Unknown
Don’t let the flowers fool you, bitch.
I screenshot the message with the photo, email it to my school account with the phone number showing, and exit out of the message again. Then I go look for a box that can fit a whole lot of mismatched garbage. I think a part of me believed him when he said his excuses because I hadn’tremovedhim yet.
Well, I got my scalpel out now, and I’m removing him with surgical precision.
?????
Carter
I take another look at the 2015 Ford Explorer, and I know it is going to be a fantastic vehicle for this raffle. Clean body, clean title, single elderly owner. It’s perfect, and it was a smoking deal.
“Stop slobbering on the truck. You’ll ruin the paint job.” Billy’s low baritone growls at me. I’d shit myself if I didn’t know the guy and he talked to me like that. He’s a big, scary, tatted, pierced dude, but he is a teddy bear.
“Stop fucking looking at me like that, Carter. Get back to work.” He growls.
He loves me.
I can’t help but be a bit jovial. A little giddy. I feel like I’ve been sitting at the starting line forever, just waiting for that gun to go off so I can race as fast as humanly possible back to Becky. I’ve had all this energy inside of me, and it’s time for me to be able to focus it on my number one goal. Becky. My LCC, my spitfire love.
I have a few irons in the fire as we speak, and as I get to work on my next vehicle, my plans roll around in my head.
While I’m bent over a car, I hear a car pull up. It’s after hours, and this time, I ignore it. As much as I don’t want the bad reputation Paul brings, it’s not worth the price I paid when I got in too deep with the last white knight shit show.
It’s when I hear Trevor ask for me that I perk up. He sees me and heads over before I get a chance to say anything. “Hey.” He says gruffly. I get a good look at him, and he looks rotten. Bags under the eyes, uneven scruff he normally keeps shaven. He looksslovenly.
“Hey….” I say awkwardly.
“Don’t start. I have a reason for coming. I want to talk to you about something.”
Okay…“Sure thing.”
He leans against the car I’m working on and says…nothing. I go ahead and keep on keeping on with fixing this one. I want to say it’s Patty’s ‘89 Camaro. He gives this world weary sigh and starts.
“I’m getting out of my family business.”
I smack my head on the hood of the Camaro, I come up so fast. “Ouch, fuck, what?”
He looks me in the eyes this time. “I can’t work there anymore. It’s not a good environment. I need out. So, I have a proposal for you.” He’s rolling his ring while he talks, and for once, I can read between the lines. His job is ruining his marriage.Fucking crazy.
“Your work is a bad environment, or your family?” I ask, knowing the answer.
His whole body droops. “Both, but that’s because they run the business. That’s not why I’m here. I’m here because I want to go in businesswith you.”
You could’ve knocked me over with a feather. “I’m not a finance person. I’m not really an anything-but-motors person, you know this.”
He shakes his head, holding my gaze. “I want to go in on a business loan with you to buy out Paul.”
Holy. Hell. “Oh, okay then.” I lean against the car, my brain racing with this news. “Seems like we have some shit to talk about.”
He smiles, a cautious expression, “That’s not a no.”
“That’s also not a yes.” And it won’t be until I get a chance to talk to a certain woman.
That’s when I get a text from her. I’m smiling as soon as I hear her notification. I got tired of rushing to every single notification, so I made a pretty chime her own personal sound. My smile grows when I see her name. I’m so ready to send my first text to her.
I freeze when I open the picture. Nausea rolls through me.No.
