Forever Innocent Page 6

  Rinsing dishes to load into the industrial washer was good, mindless work. My Tuesday/Thursday schedule was tough, two upper-division lit classes with a murderous reading list, but the first novel quiz wasn’t until next week, and I had all weekend to catch up. I didn’t have a bead on the profs here yet, but I figured most classes were the same. Read the books, figure out the instructor’s preferred interpretation of the text, and spit it back at them on the midterm.

  I swore if I ever got a class of my own, free thinking would be required, not regurgitation. But maybe one of these profs would surprise me.

  The door to the back opened and Jenny peeked through. “Someone’s here for you.”

  I glanced at the clock. 12:32. Not close enough to the end of my shift to sneak out.

  “Can you get him to leave?” I asked.

  “I don’t think this one is going to be easy to put off.” She pushed the door open wider, and Gavin’s frame filled the doorway.

  I backed up a few steps. “What are you doing here?”

  “You told me you worked at a coffee shop on Broadway. I’ve been to six today, trying to find you.”

  “We have class tomorrow.”

  “I didn’t want to see you in class.”

  “Oh, boy!” Jenny said and ducked under his arm.

  He let the door close behind her.

  I held a damp rag out in front of me like a pathetic shield. “I don’t know you anymore. The Gavin I used to know wouldn’t just take off like you did last night. Like you did at the funeral.”

  “You’re not the same either.”

  I lowered my arms. “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re so sad all the time.”

  Rage bolted through me. “How dare you come in here and judge how I feel, now or ten years from now!” Jesus, he’d walked right out. How could he stand here and ask me why I was sad?

  “I lost everything too!”

  “NO!” I could tell my voice was hitting a shriek, one that would penetrate into the shop. I forced it down. “You made your choice. I was the one who had to live with it.”

  His jaw was so tight that a muscle in his cheek started twitching. The only time I ever saw him like that was after his dad had done something awful, thrown things or threatened him. How many times had he run to my house after a shouting match?

  God. I would not cry. Would. Not. I was strong. I was a survivor. I had gone four years without him, and I could go plenty more. This time I would walk away. I no longer cared about my shift, or the hours. Martin wasn’t going to fire me over leaving a little early one day.

  I whirled around to sign out. Forget that, Jenny could forge my name. I’d text her later. I just wanted away from here.

  But Gavin still blocked the door.

  I walked up to him. “Let me get my things. I need to go to class.”

  He didn’t budge. He wore all black again, a Dead Kennedys T-shirt from a 2011 concert. I didn’t know that band. He’d been to a show, and I had no idea where or when or what music he listened to. I knew nothing about him anymore.

  “Gavin, please, let me go.”

  Suddenly his arms were around me and he jerked my head into his chest. His heart hammered against my ear, and I could feel how overwrought he was, even though he was trying to hide it.

  We stood there, glasses clinking in the room next door, the damp rag in my hand now between us, getting us both wet. I could feel time ticking along with the beat of his heart, slowing, revving down. I knew this was where I belonged, but there was no way to stay there.

  “I have to believe we found each other for a reason,” Gavin said.

  I shook my head against his chest. “No. It’s too late now. We can’t do this.” I tried to pull away, but his arms were a vise.

  “Look up at me, Corabelle.”

  I didn’t want to. Those blue eyes, that face. They were too familiar, too perfect.

  But he made me. His hand came under my chin, and he lifted my head. I closed my eyes, refusing to look, but then his lips were on mine and the shock was so complete that I cried out against his mouth.

  He pressed me against him. His kiss was fevered, hot, and everything I remembered from when we were young, plus so much more. He held my head against him and dove in deeply, his tongue parting my lips. When we fitted against each other every muscle in my body reacted and blood pounded through my veins in places I’d long since left for dead.

