“I’m gonna hop in the shower.” He took another drag from the blunt in his hand and nodded to it. “You want to babysit it until I get out?”
“Why the hell not?” Giselle gripped it between her two fingers.
She wasn’t so uptight that she couldn’t partake in a little weed. Heavy seemed like he was trying to make her comfortable, and she couldn’t be mad at that. The day had gone from bad to worse, and she needed a moment where she could forget. Seated on the leather sofa, she smoked and sipped, catching a quick buzz as Heavy cleaned himself up. Picking up her phone, the urge to check on her former life hit her, and she found herself scrolling her Facebook and Instagram accounts. Most of her friends had graduated from college and gotten jobs in their fields. Giselle was on her way to locking in a position with a design agency when her life collapsed. Now, she was swinging in limbo and not sure how to get back on track.
Seeing her clique, Travis and Esther, partying on a yacht and having a carefree time had her envious as she zoomed in on their smiling faces. Travis was a pretty boy with golden honey skin, tight, juicy curls, and tapered off sides with a pair of bright pink pussy suckers. She knew for a fact he could eat you like a ripe peach and have you climbing the walls. With Esti at his side, there was no doubt in her mind that they were more than likely fucking around now. Giselle had a love/hate relationship with her. Mainly because the girl was always in some kind of silent competition with her. If she wasn’t biting her hairstyle or wardrobe, she was talking like her. She wouldn’t know what trendy was if she was slapped upside the head with every issue of Vogue. She took all her social cues from Giselle.
After getting to the last picture on her slide, which was of a group of familiar faces posing on the back of Travis’s parent’s yacht, Giselle had enough. She closed the app and threw thephone beside her. Tossing back the last of her tequila, she hopped up to get herself a refill from the bottle on Heavy’s desk. While pouring, she eyed a framed photo nearby. Bringing the cup to her lips, she grabbed the frame and examined the faces. A young Heavy was visible in the middle, and he was not a small kid. On each side of him was an older version of himself, so she assumed it was his father and grandfather with a big Sapien Automotive sign behind them. She caught the pride on their faces and couldn’t help but smile. The shop had been in business for like fifty years.
“Being nosy?” Heavy asked when he opened the bathroom door.
His manly Dove soap now permeated the air as he dried his curls with a towel and emerged in gray sweats and a fresh V-Neck t-shirt. Giselle set the frame down and leaned against the desk.
“Absolutely,” she answered. “So, how long have you worked in this shop?”
“All my life.” Heavy sighed and moved toward the sofa.
He grabbed the blunt from the ashtray and sparked it back up.
“My grandfather opened this place before I was even born. He ran it with my pops, but he had other plans for his life. He ended up in the streets, so I spent a lot of time around here as a kid. When I got older, I had a love for cars, so I started working here after school. Grandpa got old, and I didn’t want to see the place close, so I went to school, got my degree, and took over. He still thinks he runs shit, though.”
“That sounds nice. Family. A real one.” Giselle pushed herself off the desk and moved past him so she could sit on the couch.
“Where is yours?” Heavy peered into his cup before taking a swallow of tequila.
“What’s left of them are right here in town. You might know my cousin, Maisie, and her husband.”
“Crew?” Heavy nodded. “Yeah, that’s the homie. Maisie crazy as hell.”
The far off gaze behind her glossed over eyes caught his attention while still smoking. That tough exterior shell she walked in with had slowly melted, but she still had some kind of shield up, and Heavy understood it.
“That’s my cousin.” Giselle hiked both brows. “I’m Giselle, by the way. Not princess.”
Heavy gave a sexy chuckle before tossing back the last of his liquor.
“It wasn’t supposed to be an insult.”
Giselle faced him and propped an elbow onto the couch while tousling some of her hair and studying the liquid in her cup. Something was obviously on her mind, but she didn’t seem like the type to want to sit and have a heart-to-heart. Heavy went to grab the bottle of Don Julio but also retrieved a deck of cards from the top desk drawer.
“What’s your favorite card game?” he asked, taking the seat beside her and pulling the quilt off the back of the couch since she looked cold.
“Blackjack,” she answered, adjusting the blanket around her legs and taking a gulp of her drink.
“Let’s see what you made of then.” Heavy shuffled the cards and simpered in her direction.
Once they got into it, and Heavy saw that Giselle had some skills, the two made a few wagers while telling jokes. It was the first time in weeks that she was able to forget about what had been haunting her and be in the moment. As mean as Heavy seemed when they met only an hour or so ago, she found his sense of humor sexy. His eyes were now slanted from the two blunts and countless shots of tequila they’d indulged in. The twoended up on the floor, with Giselle’s knees in a pillow from the couch on one side, and Heavy across from her, one leg stretched in front of him and the other bent with his elbow resting against it.
“Mmm, twenty-one!” Giselle swallowed another shot and tossed an arm in the air to root for herself.
“I feel like I got hustled.” He tossed the rest of the cards on the table.
“Don’t tell me you’re offended because you got beat by a girl,” Giselle mocked, bouncing in her seat and reaching for the rest of the cold cut sandwich she’d started eating.
“Nah, you got it.” A rare smirk graced his face, and his eyes lingered on hers longer than they should have.
“I think I’ve had more fun with no power, stuck in this shop with you, than I have in a long time,” she confessed. “How long do you think it will last?”
“What you hiding from?” Heavy pried.
