shoulder as she pushes past me. “Yeah, Ma. We’re coming.”

The five of us pile inside my other baby, an old Chevy Nova that’s definitely a work in progress and head up the street to my parents’ house. Though our family isn’t all that large, my father was well respected and widely loved, so the small house seems crowded when we get there. On any other day, this wouldn’t bother me, but because today’s a day where I want to be alone, even the smallest gathering seems like so much.

NOVA AND I keep to ourselves, seated on the couch with a small plate of food. She stays on my lap, her head resting on my shoulder while she plays with the collar of my shirt and nibbles on a carrot. She has this habit of taking a piece of material between her thumb and index finger when she’s tired and rubbing it back and forth. I find it incredibly adorable and hope she never grows out of it.

“Do you want to take a nap?” I ask, kissing her forehead.

She shakes her head, adamantly refusing. I don’t think Nova’s willingly taken a nap in her life. Even as a baby, I would have to trick her into sleep, or take her for a drive.

Raven’s watching us from the kitchen. I can see her from my place on the couch with a slice of cake in hand, her legs dangling off the counter. “You want some cake, darlin’?”

Nova perks up, her head bumping my jaw when she sits up straight. “Yes.”

Laughing and rubbing my jaw, I stand with her on my hip and make my way into the kitchen. Sliding off the counter, Raven immediately holds her hands out for Nova, who willingly goes to her. She sways to the music softly playing in the background, holding her close.

I take that moment to get her a piece of cake. Just as I’m cutting into it, someone bumps my shoulder.

Turning, I nearly roll my eyes. It’s my young neighbor. And I say young because she’s seventeen. “Hey, Red,” she says, sticking a fork in her mouth to lick frosting off it. I know she thinks this is a seductive way to get me to look at her mouth but honestly, all it does is make me cringe.

I keep my eyes on her eyes as always. Sam’s a nice girl, but shit she’s young. She watches Nova for me sometimes but even then, I try to keep those instances to a last-resort situation only. “I’m sorry about Lyric.”

“Thanks, Sam.”

When I have the cake on the paper plate, I begin to walk away when she says, “If there’s anything you need, let me know.”

Is she serious?

She bats her eyes.

Yep. Serious.

I know what she means. She’s never been shy about letting it out there she’s interested in me. I don’t understand it. Honestly, there’s a ten-year difference between us, and I know there are plenty of guys her own age who would be happy to take her up on her offer. I find it uninteresting. And illegal. There’s one thing I’ve noticed since my wife died. Women, especially the younger ones, they have a soft spot for a single dad. And when I say soft spot, I mean they spread their fucking legs easily.

I’m sure some would wonder why I don’t sleep with any of them, but I just can’t. Hell, it took me a fucking year to remove my wedding ring and even now, I carry it around on my key chain. If that doesn’t scream widower with issues, I don’t know what would.

Tyler gives Sam a smile as he approaches, and then bumps my shoulder. “A few of us are gonna head down to the shop to you know, honor Lyric the right way.”

Sam walks away, watching me as she passes by.

I kind of chuckle because I know what Tyler means by that. This is nice, all of this my mom and aunt set up, but it’s not my dad. He’d want us to be at the shop. The same place we had his fiftieth birthday party a few months back where he and Hendrix did shots of Jägermeister off the table when the bottle spilled.

That memory of them laughing and holding each other up…. Fuck, it hurts he’s gone now.

“Hang on, let me see if my mom can keep an eye on Nova for a bit.” I leave Tyler in the dining room and find mom in the kitchen with Raven.

“Hey, Ma?” She turns and looks over her shoulder at me. “Can you watch Nova for just a bit? I’m gonna run to the shop with Tyler for a while.”

She gives me a tender smile, the one she always gives me. It’s the same smile that tells me she’d do anything to make my life easier. She just lost her husband, yet she’s worried about her kids. I remember when Nevaeh died, I locked myself in our room for a week. I didn’t eat, or shower or God forbid take care of my kid. I couldn’t even function. I’d never experienced true devastation until that moment. I could barely breathe. The thought of continuing my life without Nevaeh seemed impossible.

