"What the fuck are you looking..." Shane started, voice getting closer as he hopped off the truck and moved to stand beside me. "Oh, damn. Alright yeah. I get that," he said, whacking me on the back. It was no secret that Shane used to be pretty much the same level of ladies man as I am back before he met Lea and fell hard for her. And while I was pretty equal opportunity with women, everyone had a type they generally preferred. So Shane knew it when he saw it. "And you're still fucking standing here because..."
Because the chick I had been thinking about in the goddamn shower for a week was standing across the street from me, looking stupidly sexy in simple skinny light wash bluejeans that looked well-loved and soft as they clung to her thighs and hips, a lightweight white long-sleeve tee with some writing across the front that I couldn't make out from the distance, and her combat boots on her feet.
I did, in fact, get my foot X-rayed at the local emergency center just to make sure. I knew when my hand or fingers or ribs were broken seeing as those were injuries I frequently got over the years, but my feet had always been relatively safe. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't busted before I went and made it worse by going my usual speed with work.
It was fine.
Had a nasty bruise though.
The doctor said my boots were what saved me.
The girl could do real damage.
It shouldn't have been, but it was incredibly fucking hot.
I shook my head, snapping out of my thoughts. "I'm in the middle of laying a sidewalk here," I said, not wanting to share the information I had just learned. It wasn't like me; in general, I was a big fucking loudmouth. But this one, this situation, this intriguing woman, I wanted to play that close to my vest.
"I once saw you get distracted by a woman and get an eight-inch-long gash down your forearm from a fucking table saw. Then you ran over and fucking chatted her up while bleeding fucking everywhere. If you remember, you needed forty-two stitches, a Tetanus shot, and a transfusion."
He wasn't exactly wrong about that. In fact, he wasn't wrong about that at all. That was one good woman too. Well worth the pain and lightheadedness. I might have actually handed in my manwhore card to date her had she not already had my number and decided she only wanted me for a fling.
"Alright. Maybe I just don't want a fucking audience, man," I said, shaking my head as Angela/Scotti looked over at Third Street for a moment then disappeared back into her shack. Woman like that in a shack, that made no sense either.
"When we were twenty-one you once had a woman while I was..."
"Alright, shove off," I said, chuckling slightly. That was the one problem with small families, they knew all your crap, so you never could bullshit them. "I'll talk to her when I want to talk to her."
"Just saying, bro, I'm getting worried about you. Not getting any ain't good for you," he went on, smirk downright evil, like he somehow knew I hadn't had a fuck since the day I met the mysterious Angela/Scotti. Knowing him, knowing my family, knowing how we all knew every goddamn little thing, he probably did know that.
"Gee, you know, if you don't piss off and let me work, I might be tempted to bill you for all this work. You know what I make an hour, man."
He chuckled at that, shaking his head. "Alright, fine. Pine over your damsel-not-in-distress chick all you want. Don't say I didn't warn you that this period of celibacy is probably going to make you pop off the second you get inside her, 'cause I just fucking did."
And with that wholly inappropriate, but utterly Shane-like comment, he closed the bed of his truck, waved over his shoulder at me, and took off.
Me, well, I got back to work. All the while, I was pretending not to be paying attention to the shack. But, of course, I was. As such, I saw three other men walk out, go into the garage, and come out in some nondescript black sedan. They took off in the direction that led out of Navesink Bank.
And, well, four men down.
I was pretty fucking sure she was alone in that shack.
Me, well, I wanted some answers.
I didn't even bother cleaning up my mess. It might have been a shitty area, but I doubted anyone wanted to steal damn concrete and shovels and basic shit like that.
I ran across the street, wiping my hands down my jeans, knowing there wasn't shit I could do about them, and not caring overly much. In my experience, women liked a man in day-labor clothes just as much as they liked a man in a suit. And me, not to sound cocky, but I could pull both looks off.