Page 16 of Brash for It (Hellions Ride On #11)

Eight

Kristen

The next morning, I wake before the alarm I didn’t set. Habit, fear—who knows why, but I’m up. Dawn is a pale smear along the blinds. Somewhere a dog barks and then gives up. The air conditioner sighs and then is quiet, leaving just the hum of the refrigerator.

Kellum isn’t in bed. The dent where he slept holds his shape like memory. The smell of coffee floats down the hall, and I follow it with the notebook tucked under my arm and my hair pulled into a messy knot using one of the elastics I bought with so much ceremony.

He’s at the table with two mugs and a small stack of mail.

A key sits next to one mug. Not the front door key—smaller, brass, with a number stamped into it.

He nudges it with his knuckle when I sit.

“PO box key,” he explains. “Already rented it when they opened this morning. Box number’s on the tag. You have an address today.”

My chest does a weird stutter. “You did it already?”

He shrugs. “I was up.” He takes a swallow of coffee. “Next thing.”

“Next thing,” I echo, and the words don’t taste foreign anymore.

He looks at the notebook under my arm. “You bring your homework?”

I smile, “Always.” I open it to yesterday’s list. At the bottom, in tiny letters during our chat, I added, Find something you love because the idea felt so extravagant I didn’t want to tempt it by writing it big.

It just hit me, though, if I’m rebuilding my life then I should find things that matter to me.

He scans the page and nods once. “That’ll do. We’ll knock these out this week. Try to get shit done before you start work Thursday. Get you set up.”

“Bossy,” I say, and it feels like a joke between us, not an accusation.

He smirks, and that half-second brightness makes the kitchen look less cinderblock and more home . “You learn quick.”

We move. Shower. Clothes from my new stack.

Sneakers. I catch my reflection in the mirror on the back of the bedroom door and barely recognize the woman in front of me.

No mask of makeup. Soft T-shirt. Jeans that fit and don’t try too hard.

Hair in a ponytail that doesn’t look ten thousand dollars expensive.

My mouth curves without permission. The girl in the mirror curves back.

She looks… like she could walk into a place and be absolutely okay with who she is.

I like this version of me. The one that isn’t trying to be someone I’m not.

We drive the SUV because he said to. Kellum takes the wheel without asking, and I don’t mind. The town unfurls, the same as yesterday, different because of me.

Bank came first. Kellum walks in with me, but hangs back by the brochure rack like he’s waiting for a turn at a very boring carnival ride. I sit with a woman in a cardigan and explain I need to open a new account.

She taps and prints and slides a paper toward me with boxes to initial, and I initial like I mean it.

When she asks for an opening deposit, I slide a portion of Kellum’s cash across, and shame prickles but doesn’t burn.

It’s a loan. I’m writing it down as such in my notebook before the ink on the signature dries.

When we step onto the sidewalk, light hits me like applause. I hold my new debit card in my hand like a holy card. “Look,” I say, stupidly, to a man who has likely held keys to houses, cars, motorcycles, and all without being in debt.

He looks. “Good,” he raises an eyebrow to question me next, “Lunch?”

I feel like we just finished breakfast, but the bank did take a while.

We get sandwiches from a place that wraps them in paper so tight it could be art.

We sit on a bench in the shade of a crepe myrtle that gave up on flower duty last week.

The sandwich drips onto the paper and I lick mustard from my thumb and don’t apologize for doing what feels normal.

It is the best thing I’ve eaten in months, which is confusing given I once ate caviar on a boat while a chef with a tattoo of a spoon on his arm described the different flavor layers of the salt.

“DMV after this?” I ask around a bite, braced for him to say I have things to do for myself you’re on your own or you can wait. Brian loved to tell me I could wait.

He shrugs. “Could. Or we can leave that for another afternoon when you need a win. You pick.”

The permission to choose softens something inside me that I didn’t realize was hard. “We could try the shop. I’d like to get an idea of the place.”

He angles his head. “You ready for men who shout, cuss, and a phone that rings with people who don’t even know what to say call non-stop?”

I picture it and my stomach doesn’t sour. “Yeah. I think so. It sounds like the time passes quickly.”

He smiles and I swear his face lights up in a way I’ve never seen before. His teeth are straight and white and I notice he has laugh lines from a time in life when things didn’t seem to sit so heavy on him.

