Page 23 of Sometimes You Fall

Grady

“Are you trying to use telepathy to fix that transmission, or are you having a stroke?” Chet asks me, breaking me from the staring match I’m having with the piece of the engine sitting on the bench in front of me.

“What?” Blinking, I turn to him, his brows furrowed with curiosity.

“You were zoned out, man. I was watching you for several minutes before I finally decided to say something.”

I heave out a sigh. “I got distracted.”

“Seems to be a pattern with you lately.”

“What do you mean?”

Chet moves around me, grabbing a wrench from the toolbox. “I don’t know. For the past couple of months, you’ve been grumpier than normal. I swear, the crease between your eyebrows is permanent now.” He reaches up and pushes his thumb against the spot in question, and I shove his arm away.

“Don’t touch me.”

Laughing, he backs away. “Then unclench, man. I mean, if you’re that wound up, download Tinder and try to find someone to help alleviate the tension. You know what I mean?”

Scowling at him, I turn back to the transmission and reach for the rag on the table. “That’s the last fucking thing I need.”

“I disagree. You need to get laid or buy a punching bag. One or the other, but you need something to pound into, if you catch my drift.”

“You can take your drift and shove it up your ass.”

Chet chuckles and then heads back to the car he’s working on. “I’m telling you…Tinder. You’ll feel better.”

Growling, I grab the driveshaft and prepare to replace the worn bushings as I ruminate over Chet’s advice.

Getting laid is what put me in this piss-poor mood in the first place. That head of curly hair, green eyes that continue to haunt me at night, and a smile with perfect pink lips that I can’t stop envisioning sucking my cock.

Scottie fucked me up for the second time in my life, and this time is even worse than the first because now I know what she feels like wrapped around me.

But it wasn’t just the sex. It was hearing her voice again, laughing with her, anticipating the next words that were going to come out of her mouth. She transported me back in time, to a point in my life where I was optimistic, still working toward something, still wondering what the next few years were going to bring.

Now, every day just feels dreary, annoying, and anything but optimistic, especially since Scottie walked out on me after our night together.

Her mom basically told me not to chase after her. How do you catch someone who doesn’t want to be caught? And better yet, why should I try? By leaving the way she did, she made it clear that shewanted nothing more from me than sex. Any other man would be ecstatic that a woman he slept with wasn’t expecting more.

But I’m not like other guys.

And Scottie isn’t like any other woman I’ve been with.

“Fuck, I’m pathetic,” I mumble to myself as my hands move on their own. Normally, I would use a project like this to drown out the noise in my head, to slip away from reality and give myself something else to focus on. But now, the only thing my brain seems to want to fixate on is a woman who exited my life again just as abruptly as she did the last time.

I glance back at the Nova, seeing Scottie splayed out on the hood again, my head buried between her legs as I lapped at her pussy, and my dick grows hard against my jeans. That night she told me I should rebuild that car, and fuck if I didn’t listen. In fact, I have a few parts coming next week and the seats are being reupholstered at the end of the month. The new headlights are installed, along with new gauges for the dash, and then it’s just a few tweaks to the motor—new spark plugs, pistons and piston rings, bearings, and gaskets—before registering her for the road so she’s legal for me to drive around anytime I want.

As I lay there that night, holding Scottie in my arms, I imagined the two of us cruising up and down the coast in that car, her wild curls flowing around her as the ocean breeze drifted in through the windows. Stopping on the side of the road so I could fuck her on the bench seat, then waiting until it got dark so I could bend her over the hood and fuck her again.

Now when I stare at the car, anger fills my chest, my jaw grows tight, and I curse myself for letting myself get wrapped up in a woman—an issue I’ve never had before.

“Grady, there’s a customer here that wants to ask you about a custom exhaust for their car.” Lindy, my receptionist and bookkeeper, pops her head into the garage, pulling me from my thoughts.

“I’ll be right there.”

She slides back behind the door that separates the reception area from the garage as I stand from the stool I was sitting on and head to the sink to wash the grease from my hands. Back when I was playing baseball, it was grass and dirt under my fingernails mixed with grease. Now it’s only grease that seeps its way into my skin, marking me with this new life, no matter how hard I scrub to get rid of it.

Although, come Monday, it’ll be both grease and dirt again. Much to my dismay, I agreed to try coaching the high school baseball team, yet another decision influenced by that night with Scottie. And even though I regret it now, I’m not going to back out. I made a commitment, and I’m going to see it through because that’s who I am—or at least, that’s who I’m trying to be, despite questioning my life choices daily. From what I’ve heard, that’s normal. But all I know is, normal sucks.

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