But here Ma is, making food for everyone and forcing a smile six days later. Raven props herself up on the counter next to the plate of cheese, which Nova has taken a bite out of every piece and put it back. “Try not to get shitfaced.”

Nova comes running through the kitchen, her brown curls all over the place. She stops in front of me and pushes them out of her face, eyeing the keys in my hand. “Where you going? Can I come?”

I kneel to her level. “I’ll be back before bed. I just need to check on the guys at the shop. I won’t be long.” I want to promise her I’ll be back later, but I don’t promise anything anymore. The last one I made was never granted.

“I promise I’ll be home in an hour and make it up to you.”

Well, that hour turned into three hours, and when I came home, Nevaeh was dead. Had I been home when I was supposed to, maybe it wouldn’t have happened. At least that’s what I’ve been telling myself.

Nova does that thing where her brow scrunches together, and her hands go to her hips. “You promised to read
Pet the Cat
!”

I hate seeing this face. She does it a lot because she always wants to keep me in her eyesight. Nova won’t talk about that night, and I don’t ask what she remembers from the night her mom died, but she remembers being alone for hours before I came home to find her. They tried to get me to take her to counseling afterward; hell, they tried to get me to go, but it wasn’t for me and I couldn’t see forcing her to go either. We needed to heal on our own.

“I will, darlin’. I just have to do a few things, and I’ll be back.”

My mom rescues me, wrapping her arms around Nova and picking her up. “Come on, now, little lady. Let’s let Daddy get going so he can get back quicker and read you that book. You can hang out with me and your auntie.”

Naturally that distracts Nova enough I’m able to sneak away.

TYLER AND I
pull up to the shop, the gravel crunching under the tires as we bring the car to a stop. It’s weird being back in here again without my dad and even more so hearing his favorite song without him playing it.

As Bruce Springsteen’s “Devils & Dust” moves through the steel building, my eyes immediately go to the spot on the floor where he collapsed, and my chest hurts. My mouth is unusually dry and a knot that hasn’t gone away for days lodges in my throat as though it’s a permanent reminder that no day from here on out will ever be the same.

All the guys are there, Colt, Uncle Hendrix, my cousins Jude and Eldon… everyone who keeps this shop together. We closed the shop down for a week on Tuesday, the morning after his heart attack, but Monday we’ll be opening back up with me as the new owner of Walker Automotive.

Colt Davis, one of the mechanics in the shop, hands me a beer. “Hey, Red.”

I take it, running my free hand through my dark hair. The moment we’re standing in a circle, tossing back beers, I want to laugh at the irony of this. We did this very same thing the night my Grandpa Carson passed away.

“Hell,” Colt breathes in deeply. “I still remember the day he hired me. We were just two kids who didn’t know a goddamn thing about making a business work, but somehow did it.”

Clearing my throat, I shift my stance slightly, my hand shaking as I bring the beer in my hand to my lips, but don’t take a drink. “I know this isn’t going to be easy on any of us, but I’ll do my best to make it work.”

As I finally do take a drink, silence spreads over us, and I should say something more to these guys as they share stories about ways my father made them feel like their presence here was needed. Each and every one of them understood they were family to him. And they were. His theory on running a business was you take care of your employees and they’ll in turn take care of your business. He was right on that.

“Fuck I don’t even know what to say. I can’t make this any different,” I tell them, my gaze on the concrete floor where I tried to revive him. “If I could, I would.” My voice cracks, shaking with each breath I take. Squeezing my eyes shut, I nod a few times and swallow back the emotion building. I’m at a loss for words as I struggle to say more.

“We’re gonna be all right here, man.” Tyler bumps his beer to mine, the sound making a ping through the air. “We’re gonna make this place work for him.”

I’m not sure we can, but I’m damn sure going to try.

When someone dies, there’s nothing you can do about it. You can’t change it no matter how much you try. And once the angers gone, you accept it because you have no choice. Eventually you’ll be forced to. Reality’s a bitch like that.