Racing Hearts (Hollows Garage Book 3)
Racing Hearts: Chapter 22

Asking her to lunch was a long shot, but I didn’t know where else to start. Now she had been in the garage office for over four hours with Quinn, and I hadn’t even gotten another glimpse of her.

“Hey, I have to finish this car up, and Scout has a few things to do on that one,” Fox said, nodding to the two full garage bays. “You want to get dinner here tonight? I assume you’re on truck-fixing duty.”

I looked at the green truck in the corner. I had made a little more progress, and more parts had shown up today that would put it close to done when I got them on. The truck that would take Carly as far away from me as possible. Working on it was like nailing my own coffin. Not that I had done anything the other night to make her want to stay.

“Yeah, sounds good. The girls staying?”

“Scout and Quinn? Yeah, of course. Ransom will be back from the store soon, so he will be here. And Ash will be back from Holt soon too,” he said with a grin.

“You know who I meant.”

He rolled his eyes. “Maybe try asking her yourself?”

“I would prefer to, but I was trying to keep the peace.”

“No, you want to avoid the wrath of Carly.”

“I want to avoid the rage that seems to radiate from her when I am close.”

Fox rolled his eyes as Quinn and Carly walked out.

“I’m starving,” Quinn said. “We forgot to eat lunch with the mess in there, so I really hope food is on its way.”

“Give me five minutes and it will be,” Fox said, disappearing to call.

Carly leaned on the car next to Kye, asking him things that I couldn’t hear. I wasn’t trying to avoid her completely, but now I was worried about saying the wrong thing again. I was on thin ice. What if one more stupid thing came out of my mouth and cracked that ice completely?

I spent the next twenty minutes pretending to look at a car, but I was only thinking of what I could say. I guess there was no avoiding the inevitable–and me saying the wrong thing was, in fact, inevitable.

“Hey,” I said, moving around to Carly. Kye eyed me but kept working. She didn’t even look at me. “Can you come here for a second?”

“I can’t. Kye is teaching me about cars.”

“Yeah, well, he can continue doing that after. I just need a minute.”

She looked at Kye, who shrugged, and then looked back at me. “Fine. One minute.”

I was already grabbing her hand and pulling her through the back door before she finished. I wasn’t going to waste any second she was going to give me. We had turned the area behind the garage into more of a backyard than anything, with chairs, a fire pit, and a place to grill. We usually ended up here once a week to cook out, but Carly’s cooking, and colder weather, had everyone ending up at my apartment more often lately.

“What did you want to talk about?” she asked, crossing her arms and closing herself off immediately.

I was already off to a great start.

“I want to actually apologize. I’m sorry that I freaked out, and said those things. I’m sorry that I acted that way at all and I know that doesn’t make up for what I said. I should have stepped back for five seconds before freaking out.”

She stared up at me, looking over my face, but not giving anything away.

“But did you mean what you said?”

“Of course I did. You should have told me, and it shouldn’t have happened that way. And I was right to be mad that it did. But it didn’t mean that I should have reacted that way. That part is all on me. I shouldn’t have left you there alone, and I should have at least tried to make the experience better for you.”

“None of it was bad until you did that.”

“Yeah, I realize that now, but at that moment, I thought I ruined everything for you.”

“The only time you ruined anything for me was storming out. I get I should have told you sooner, but you know what doesn’t help when someone has insecurities around sex? Storming out angry after they tell you it was the first time they felt comfortable enough to do that.”

“I know. I know that, but at that moment I wasn’t thinking about that. I was being selfish.”

“Food is here!” Fox yelled from the garage, making Carly pull away immediately.

“It’s fine, Jax. It’s not a big deal, okay? We both messed up, and it’s fine. This is better for both of us, so let’s go eat and forget about it.”

Before I had a chance to say anything more, she was gone, disappearing back into the garage.