  And I did feel utterly alive, kissing him back, my arms coming around him, letting the rag fall to the floor. He felt my response and his mouth became frenzied, his hands reaching down behind my thighs and lifting me up so that I straddled him. My arms curled around his neck, and I let go of everything, my fear, my anger, my grief, and just reveled in the heat blasting through me, the connection of our hips and his mouth trailing across my jaw and along my neck.

  One of his hands cupped my bottom and squeezed, the other wrapped around my waist. He shifted me down, connecting us in that intimate way I’d only known with him, the roughness of his jeans bulging against my skirt, trapped between us. Despite everything we’d been through, I wanted nothing between us, and to find that place that had always bound us. Passion. Emotion. All the things I held away from myself since Finn, and the hospital, and that misery.

  He groaned against my throat, pushing harder against me. Even with all the denim and fabric, I could feel it building, intense and hot and full of need. I clutched him, the strap of my sundress falling off my shoulder. Gavin nudged it with his nose, bending as much as he was able with me riding his hips, flicking his tongue along the lace edge of the bra. He stepped forward, resting me on the high dish counter, freeing his hand to cup my breast, still maintaining the rhythm between us.

  I ached, desperate for more contact, for all of him. Every rational thought about where we were, who he was, what had happened was way beyond the glow of how I felt right now, explosive and hot.

  The temperature shifted as the door opened, and Jenny’s “Oh, shit!” forced us to break apart.

  She pushed her pink bangs out of her eyes. “Just needed to tell Corabelle something.” She appraised Gavin. “Not that it matters now.” She switched her gaze to me. “Loverboy is here.”

  Oh, God. By the time I turned to Gavin, his eyes blazed. “You have a boyfriend?”

  “What’s it to you?” The words snapped out of me before I could think about how he’d take it.

  His fist smashed into the metal counter by my hip, rattling all the dishes. Jenny suppressed a shriek.

  “Get out of here, Gavin,” I said.

  “I had no idea you were so easy with everyone,” he spat out.

  He backed away, and I struggled to catch myself as I slid off the high counter.

  The door banged against the wall as he smashed through it to the shop. I hoped Austin wasn’t too obvious out there, because there was no telling what Gavin would do if he figured out which one he was.

  “Holy shit, Corabelle!” Jenny said. “When you get back to business, you are BACK.”

  I smoothed down my skirt, my hands shaking. I never had scenes like this in my life. “We have a history.”

  “I’ll say! Wow! Nobody’s ever pinned me on a dish counter before!” She headed back to the door. “Should I put this guy off? Say you left already?”

  I nodded. “I think that’s for the best.”

  Jenny disappeared through the door, and I hurried for the loading-dock door that led out into the alley to make sure Gavin had left. Just as I turned the back corner, I saw him roar down the street on his motorcycle.

  I pressed my fingers into my lips, tender and swollen. Everything had happened so fast. I didn’t know what to think, except Gavin had reawakened something in me, a dark hunger that was far more dangerous than the passion we explored as teens. I was in trouble, big trouble, and I couldn’t see any way out.

  I pressed against the wall. Focus. Remember school. Your goals. Get done. Get out.

  Class. I had t
o get to class.

  But my legs ignored me and I slid down until I was on the ground, my knees to my chest, a stupid vulnerable pose in that skirt, no doubt flashing anyone who cared to glance back toward the alley.

  Austin appeared in the gap between the buildings, and I prayed he wouldn’t look this way. I scrambled to my feet, ready to flee, but of course the bits of rock and brick crunched beneath my shoes and got his attention.

  “Corabelle?” He peered into the shadows.

  I ran for the door but damn it, I forgot it locked on the outside. I could hit the delivery buzzer, but if Jenny was busy, she wouldn’t come right away.

  He appeared around the corner. “Corabelle, are you all right?”

  I pulled myself together and forced a smile. “Jenny told you my name?”

  He nodded. “Did something just happen?”

  “No. I’m fine. Really.”

  Austin looked at the door. “You’re locked out?”

