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So, why then, do I feel like I got kicked in the dick when I walk out back and see her crying?
Fuck me.
God, if you’re trying to punish me, just take me out. I’ll deal with whatever the hell you’ve got down there over this, any day.
My boot scratches along the old concrete on the dock and Hannah jumps, hastily turning the other direction and wiping her eyes. As if I couldn’t see her crying.
As if I didn’t feel shitty enough.
“Sorry, just needed a minute,” she mumbles. “The fumes were too much.”
“They’re pretty strong,” I agree, swallowing over the lump in my chest. “Look, maybe I was a little harsh.”
She chuckles dryly, shaking her head and staring out at the backyard. It’s full of old tires. Parts. A broken car or two. Nothing that should interest her, but she’d rather look at it than me.
She doesn’t meet my eyes. Not anymore. She had trouble with that before and I didn’t get it back then. Now, I understand and it pisses me off, even if it shouldn’t.
“A little?”
I deserved that.
“Okay,” I concede. It occurs to me, then, that I am absolute shit at apologies. Maybe I should have asked Mr. Stevens for some tips. Three little sisters, yet, I can’t look at a girl crying without feeling like the world’s biggest piece of shit. “You’regoing to have to show me where everything is. I’m not used to it being organized.”
She shakes her head.
“I should go, Mason,” she says softly, gaze bright with unshed tears.
She moves to stand, but a strange bolt of panic pinches me in the chest and forces me to drop to my haunches next to her.
This is what I wanted, right? Her to quit?
But, when I think about her disappearing again, something dark inside me growls. Low and menacing.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
I don’t know what she’s got going on. I’ve got my own shit to deal with and I don’t want her to be a part of it.
She doesn’t belong in my world, any more than I ever belonged in hers.
I still don’t want her to leave, though . . .
“What about Melissa?”
She finally turns those pretty eyes on me and in the glint of the evening sun . . . fuck.
“Mason, have you even tried to find anything out?” Not exactly. I’ve been dealing with the fucking head trip that comes with having her around. “I didn’t think so,” she says quietly after a moment.
“I need your help.”
“It’s not working out. I shouldn’t have bothered you.”
The rational part of me knows her quitting is for the best. The other half—the half that hasneverbeen rational when it comes to Hannah Gaines—snarls at the thought of her walking out of the garage and out of my life.
Again.
“Bummer,” I murmur and she looks away. Suddenly, my mission is to get her to look at me again. “I’m finishing a brake job and can’t fit under the car.”
“Bull,” she mumbles, rolling her eyes.
