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  “So, Rae…” I begin as she pulls into the parking lot.

  “So, Hudson,” she retorts.

  “What do you think?”

  “Of you or the car?”

  “Well, I was talking about the car, but, please, answer freely.”

  She thinks for a second.

  “I like.”

  Curious. “You like? Which is that directed to? Me or the car?”

  Rae looks over at me, a playful smile on her lips. “Both.”

  “Blunt. I can dig that.”

  “Most don’t.”

  “I’m not most.”

  She grins. “No, I guess not.”

  Now, I’ve been smiling and laughing since the moment Rae walked into the shop today, but this smile? The one plastered across my face right now? It’s different, because that answer—that one four-word answer—it just made my heart do some weird-ass flippy thing it hasn’t done in years.

  “Good,” I say, still smiling like a damn idiot. “I guess this is it then. Thanks for the…uh…test drive.”

  “Thank you for fixing my car, Hudson. I think it may last this time.”

  I cock my brow. “May?”

  She rolls her eyes. “I’m not one to count my eggs.”

  “Your eggs? You mean your chickens, right?”

  “Eggs, chickens, whatever. It’s all the same.”

  “Right,” I mumble through a chuckle. I climb out of the car as she rolls down the window. I bend down and lean on the door. “I guess I’ll see you around then?” It comes out a question, but I don’t know why.

  “I guess?” Another question.

  “Bye, Rae.”

  “Bye, Hudson.”

  Neither of us moves, not wanting to go just yet. We stay frozen, gazing at one another and soaking up our last moment together before we each disappear back into life.

  I do my best to memorize her face in case I never get the chance to see her again. A tiny, miniscule part of me hopes something else will break on her car just so she has to come back. I don’t want to not see her again because I know—I know—she’s something special. I don’t want to let that go.

  Even though I’m not looking to date right now, something is screaming at me, telling me to make an exception for Rae, that she could handle the single father part of my life.

  As inappropriate and unprofessional as it is to mix business and dating, I have to get her phone number.

  “Yo, there’s a call from Mr. Anderson.” Tucker’s footsteps slam against the pavement, against any chance of getting Rae’s number. “He says it’s urgent.”

  I let out a sigh and silently curse him for his timing. Turning back to Rae, I can see the disappointment on her face. I nod once and tap the side of her car. She gives me a small wave in return.

  Watching as she pulls away, I can’t help but feel the odd weight that was lifted when she was around fall back onto my shoulders slowly.

  “Great timing, dude. I was just about to ask for her number,” I tell Tucker, walking past him into the front office.

  “Like her phone number? For what? A date?” I nod. His eyes widen. “You shitting me?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, hell. Sorry, man, but Anderson is on the line. I figured you’d want to deal with him directly. Besides, can’t you get it from her file or something?”

  “I may be weird sometimes, but I’m not that weird.”

  “I’d do it,” he mutters as he walks back to his chair behind the counter.

  “So would I!” calls Liam, another coworker, from the door connecting the office and main shop.

  I’m surrounded by a bunch of fucking weirdos.

  3

  Rae

  Two weeks later

  Working at a bar sucks ass. It may seem glamorous to some, getting lots of tips and checking out hot guys all night long, but it’s not. Not even close. It’s mostly catty women, and to be honest, there’s too much ass-grabbing and not enough hot guys.

  In the four and some change years I’ve been working here, I’ve only ever had a problem with Clarissa, another waitress working tonight, and it’s not that I have the problem. She has a major one with me. What is it? I have no freakin’ clue. She just doesn’t seem to like me and thinks everything I do is wrong, but I’m not one for confrontation so I let it all roll off my back.

  I’m currently on the receiving end of a glare and a fierce finger-point from my beloved Clarissa.

  “What the fuck, Rae?” She has me cornered in the back hallway, shoving her too-long bright pink fingernail in my face. “You stole my table! I was just about to walk up to them. You saw me! I could have earned some serious tips from them! They’ve been eye-fucking me all week and you took the table!”

  I smother a laugh because I know what Clarissa means by “serious tips” and it’s not money. She’s talking about hooking up. However, the table I apparently stole belongs to my cousin Perry and his friends, none of whom would give her the time of day.

  I’m not trying to judge Clarissa, because what she does on her own time is her business, but when she does it in the parking lot at work, it kind of becomes my business—especially when I’ve had to witness it a few times when I’m on break or leaving for the night. She seems to think no one can see inside cars when it’s dark outside.

  She’s wrong.

  Anyway, I don’t like it. It gives off the wrong kind of vibe for Clyde’s Bar & Grill. This place doesn’t deserve that kind of reputation. It’s not too rowdy or too quiet, but perfectly mellow. The orange-and-blue theme of the bar keeps it bright and friendly—definitely not a sexy atmosphere. Simply put, she needs to stop boning in the parking lot because this is not the place for it.