  “Yeah. I accidentally let it shut.”

  He leaned against the brick wall. “You have a minute?”

  “Not really.”

  He ran his hand through his hair, looking anxious. “Okay. Sorry. I just got that e-mail.”

  I forced a clipped laugh. “Oh, that was Jason. He meddles.”

  “You gave him my e-mail address?”

  “He got hold of your note to me.”

  Austin fiddled with the strap of his backpack. “He seemed to think you wouldn’t mind me coming by.”

  “He shouldn’t have done that.”

  He looked down at his shoes, and my sympathy surged, but I didn’t know what else to do. I practically dry-humped my ex in the dish room not five minutes ago.

  And he’d called me easy. Right. Four years of abstinence was easy.

  Austin held out his hand. “Well, here’s to being friends. I order cheap tea, and you give me warm-ups until the leaves give out.”

  I reached for him, noticing right off how gentle his fingers were compared to the frenzied grip of Gavin. “The sugar’s free, you know.” I instantly blushed, realizing the double meaning.

  “I’d already have starved half to death if it wasn’t. Student poverty.”

  “I know how that is.”

  “Can I walk you back around?” His hazel eyes were earnest. Once again I realized that if I could just feel something for someone else, maybe Gavin wouldn’t hurt so much.

  “Okay.”

  Austin settled his backpack on his shoulder and we wandered out of the shadow of the building and into the sun. If Gavin thought I was easy, maybe I should just be easy. If he hated me, then maybe we could stay apart.

  As we turned to the front windows, Jenny looked up from inside, her eyebrows shooting up in surprise.

  Probably nobody had ever lost their nickname faster than I had just lost mine.

  Chapter 12: Gavin

  Bud looked up from the receipt book as I walked into the front office of the garage. “You’re late.”

  “Had a school thing,” I said and walked on through to clock in. I spent all morning looking for Corabelle instead of working, just to find out she had some boyfriend.

  I punched my card and actually wished for tires to throw and work off some of this tension. I could still feel Corabelle beneath my hands, her skin feverish, her body writhing against me. Was she doing it with that pipsqueak? Just thinking about it made my head want to explode. She was mine. She had to be. I had to get her to see that we belonged together.

  But damn it, I upset her. Called her easy. Damn it.

  Mario approached and shouted, “Heads up!” as he tossed me a set of keys.

  “What’s this?”

  “Another Camaro came through. Told the boss you could take one apart in your sleep. He says for you to change out the motor mount.”

  That was a decent job, jacking the motor and pulling the mount, then realigning the engine. “He got the parts?”

  “Yeah, came in while you were out. You’re moving up. Take Bay 3.”

  I jingled the keys as I went out front to find the car. Bud was hard to figure out. First he threatens to fire me if I drop out of school. Then he moves me out of routine and into mechanics.

  This Camaro was only a couple years old, and sitting in the driver’s seat didn’t fire up memories the way the other car had. I picked up the work order from the passenger side and saw it had come in for a tune-up when the motor-mount problem was discovered. With the other issues on the sheet, it looked like whoever owned this car rode it hard over rough terrain. The shocks were shot, tires out of alignment, and two of the axles were cracked. Those had all been fixed while I was scouting coffee shops, but the motor mounts were circled and Bud had scrawled, “Leave for Gavin.”

  The motor clunked on starting up, a telltale sign of a misaligned engine. I glanced back at the work order to make sure they’d checked to make sure nothing else had been damaged. Fans could get chipped, hoses torked, a whole host of problems. I’d go over it all again after everything was back in place.

  I pulled into the bay, starting to feel grateful for the task, work that would require more concentration than changing a filter, maybe get Corabelle out of my head for a while. Mario came up with the box containing the mount bracket and waited for me to step out. “Lemme know if you need a hand on the realign.”

  “Will do.”

  The hood popped up smoothly, and I peered into the Camaro’s guts. The inside of the motor mount was cracked clean through, but the bracket was easy to access. I just had to jack the block for support. The job would take less than an hour, if it all went well.

