Page 4 of Grease & Grips (Friction Fiction #2)

A in’t nobody here.

The chain-link’s rolled shut and locked up tight. Not like I expected anyone to still be around, but it’s a nice little reminder that everybody else clocks out. That’s what you do when you’ve got people waiting on you. You clock out. You go home.

You get to have a life.

It may not be a full life, but I do have this sexy-as-fuck man sitting next to me, watching eagerly as we pull into the gravel lot of the shop looking around like this busted-up garage might actually be interesting.

Like I might be interesting.

Its got me all kinds of fucked up.

Andrés shoots me an eager look, as I shut off the truck.

“Not much I can do tonight,” I say clearing my throat, hands still on the wheel. “But I’ll make it top priority. Get to it first thing in the morning.”

There’s no response and that somehow makes me clam up even more.

“I just…” I tug at the tiny hairs at the back of my neck. “Yeah, I guess you’ll wanna grab a ride now? Sycamore Motel isn’t too far.”

Silence stretches between us until it ends with a single nod.

“You think I could pop in and use the bathroom real quick?”

I wish he’d head out so I could finally catch my breath. Anything so I can stop pretending like I’m not hanging on by a thread. I need the space more than I need him, even if my body’s real determined to argue otherwise.

Still, after everything, kicking him out now would make me seem like an asshole. Can’t make the guy wait and then shove him off like he’s nothing. Not when he’s been anything but.

“Sure,” I say, already popping the door.

“Okay,” he says, reaching for the handle. “I’ve got some stuff in my car I need to grab too.”

“Let me get it off the tow.”

The night air hits me the second I step outta the truck, but it doesn’t do a damn thing to cool me off. That heat’s still sitting heavy under my skin. Same one that lit up the second I saw his face and no amount of breeze is putting that fire out.

My boots crunch across the lot as I step over to the rig and begin to unlatch it. I’ve unloaded probably a thousand cars from this truck, but tonight, autopilot won’t kick in. I can’t stop wondering if he’s watching.

I hate how bad I wanna look just to check.

Once the car’s unhooked, I pop the trunk and he pulls out a small duffel bag. Guess the man travels light.

“Bathroom’s back there in the corner,” I say once we’re inside the shop, nodding past the front desk and the line of tool lockers. “I’ll just stay out front. Take your time.”

He weaves through the junk like it’s nothing. Past the jacks, the shelves stacked with filters, the busted vending machine that only works half the time, and the greasy carts that no one’s bothered to clean. Walks like he’s done it a hundred times before.

Once he disappears into the back, I step out onto the small concrete slab out front, pull a cigarette from the pack in my back pocket, and light it with shaking fingers.

Leaning against the doorway, I let the smoke settle in my lungs begging it to calm whatever the hell’s happening inside me. This man fell into my lap and let me tell you, that doesn’t happen often around here.

After that charged moment in the truck, I want to see if maybe he’s as into me as I’m into him. See what his lips taste like. See if he’d let me know what it feels like to have his dick tickle the back of my throat.

I could do what Gary said and make the most of this. Try to be the kind of guy who chooses to make shit happen, but Andrés would probably laugh in my face. Because whatever this is isn’t real.

Guys like me in places like this don’t end up with men like Andrés. I don’t get handsome, exotic men from somewhere else.

From somewhere better.

Being stuck here’s already enough to carry.

I don’t need the added weight of thinking for even half a second that maybe I deserve something good.

My choices consist of closeted married guys and pump-and-dumps in a cornfield or some two-hour drive for an emotionless hookup in a motel parking lot to remind myself I’m still alive.

Gotta make do with the hand I’m dealt.

Literally.

He’s been gone a while.

Probably freshening up, but still I start to wonder if he bailed out the back. Snuck past the shelves, out the emergency exit, decided this town and this weirdo mechanic weren’t worth the wait.

Part of me would understand.

Most of me wouldn’t blame him.

I suck down the rest of my cigarette and stub it out in the gravel with the toe of my boot.

When I finally head back in, I don’t see him at first. Instead it’s a sight I’m used to. The same dim lighting, the same scattered tools and unfinished work orders, but then I catch him poking through my station at the far end of the shop.

His fingers drift over a few of the old photos, lingering on the one of me and the guys from my first month at the shop.

All of us grinning like idiots, covered in grease, Julio flipping off the camera.

Then he moves to the faded newspaper clippings tacked to the wall, yellowed with time, headlines like "Local Mechanic Shop Keeps Community Rolling. "

Tacked to the board next to the emergency contacts, shop number, and gate code is a rainbow friendship bracelet. Gary’s kid made it. Never gave it to me, just left it sitting on my workbench like it didn’t mean much.

Out of the crap up there, it’s the one thing I’d grab in a fire.

He stops when he notices it, then gently lifts it off the board and turns it over in his hand.

“Do they know?” he asks from across the room.

“They know enough,” I say.

It comes out a little too fast, a little too flat. Not defensive, exactly, but definitely the kind of answer that doesn’t warrant a follow-up. He places the bracelet back like he knows better than to treat it like decoration.

“You make it?”

I clear my throat. “Someone gave it to me. Years ago.”

Like in the truck he doesn’t press. He gives me the space to say more and the safety not to and I don’t know why, but that’s worse.

“You probably wanna get to the hotel,” I say, hoping he’ll leave and release my heart from the vice he’s got on it.