  “I’m sorry, Clarissa. I didn’t see you walking up to them.” Not a lie—mostly because I try to ignore her, but whatever. “You can have the next two that come into my area. I promise.”

  It doesn’t work that way, but whatever. At Clyde’s, the first one to the table gets it. We all try to stay within our own little area, but in all honesty, every table is fair game. It’s different than the last place I worked, where we had our own sections. The owner here likes the spontaneity of it all, likes that we all work the whole floor. It seems to do the job so far, and it’s fun. Makes the night go by faster.

  “Damn right I get the next one.” She gives me one last glare and flounces past me. I swear I can hear her mumble “bitch” as she goes by.

  I press out my apron and mentally roll my eyes before walking out of the hallway into the main bar. I’m tired and so not in the mood for her shit. My mind hasn’t been focused for a couple days now and my infamous nightmare is back so I haven’t been sleeping well as of late. On top of all that, after two plus weeks of not getting calls back on applications, I’m starting to feel like I’m never going to get out of here, and I really want to get a move on with my life.

  Last year I started to feel…lost. Even though I know exactly where I am, I feel like I don’t, which doesn’t make much sense—not even to me. I want out. I want to start my life because it feels like I haven’t been living, like something is missing.

  I just can’t figure out what.

  Shrugging off my doom-and-gloom thoughts, I look around the bar, taking in the customers and how my tables are doing.

  “Yo, Rae!” Benny, the bartender and our unofficial bouncer, calls out.

  Benny’s huge, so huge that I’m positive his muscles have muscles. He’s kind of scary-looking at first, but once you get a glimpse of that blinding white smile on his face, you can see he’s nothing but a big teddy bear. I would know, since I’ve been working at Clyde’s for over four years now and we’ve grown close. He’s a big softy and so sweet; he’s easily one of the most caring and giving people I’ve ever met. He’d be the perfect boyfriend, too, if he weren’t almost as old as my dad and gay.

  I give him a quick high-five and place the drink order for my cousin’s table. It’s an easy order of just one Coke so far since the
guys are still fighting over what pitcher of beer to get.

  “How’s my girl doing? You look down, honey.” An unnatural frown appears on his face. “You been sleeping okay?”

  Of course he would ask that. “Not really. It’s back,” I huff, referring to my nightmare.

  “Same as always?”

  I nod. “She’s always in it.”

  “She did a number on you, huh?”

  “She’s my mom, Benny. Yeah, she did a number on me.”

  “You need to get out of that head of yours. It can’t keep coming and going like that. I wonder what triggered this round.”

  He knows me all too well, because he’s right. Something triggered it. It usually stays away for months at a time, then something happens, causing it to start up again. I’m never sure what it is. It’s been almost eight months since I’ve had one, which is a record really, because it has never stayed away so long.

  “I know. I can’t keep trucking along on two to three hours of sleep.” I shrug in an I give up kind of way, causing Benny to throw me a sympathetic smile as he hands me my drink.

  I turn to bring the Coke to my cousin, taking a few steps forward and glancing around, checking each of my tables to make sure I have everything I need.

  Holy shit!

  I apparently have some untapped superhero powers because I just had some serious Spidey-like reflexes going on to catch this Coke midair, without looking.

  Those devastatingly perfect green eyes? The ones that belonged to that insanely hot mechanic? Yeah, I just caught them staring at me.

  Hudson is here.

  My chest feels so heavy and my breaths come in rapid succession. I’m frozen to the spot.

  And then I’m not, because I’m stumbling sideways.

  “Shit, Rae! Sorry!” Maura, my best friend, rushes out and runs right into me, in front of Hudson. She grabs my arm to help steady me. “What the hell, woman? You were just stopped right in the middle of the floor.”

  She’s now looking at me with a mixture of concern and slight aggravation. I guess concern wins because then she looks over in the direction of where I was staring.

  “Who is that? Why’s he staring at you? Do you know him?” She starts firing off questions, looking back and forth between Hudson and me. I pull her to the side, out of Hudson’s view.

  “Remember when my car broke down and I told you about that hot mechanic guy?”

  She nods her head. “Henry?”

  “Hudson,” I correct her. “Well, he’s here.” She steps over to look again. I pull her back. “Stop it! He’s going to know we’re talking about him. I can’t believe he’s here. Holy shit. I can’t believe he is here. I invited them in two weeks ago! That’s forever ago! What in the world is he doing here, Maura?”

  This is what most would call “freaking the fuck out”, but in all honesty, it’s normal for me, so Maura doesn’t even bat an eye.

  “Looks like he’s waiting to make his drink order, possibly order some food, with hot friends. Why didn’t you tell me he had hot friends?”