TWO HOURS LATER, everyone was sitting around talking while I kept working on the truck. Even Carly stayed back to hang out, Riot sleeping at her feet now after running around all day, which I hoped was a good sign from both of them. She was still here and wasn’t sending Riot after me. Not that I worried about him much anymore. If Riot wasn’t next to Carly, it was because he was next to me. Not only was I getting attached to Carly, I was getting attached to Riot, too.

As I leaned back, I couldn’t help but steal glances at her. She had taken over every corner of my mind, a magnetic force that made me want to be next to her, touch her, talk to her. I didn’t want to sit this far, and pretend to ignore her.

“Could I use someone’s car later this week?” Carly asked, looking around as everyone’s heads snapped to her.

“For what?” Scout asked, probably wondering the same thing I was. Where could she possibly be going that she needed one of our cars?

“I wanted to go see my grandpa. I haven’t tried to see him with everything going on, but I think it’s been long enough that they’ll think I’m too far away to visit. At least I hope so. I would like to see him once more before I go, since I don’t know when I’ll have the chance again.”

The crew was quiet, and I knew they weren’t going to offer their cars. Not because they didn’t want to help her, but because they already knew I would do it. Sometimes having a group of friends that knew you better than anyone was annoying. And sometimes, it was the best.

“I’ll take you,” I said.

“I can drive. And pretty well, actually. That’s not the issue. I just need something to drive for a few hours.”

“I know, but I’ll still take you. Better that you don’t go alone. Just in case.”

“Just in case, what?” She crossed her arms, glaring at me.

“I don’t know. In case something goes wrong. I’ll take you.”

“And if I would rather someone else take me?” Her eyebrow arched and her snippy tone pushed at every button I had. She always wanted to be a brat, and she knew it. I didn’t know if she realized exactly how much I liked it, though. I would always let her take the lead if it made her more comfortable but when she acted like this it only turned me on which I didn’t think was her intended effect.

I got up, stalking around, and grabbing her hand to pulling her up.

“What are you doing?” she asked, as I put my arm around her.

“Talking to you,” I said as we came around the side of the garage where my car was parked.

“We already did that.”

“Well, we need to try again.” I leaned her up against my car, caging her in. “I told you, I’m sorry and I want to fix it.”

“And I said fine, but I know you’re about to be all charming and cute and think that gets you off the hook.”

“Then what am I supposed to be? I can’t be all grumpy and glaring. That’s your role here, and I can’t be a complete asshole to you because that isn’t going to fix this. And also, I don’t want to be. Do you not like me when I’m all sweet and charming?”

“Maybe. I don’t care either way, but I don’t like that it makes it harder to be mad at you.”

“I have to come with all I’ve got to get past your defenses. You can’t take the only weapon I have.”

“Weapon? Are we at war now?” For the first time since this fight started, the scowl broke and her lips turned up the slightest amount. It was hope for me, at least.

I laughed, leaning down and kissing her cheek. “I think that’s a good way to describe fighting with you. I will wave the white flag, though. I surrender completely.”

“No kissing.”

“Well, I hate that, but I will do pretty much anything you tell me to if it makes up for what I did. I had a bad moment, a freakout from my own insecurities, and panic that you couldn’t actually like me and I hated it. It wasn’t fair, but what you did wasn’t fair either. I can’t sit here and have you push me away. I won’t let that happen without trying to do everything I can to make you not do that.”

Her eyebrows furrowed, but she didn’t say anything for a while.

“We can go back to being friends, then. That way you can be yourself, and we can live in peace for the last few days that I’m here.”

“You want to be friends with me?”

“We only have a few days left. So yeah, friends.”

“I was hoping we could have a redo of all of this. Your first time, a relationship, and maybe you stay a little longer.”

“Or we can be friends, no redo, and I still leave once my truck is done.”

“I really wish I had more bargaining power here,” I said, and she grinned. “If we are negotiating, then we negotiate everything, including the leaving part.”

“Then I guess we aren’t negotiating,” she said. “We will be friends and I will leave soon.”

I leaned down, my lips hovering at hers. “Friends then. Best fucking friends.”