His dark eyes track the movement of my hand holding the hose. “Uh…”
I flick the stream of water, inviting Junkyard to play. Her mouth chases after it, snapping like it’s possible to bite and chew. Piston grins, at least until I nail him right in the chest. “Whoops!”
Piston hauls me to my feet and we wrestle for control of the nozzle while Junkyard gleefully plays around our legs. He could overpower me easily if he wanted, but he’s so careful, both of me and of the dog. He lets me have my fun, at least until I slip and actually spray him right in the face. A thick eyebrow goes up.
“Would you believe me if I said I didn’t mean to do that?” I ask.
He moves, fast as lightning. My arm holding the hose is pinned behind my back, not painfully, but it’s not going anywhere either. We’re inches apart. He leans in and a drop of water rolls down his nose and splashes right onto my face before his mouth is there. I gasp and my hand goes slack, the hose hitting the floor and flopping around in the metal basin beneath us.
It might not be my first kiss, but it might be the first one that matters.
Before starting with the bath, I put my hair up in a messy ponytail bun, and now there are tendrils of hair sticking to my neck and cheeks. I’m a mess, and I probably smell like wet dog, but all thoughts of keeping things friendly and at a distance flyout of my head the instant his tongue slides against my lips. I open to him like a flower for the first rays of sun in the spring. Piston’s kiss is slow and deliberate, sneaking up on me until I find my back against the wall and my hand sliding into his hair. His mouth tears off mine and I groan as he licks water off the side of my neck.
Thank goodness for Junkyard, who quickly gets bored of the hose now that it’s not doing anything. She whines and puts her front paws on Piston’s legs, delicately tapping him with the injured one. We’re here to entertain her, after all, and kissing isn’t much fun from her point of view.
Face flushed and heart pounding, I pull away and finish rinsing her off. “Sorry about—” I hesitate.
“I’m not.” But he backs away, grabbing a couple towels from a stack on the counter nearby. One he tosses to me, the other he uses to attempt to dry himself off a little. “You should come by the clubhouse sometime. I think you’d have a good time.”
My hands stop rubbing the towel over Junkyard. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“Why? You got a man?”
“What? No!”
“A woman?”
I roll my eyes. “Also no.”
“Then why?”
“It’s… not my scene.” Truth but not. The lie tastes acidic on my tongue.
He gives me a smug look. “Honey, don’t take this the wrong way, but that’s bullshit. You stared down the three of us without flinching, gave as good as you got, and you kiss like someone who knows how to fucking ride.”
I’m not sure if he means a bike, or a biker. Probably both, and now I’m going to be seeing that image in my head when I close my eyes tonight. “Well, don’t takethisthe wrong way, but you don’t know me.”
It comes out bitchier than I mean it, but he doesn’t know that I spent three years trying desperately not to be that girl. Trying to benormal. I got my GED and went away to college. I kept my hair its natural brown, and pushed down all the dark, ruined parts of myself. I was a little older than the other freshmen, but it worked out. I met nice, normal people who tried to be nice, normal friends with me, but the funny thing about trauma is that it doesn’t care what you wear or how you do your hair.
Somehow I always managed to screw it up. To say too much and forget to hide my sharp edges.
I like you, Dee, but you’re a lot, you know that?
So what’s the point of trying to fit in? People are hard, dogs are easier.
“Hey, I wasn’t trying to piss you off.” Piston crouches down on the other side of Junkyard. “Truth for a truth? You asked about growing up in the scrap yard, yeah? Parts of it were kinda cool, but my old man was a fucking piece of work. He made my life hell and I got out of there as soon as I could.”
I keep my eyes fixed on what I’m doing. It’s easier to speak when I’m not looking at him. “I… I ran with a rough crowd when I was younger. It took a lot to crawl out of that place, and I’ve seenenough to know who the real bad guys are.” Junkyard decides I’m not paying nearly enough attention to drying her off and does a full body shake from tip to tail. Her good ear ends up flipped, and a dark splotch catches my attention. “What’s that?”
Both of us look closer.
“It’s a fucking tattoo,” Piston says in disgust.
Sure enough, there’s a crudely drawn dollar symbol inked in black on the inside of her ear. Junkyard yawns, the pain of that particular injury long forgotten. “We don’t do it here, but some programs mark strays if they’ve been spayed or neutered. I don’t think that’s what this is, though. Do you recognize the mark? Is it a gang or something?”
Piston pulls out his phone and takes a picture. “Not that I know of, but I’ll ask around.”
I should tell Piston to leave, and start getting Junkyard settled into one of the open kennels, but for some reason I don’t want this part of the day to end. Maybe I need to get out more. I’ve been back in town for nearly six months and my only social life is Jerry, the only friend worth hanging onto from my old life, and my sister. I love them both dearly, but Jerry is in the honeymoon phase after moving in with his boyfriend, and Natalie is too busy juggling three men, an almost four year old, her bakery, and morning sickness to have time for me.
