Pico mutters, making a show of digging into his back pocket. He passes me one from the pack he has left, which is half full. He stares dumbly at me.
“Do I look like a fucking boy scout?” I ask.
“Huh?”
“What am I supposed to do, go out front, knock a couple rocks together, and produce fire?”
He flips me off before tossing me his lighter.
Randy chuckles a few feet away from us. It’s the kind of sinister laugh that gets under my skin and bubbles at the surface. “Everything all right, boss?”
I take a soothing drag. “Fine.”
“You seem a little on edge,” he says. “When’s the last time you got laid?”
“Ask your mom.” Acting like an immature teen makes me feel oddly better.
Randy tsks. “Might be time for a trip to Timber. You’ve been nasty ever since the city girl blew you off.”
“She didn’t blow me off.” I sound sulky even to myself.
“Well, something happened. You gotta get yourself some pussy, who cares what kind.”
“I said I’m fine.”
“I got a blowie last night,” he volunteers. “Not bad, but not worth the fifty bucks. I’d stay away from Timber’s back alley if I were you.”
“You’re such a piece of shit,” I say.
“Maybe, but at least I’m having a great day.”
“Believe it or not, blowjobs aren’t the answer to everything,” I say and stick the cigarette between my lips to pull up Burt’s number.
“No? Name one situation that doesn’t improve with a blowjob. I bet you can’t even think of one.”
I hate the fact that I’d give my left nut to get laid right now. When I get this way, agitated, overwhelmed, I need release. If not emotional, then physical. Sex. Fucking. It’s been almost a week since I’ve heard from Amelia. She’s glaringly absent, and her timing is shit with Shana trying to get her claws in.
I haven’t seen Shana since the gymnasium, but she called the house last night. Bell was in the bathtub, and I was halfway through dishes. I’d had to wedge the receiver between my ear and shoulder thanks to wet rubber gloves.
“Andrew, babe,” she’d said, and her tone, her words, were so familiar, for a moment it felt as though she were calling from the market to ask if we needed milk. “Just meet me for a drink. One drink.”
Cornered and on the verge of feeling like one half of a couple again, I was terse. “I’m a single parent,” I’d told her. “I barely have time to wipe my ass let alone sit and chat.”
If she responded, I didn’t hear it. I was already back to the dishes, but as I’d scrubbed and rinsed, dried and tidied, Shana had grown bigger in my mind. The first time I saw her, she was walking away from me. She wore jeans one size too small, her ass round and firm like an apple. It always seemed to be swaying. Looking back, her strut never faltered. Not when she left bed in panties and a tank to feed Bell. Not when she came home drunk off her head. I never stopped to wonder if it was just the way she walked or if she’d trained herself not to break character.
Sex with Shana, in the beginning, was an addiction; I was worse than a kid in a candy store. After Bell, it died off, and we had nothing to say to each other that didn’t involve accusations or insults. Her resentment over Bell needled me to an unhealthy level.
Amelia feeds a different kind of hunger in me. She isn’t candy, without nutrition or value, but a well-balanced, well-flavored meal. Her wit, her ambition, draws me in as much as her figure. She’s surprisingly funny. Adventurous. And somehow, despite our boundaries, the sex is more connected than casual, more intuitive than cautious.
A week without it has made my entire body raw as an exposed nerve. Whenever I look at the photo of her in the bathtub, all I see is what I can’t see. She mocks me, and it darkens my already black mood.
Randy’s still running his mouth about all the ways blowjobs can improve your mood when a Mercedes with blacked-out windows pulls into the driveway and stops. The car idles, but nobody gets out. I give it a onceover, but nothing looks wrong, and it sounds in good shape. Generally, yuppies stick to their dealerships for auto work. “Go see what he wants.”
Pico has his hand down his pants as he scratches his crotch. “’K.”
“On second thought,” I say, “I’ll go.”
The car’s back door opens, and a man on his cell phone gets out. It takes me a moment to place the slicked-back hair, the expensive-looking pinstripe suit that creases and gaps in the wrong places, as if it’s a size too big. If possible, Reggie looks even slimier in a suit than a baby blue polo.