“I’m still kinda wired. Is there anywhere around here to get a drink?”

My brain whirs through a thousand versions of what this could mean, but my feet move before I’ve landed on any of them. I don’t notice his doing the same. Not until we’re both walking, drawn forward like there’s a thread between us pulling tighter, dragging us into each other’s orbit.

Two magnets. One path. No escape.

“It’s a dry county. Closest bar’s probably forty-five minutes out of town.”

He winces playfully. “How do you live?”

“With a well-stocked fridge.”

His warm laugh reverberates through me. I take it in and beg that sound to settle deep inside me, hoping it roots itself so deep that any time I need to remember what joy feels like, I’ll have it close by.

With a few steps we’re toe-to-toe, surrounded by half-drained oil drums, cracked tool chests, and the lingering scent of grease, heat, and the shift blooming between us.

The excitement from before fades into something new. In its place is this low, humming pressure, heavy in my gut. It’s not nerves, not really. It’s more than that. It’s something working its way through me, setting my pulse into overdrive.

“If there’s no bar, what is there to do around here?” The question slips out of him easy, heavy with intention.

I scratch at my scalp, more nerves than itch, and realize my mouth’s bone dry. “Mama used to say the only things to do around here were drink, fight, or fuck.”

There’s a curl to his mouth I haven’t met before. It’s dark and daring and I wanna chase it like a bad idea.

“Okay, one’s out of the question. What’s your preference on the other two, Mack?”

I’m toast. Helpless prey out in the open. If he wants to eat me alive, I’m not stopping him.

Jesus Christ so help me... I’ll set the table.

“Depends on the day and how many beers I’ve had.” There’s undeniable heat in the words as they tumble from my mouth.

The blush on his face blooms in real time, spreading fast as that a grin breaks open into a full-blown smile with his white teeth on display.

He eats me up with his eyes, pupils blown wide, hunger stamped across every inch of his too-beautiful face. Beneath it I see the restraint, but only barely.

I’ve seen a drive belt pulled too tight before. I know the look right before it snaps.

Right now this man is being held together by threads.

His gaze is too intense so I look anywhere else. Pretend I’m suddenly real interested in absolutely nothing.

“Anyway,” I mumble, “not much call for either these days.”

“Why not?”

There are a lot of reasons. A whole goddamn pile of them.

It’s easier not to want when you know you can’t have. Wanting things means hoping and hoping means setting yourself up to be let down.

I’ve tried this before. There was the bar in Macon, the guy from Atlanta, my one and only Memorial Day weekend in Pensacola that ended with me ghosted at a Waffle House.

When you spend long enough watching other people live their lives while you make a living patching up the things that help them leave, you start to realize fixing cars is easier than fixing your own problems.

What I do gives other people the freedom to move on. The means to get out. Never to stay.

After a while you start to believe maybe that’s all there is.

Maybe that’s what you’re supposed to get.

Sometimes I don’t even know if I want the thing or just the idea of it. The distraction and the softness sound nice.

I might enjoy if someone could stand still long enough to let me believe they might actually see me and stay, but men like that don’t come to Sycamore. Not on purpose. They break down on dirt roads and leave as soon as the engine turns over.

I shift my weight, drag a hand across the back of my neck, and finally glance his way. “Guess I stopped seeing the point.”

He’s so fucking sexy like this.

With those eyes locked on me seeing right into the most embarrassing corners of my soul, even though I’m sweatin’ like a whore in church trying not to think about what it’d feel like if he touched me.

Believe me when I tell you I’m thinking about all the ways that could happen.

The ways he could be wrapped around my dick hit me like a goddamn freight train. His hand, his mouth, even the way his hips would move if he let me fuck him. The way his hole might grip onto me keeping us connected in every way that matters.

I try to breathe through the onslaught of filthy thoughts I’m having, but I’m hard as hell and my jeans aren’t doing a damn thing to hide it.

This is torture.

He’s standing over there looking like sin and I’m praying his eyes don’t drift south to see just how fucked up I am over him.

It’s suddenly too hot. Too quiet. Too much. I suck in a sharp breath, heart trying to beat clean out of my chest.

He’s so put together. I just know he could tear a country boy like me apart in the best and worst ways.

“You thirsty?” I blurt.

He doesn’t miss a beat. “You have no idea.”

My whole body shudders like I touched a live wire. All I can manage is standing here, hard as hell, arms at my sides, jaw locked, eyes darting anywhere that isn’t him because if I look too long I might actually melt into the floor or do something real stupid.

By the time I come back to earth, my feet are already moving. Putting as much space between us as possible.

“I can, uh… grab you something from the vending machine.”

The smile I get is confirmation he sees straight through me. He’s watching the whole damn game play out and letting me pretend I’ve got the upper hand.

I feel like prey cornered in my own goddamn shop surrounded by the spots where I laugh with the guys and the spots where I’ve let myself feel everything awful on my worst days. Right next to oil stains and socket wrenches and this fucking vending machine that hasn’t worked right since 2017.

I can feel him watching me while I knock the side of the vending machine and wait for a couple Cokes to rattle loose.

I’m grateful for the space. This little bit of distance is keeping me steady, because if either of us close that gap I might convince myself that he could be something good.

And if I do that, I don’t know how the hell I’m supposed to put myself back together when he’s gone.