Page 4

Declan
Declan Gilroy is a fucking asshole.
I don’t know why it bothers me. Why I even give a shit what Tess thinks of me but hearing her say it makes me realize I do.
I give a shit.
I’ve never done a thing to her.
I’ve always been nice to her.
I always say hi when I see her around the neighborhood.
I don’t complain if I get stuck with her on my team when we play ball.
I held her while she cried, the day of her mom’s funeral.
I never told a soul what she told me that day.
That her mother killed herself.
That she’s the one who found her body.
So, yeah. I’ve never done anything to her, but she hates me all the same.
When she hears me, her shoulders go stiff and she turns around, a wary glare already planted on her face. “What are you doing here?”
I push a smirk onto my face to hide the fact that her tone sets my teeth on edge. “What’s it look like? I’m lurking.”
She doesn’t laugh at my joke. Probably because it’s not a joke. I am lurking. “How’d you get in here?”
“The door was unlocked.” It wasn’t unlocked and she seems to know it because she shoots her glare past me to let it land on the dark room behind me.
When she looks at me again, her jaw is tight and I expect her to call me a liar but she doesn’t. “My dad’s sleeping.” She says, crossing her arms over her chest. “Whatever you want, it’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”
That she’s noticed me come and go and that I have business with her dad surprises me. Despite the fact that I’m roughly the size of a compact car, I can usually go unnoticed when I want to.
Maybe you don’t want to go unnoticed. Maybe you wanted her to know you were coming around.
“I’m not here to see your dad.” Feeling a frown take root on my face, I push the thought away. “I’m here to see you.”
“Me?” Her head jerks back like she got a whiff of something bad.
“Yeah. You.” I stand up straight and jog my head to the side, aiming it toward the dark room behind me. “I need your help with something.”
“My help?” She looks at me like I just told her I’d been abducted by aliens. “You want my help.”
I feel the back of my neck go tight. “I didn’t say want, Tesla—I said need.”
“Yeah?” She tosses the rag in her hand at the workbench between us. “Well, I want you to go fuck yourself and I need you to get the hell out of my garage.”
Fuck me, I laugh. I can’t help it.
She’s too goddamned adorable when she’s all fired up. It reminds me of the time she got tossed from one of our league games when we were kids because she threw dirt at the ump and called him a myopic cocksucker for calling her out.
That was right before her mom died.
She’s so quick I almost missed it. Almost caught the crescent wrench she wings at my head right in the face. I jerk out of the wrench’s path but despite my best efforts it clips me in the chin on the fly-by. “What the fuck?” I bark at her around the sound of metal pining off the concrete floor behind me. I reach up to touch a fingertip to my chin and it comes away bloody.