  The clang of other mechanics working this end of the garage was a soothing sound. I rolled a jack under the car and steadied the engine. Everyone did their jobs with competence and skill. I could see the appeal of this sort of work. Finite, black and white, cut and dried. Unlike studying in school, where it seemed half the time you were spinning your wheels, memorizing something you’d never need to know again, or writing the same essay on Milton that a million other undergrads had done before.

  I should just quit, lie to Bud about it, and pretend to go to class. I could keep up the ruse until December and if Bud kept feeding me real work, I’d be qualified for a better job. Mom might not like it, but hell, I wasn’t around them anymore. And my asshole father never approved of anything I did anyway. Screw that. After that scene with Corabelle, maybe I was turning out to be just like him.

  The socket wrench fit neatly on the bolt. I remembered watching other boys with their dads, fixing bikes or playing ball with easy camaraderie. Mine had always been intense, angry, disapproving.

  Once when we worked on my mother’s overheating Oldsmobile, I thought I was being so smart by using a towel to open the hot radiator. But when it spewed boiling water and antifreeze, Dad backhanded me so hard that I fell over my sister’s bike, breaking the wheel.

  My life seemed like a series of missteps that pissed off my father. Now that I’d been around the block a few times, I knew some kids had it worse. They got in the line of fire just for existing.

  When I was little, I felt like I deserved it, punishment for doing something stupid or wrong. Only later did I start to push back. If I went home now, we’d probably kill each other within five minutes.

  The bracket came off easily, and I set it aside. Now to remove the long bolt to the mount.

  Even when we got old enough to walk around the neighborhood without our parents, I never let Corabelle come over to my house, preferring the quiet simplicity of her family — mother, father, one little girl. But in that middle space when I was small enough to push around, but big enough to take a harder lick, the asshole sometimes really unleashed, like the day I got knocked across the driveway.

  Corabelle had seen those bruises and looked up at me with wide sympathetic eyes. She started showing up and hanging out when my dad insisted I help him, reading or poking at the straggly flowers my mother tried to plant by the front steps. Her presence kept m
y dad in check, just one of the many ways that she saved me.

  The mount was out, and I had to do the tricky part, get the new one to align.

  Dad caught on pretty quick to when Corabelle and I shifted from little-kid friends to a boy and girl who were messing around. Early on, when I was thirteen, he grabbed me by the collar and flung me into the wall, telling me I better not go around knocking up any girls, or he’d throw my ass out.

  By the time I was in high school, and Corabelle and I were crazy tight, I hardly stayed home at all. Her parents saw the handwriting on the wall and got her on that birth-control shot. Once that barrier was crossed we were insane, at each other every minute, and I couldn’t get enough of her. Now, sweating over the engine, I could picture every inch of her body.

  Finding out about the baby was a huge blow. Because of the shot, we didn’t know what was going on for several weeks. She thought she had the flu, then that she was tired from staying up too late. I bought the test and stood over her while she peed on the stick. The sight of her astonished face as the two lines appeared is one of those moments seared into my memory.

  We never bothered telling my parents about the baby, letting the town gossip handle it. I moved in with her and vowed never to let my father cast an eye on my son.

  The new bracket wouldn’t align, so I shifted the jack up a notch, trying to find the sweet spot. I could call Mario over, get him to eyeball it while I worked the lever, but only if it took too long. I’d done it by myself before.

  Clearly the work wasn’t occupying my mind well enough. I tried to shake off the past, how I worried about what sort of dad I could possibly be, having the worst possible example. When the baby was sick, and then when they told us he wouldn’t make it, I figured the score. The universe knew I wouldn’t do any better. The bad-father gene would end with me. After the funeral, I went to Mexico to make sure of it, even though I knew it meant I had to give up Corabelle.

  Bud came out of the office. “How’s it coming?”