Her gaze drops. “No. He wouldn’t stand up to her anyway if I had.”
The desire to defend this young woman overwhelms me. I clench my fists, sliding my gaze over her. “The hypocrisy,” I say.
She smirks, then points toward her house with her thumb. “My one friend is still in there, sticking her tongue down some guy’s throat. I didn’t want to make her leave early and beg to crash at her house tonight, so I came out here.”
I rub the back of my head and huff out a chuckle at her honesty. “Okay. Well, stay as long as you like. You want a beer? Oh, wait, you’re . . .”
She hesitates sheepishly, but saunters over to me with her hands on her hips. “I’m nineteen, but considering I can walk home, I think it’s okay. Don’t you? Anyway, I feel safer having a drink here than in there right now.” She winks.
My dick twitches. My chest swells at the insinuation that she trusts me, but if she knew what I was thinking, I’m sure she’d run. “Oh yeah. You could, but I would feel really shitty if I sent you back home tipsy to a house full of assholes.” I grab a beer and hand her a bottle of Coke. “Let’s keep you sober.”
“Thank you,” she says, taking her bottom lip between her teeth again.
Damn.“Want me to clear off—” Before I can finish my thought, she pops herself onto my workbench and swings her toned legs in my direction.
“This okay?” she asks. “You can keep working on your bike. I don’t want to bother you. I’m just thankful to be out of there.”
I brush my hair out of my eyes. “Yeah, that’s fine. You can sit up there.” I quickly turn toward my bike to hide the bulge growing in my jeans. I’m fully aware I can see right up her skirt.
She is nineteen.
She is nineteen.
She is the hottest fucking thing I have ever seen in my life, and she is sitting on my workbench.
She is nineteen.
Somehow, I gain enough composure to direct my attention back to my bike.
“I see you out here working a lot,” Jessi says.
“Yeah, I need to make sure I treat her well, or I run the risk of getting into trouble on the road. Sometimes I’m doingaftermarket changes, like replacing exhausts. Sometimes bigger overhauls.”
“Cool. How long have you had her?”
“Several years.” I pause. “You surprise me, Jessi.”
“Why’s that?”
“I never thought a nineteen-year-old girl would care about the mechanics of a bike.”
She laughs. “I like getting to know you, Jack.”
I can’t help myself anymore. I need to know what happened that made her leave her own birthday party. She’s never asked to come over. Something is up. Something happened. “So, you want to tell me what happened over there?” I tilt my head toward her house.
She grabs the edge of my workbench, swinging her feet more and avoiding my stare. “I guess I should answer since you are letting me crash your evening.”
I wipe my hands on a rag as I walk over to her. I lean against the bench and cross my arms, leaving a sliver of space between us. “You’re not crashing my evening. You’re improving it, darlin’.” I lean toward her and whisper, “Do I have to knock someone out?”
She giggles and nudges me. “Nooooooo. No knocking out necessary. I can’t stand how stuffy and uppity my dad and Shannon’s friends are. I never wanted the party to begin with, but Shannon said that we ‘needed to introduce ourselves to the neighborhood.’ She likes to brag that our family has money and agreed that we could have our friends over—and by ‘we,’ I mean Austin. Anyway, after I had enough of the uppity bullshit, I went inside where everyone from school was hanging out. Then this guy who’s been trying to hook up with me for a while told his buddies that he wanted to get me to do him a favor tonight, so to speak. I overheard and called him an asshole. I’ve never likedhim and never wanted to give him a chance anyway, but he’s definitely not on my list now.”
I choke on the sip of beer I just took. Holy fuck. I can imagine what kind of “favor” the punk asked for. I slam my beer bottle down so hard it starts to foam over. Jessi jumps, and her eyes widen. “Is he over there right now?” I say, pushing off the workbench.
Jessi grabs my arm. “No. No, you can’t do anything. You are not going over there. You’ll make it worse.”
I resume my place against the workbench. “No one should ever talk to you or about you like that.” I brush her wrist with my thumb, taking a chance at comforting her while also filling my own need to be closer to her. “Why do you let people treat you like that? I hear how Shannon and Austin talk to you. Don’t let them belittle you. Stand up for yourself.”
She blinks back tears.