Reggie checks the sign above my shop. When his eyes land on me, he says something into the phone before he hangs up.
“What the fuck?” I mutter for probably the hundredth time this week.
Randy’s back goes straight. “What’s wrong?”
Reggie and I walk toward each other, meeting in the middle. “What can I do for you?” I ask.
Reggie glances past me, into the garage. “Nice place. Sorry I couldn’t get here sooner. I never really make it to this part of . . . Jersey.”
I crack my knuckles as loudly as possible. The tip of his nose is red and peeling, as if he just got back from somewhere sunny. I wonder what the hell Amelia ever saw in this guy. “What can I do for you?” I repeat.
He looks back at me. “Just one thing, really,” he says with a labored sigh. “Amelia. She’s not really your type, is she? I don’t think you’re hers, either.”
I shrug. “How is this your business?”
“It is.” He puts his hands in his pockets. “She’s got a lot going for her—class, looks, value. She belongs with a man who can give her what she deserves. That’s not a mechanic.”
“She’s a big girl,” I say. “Maybe we should let her decide.”
He sniffs, possibly, I think, because he’s not getting the reaction he wants. “She’s a little mixed up right now. Hurt. When that goes away, she’ll regret this fling you guys are having. But, thing is, I’m not very patient, and I don’t really like the idea of my wife screwing around with some fuck-up from New Jersey, so I’m ready for it to be over.”
I laugh, a sound that’s menacing and hollow even to my own ears. My irritation is rising up my chest. I don’t care what he thinks of me, but that he’s still calling her his wife needles me, even if Amelia seems to be through with me. “You’ll have to talk to her about that.”
“I’ve tried, believe me. I assumed it was nothing at first, but when you get family involved, it starts to worry me.” He straightens his suit with a derisive glance at my coveralls. “I don’t think Amelia is dumb enough to fall for a guy like you, but I can’t take the chance.”
My face warms. I have to work to keep my breathing even. I don’t know what family he’s referring to. The only family Amelia and I have brought into this is Sadie, Nathan and Bell, and I can’t have this fuckwad even looking in their direction. “Get the fuck off my property.”
“Or what? You’ll kick my ass all the way to Hoboken? You’re a thug.”
I take a menacing step toward him. “I’m a thug? I’m not the one trying and failing to intimidate everyone in his path.”
“Whatever Amelia told you, it’s a lie.”
His comment comes out of nowhere. I was referring to myself, not Amelia, although it applies. “What was a lie?”
“All of it. She’s spun quite a tale with you and her therapist. She and I were happy. I never hurt her.”
I lift my chin. If he really believed I was just a fling, there’d be no reason for him to assume Amelia would tell me any of what she did. “She didn’t say you did,” I lie.
He shakes his head like he’s chastising a child. “I have an offer.”
An offer can only mean one thing—some way to convince me to stay away from Amelia. I don’t believe for a second that he’d go head to head with me like a real man. “You better think carefully about how you proceed,” I say slowly, since he seems to
have issues with comprehension. “I’m no thug, but I have no problem trying the title on with you.”
He arches an eyebrow. “Is that a threat?”
“You’re goddamn right it is. Caught me on a bad day. Keep talking, and you’ll save me a trip to the punching bag tonight.”
He raises his palms. “Message received. You’re bigger than me, and I’m not an idiot. Muscle over brains, and all that. I’m not here to get violent.” He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a checkbook. “Let me talk in a language you understand. This’ll be the easiest money you’ve ever made.”
I’m barely able to unclench my teeth enough to get the words out. “You’re going to pay me to stay away from her.”
“Break up with her, and stay away. Simple. Everyone gets what they want.”
Break up with her. He doesn’t realize it might already be over. “And what do I want?” I ask.
He glances up at the sign of my shop. “Money, I guess. I’m sure you have no trouble finding women in your part of town. Money’s not as easy to come by, though.”