The shop smells like oil, rubber, and man. The bay doors are up. A fan oscillates like it’s blowing on a birthday cake no one ever eats. A man looks up from the hood of a Chevy truck and grins when he sees Kellum. Then he sees me and smiles wider.

He has long blond hair tucked into a man-bun similar to how Kellum wears his. Kellum’s hair is more of a dirty blond with darker edges and even a little red blended in. He has beautiful hair when I get to see it down after his showers.

“This the girl?” he asks Kellum, not unkindly, just like it’s an everyday thing.

“This is Kristen,” Kellum says, and the way he says my name is not apology or defense.

It’s information. He gestures to a stool behind the counter.

“Front desk. Computer’s a dinosaur. Don’t let it talk back to you.

” He points to the man he was talking to, “Kristen, that’s BW.

His woman is Karsci, she pops in from time to time. ”

I slide onto the stool. There’s a battered phone on the counter, a stack of intake forms in a plastic tray, a jar full of pens.

A chalkboard behind me lists labor rates and a reminder in block letters: DON’T RUSH.

CHECK TWICE. I run my fingers over the edge of the desk and feel a notch where someone carved initials years ago and covered them with tape.

“Can you show me the basics?” I ask wondering where the usual person is, but I don’t ask. I’m simply grateful for a job..

He does. He is patient in a way I didn’t expect from a man whose resting face looks like a warning.

He walks me through the calendar, how to book appointments without jamming two in the same hour, where the keys go (hooked on tagged loops, labels facing out), how to set the work orders up and put them in these plastic sleeve things, how to run a card when someone wants to pay now instead of later.

He shows me the drawer of candy they keep for the kids who come in with parents, and how the moms almost always grab a piece for themselves and pretend it’s for the kid.

“Phone will ring,” he explains, tapping it.

“You answer with Hellions Ride, this is Kristen, how can I help you? Take notes, you’ll learn stuff over time, but basic maintenance put in the computer and it will give you the rate.

If it’s something you don’t know, you say one second and you ask me or whatever brother is close by.

You don’t guess. Guessing gets engines on the side of the road or costs people more than they are prepared to spend. ”

The bell above the door jangles as if the universe is tired of rehearsal. A woman steps in with a set of keys and worry stitched into her forehead. “Hi, um,” she mutters and I feel her anxiety like it’s my own. “My car’s making a noise? I mean, they all make noises, but this one is new.”

“Have a seat,” I state before I can tell myself this is over my head.

“Let’s start with your name.” I slide an intake form across.

She writes Norah in nervous, looping letters.

I ask what she hears—whine, click, grind?

—and she relaxes as she talks because someone is listening.

Kellum catches my eye and nods once, small, like an unspoken good job .

He takes the keys with a quiet “We’ll take a listen” and the day slides forward.

I answer three more calls. I book a brake job for Tuesday.

I learn that the printer is angry and must be coaxed along with a light smack on the side.

I put a lollipop in a kid’s palm when his dad says no while nodding yes and the kid doesn’t cry because he suspects I’m on his side.

I drink cold water from a huge, ugly cup that says today’s not your day and tomorrow doesn’t look good either.

Every time the phone rings and I don’t fumble it, every time someone says thank you and means it, every time I slide a form into a neat stack, something in me that has been empty begins to feel.

At four, Kellum taps the counter with a knuckle. “We’re done for today. Go home. Make your list for tomorrow. You did good. Pami will be here to guide you tomorrow. Told them it would be Thursday before you started so didn’t prepare well.”

“Are you, like we aren’t closed, are you sure?” I feel greedy wanting to stay, because the noise and the rhythm have me hooked.

“You can’t outrun your brain every day,” he says. “You take the win and you rest. I’ll be there later. Got some club shit here.”

Nervously, I wonder. Then I decide Kellum is direct so I will give him the same respect. “I have your car. How will you get home?” Then I shake my head. “It’s not my business. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t ask.”

He reaches out squeezing my hand, calming me. “Shhh, I got another bike. It’s here. I needed to get it home after changing the handlebars. I’m gonna take that home.’

“Oh,” relief washes over me, then another thought invades. My eyes grow wide, Kellum reads my change.

“Whatever it is, stop the thought, darlin’. Don’t get hung up in your head.”