  She would focus on that. I can say with one hundred percent certainty that Hudson’s friends, no matter how attractive they are, won’t measure up to him because he’s beautiful. It’s not just because of his looks, though he’s not lacking in that department with his ink-black hair and towering, well-built frame. It’s his eyes that put him in the front of the pack. The eyes that talk and flirt with me. They’ll draw me in every time when it comes to him. I can tell already.

  “I didn’t know. Well…I kind of did. His friend Tucker wasn’t bad to look at. But back to the important thing here—HUDSON IS HERE!”

  Cue mini panic attack. My lungs are on fire and the air I’m sucking in rapidly does nothing but fan the flames.

  I’m not even sure why I’m so worked up. I met this man two weeks ago. Two entire weeks. We didn’t even spend that much time together, didn’t exchange numbers. It was just a short car ride. Sure, we laughed and smiled a lot, but that shouldn’t lead to this freak out.

  I mean, sure, it could be because I’ve spent the last two weeks thinking of nothing but him. I don’t know what happened in that shop or during our test drive, but something passed between us—something nice, something I know I’m going to like if I ever get the courage to ask for his number, like I almost did before his buddy interrupted us.

  Now he’s here, at my place of employment, sitting in my “section” and looking like he belongs in my world.

  And fuck me if I don’t want him to.

  “Snap out of it, Rae!” Maura shakes my shoulder, jolting me out of my own head. “You need to put on those old-ass big-girl granny panties you wear, go out there, and ask him what he wants to drink. Keep it light. Wait for him to say something about seeing you again first. God, I feel like I’m back in high school all over again.”

  With that, she walks off, leaving me standing in the hallway still holding this damn Coke.

  HUDSON

  The woman I’ve been thinking about nonstop for the last two weeks just froze in the middle of the bar when she caught my eyes burning holes into her.

  The internal battle of whether that’s good or bad has been warring inside me since.

  No matter the answer, I don’t think I care. She’s still beautiful, still has that weird magnetism about her. I still feel like I know her, even though I don’t, and she still makes me wish I did.

  I have a feeling that if the other waitress hadn’t crashed into her, she would still be standing there staring at me. I’m positive they were talking about me in that hallway because I saw the other little blonde waitress peek around the corner to look at me, which I have to admit makes me feel a little…giddy.

  I’m not a giddy kind of guy, not about this sort of shit.

  “Dude, Hudson, what the fuck are we doing here?” Tanner spouts off in his obnoxiously loud voice.

  I’ve never been fond of the guy. He rubs me the wrong way and gives off this asshole vibe—not the fun asshole everyone secretly wishes they could be, like Tucker, but the asshole that’s…sleazy? Yeah, that fits him. A part of me thinks it’s a front, like he’s trying to hide the real him for some weird macho reasons, but I’ll be damned if he doesn’t come off that way all the time. I think it’s more alienating than anything else.

  What’s the part that keeps him around? For starters, he’s Tucker’s older brother so we kind of have to. Also, he’s a soldier, and no matter how much of a dick he is, you don’t fucking ditch soldiers because they keep your ass free.

  “Wing night, man!” Tucker shouts, saving me from having to explain to Tanner that we’re here for a girl. Then he shoots me a look, telling me not to let his brother know of my interest in Rae.

  How does Tucker know? Easy. He’s my best friend and can read me better than even I can sometimes. He knows something’s up and that I’ve been off my game for the last two weeks because all I can seem to think about is Rae when I’m not supposed to be thinking of anyone other than Joey right now.

  It’s almost scary how well Tuck knows me. We’ve been there for each other since we were fifteen. He moved into the oldest, most beat-up house in the neighborhood and some kids started giving him crap for it. That didn’t last too long after I took him under my wing and he ended up whooping those kids’ asses. It was hilarious watching those little hoodlums run away from a kid half their size, because they totally deserved it.

  Since then, he’s been glued to my side, sticking with me through all the shit that’s been thrown at me—and it’s been some deep shit considering I became a father when I was still in high school.

  I look back over to where I last saw Rae just in time to watch her walk out of the darkened hallway. My eyes follow her as she carefully avoids our table to drop the soda off about five tables away.

  She must know the people sitting there, because she seems to be cozy with one of the guys. Touching his shoulder, she bursts into fits of laughter and I swear my heart stops.

  I
’m not sure if it’s because she’s touching some other guy with obvious familiarity or if it’s her laugh. It’s breathtaking. I’ve never known a laugh to be breathtaking before, but Rae’s is.

  The fact that I don’t even know this girl and I’m so damn drawn to her scares the crap out of me. I’ve never—and I mean never—been so tuned in to another person before. It’s fascinating—and terrifying, because I’m in a difficult place in life. I have a daughter to think about, so I have to play my cards carefully. No matter how drawn I am to Rae, no matter how badly I want to march over there, drop to my knees, and beg her to date me, I can’t. I have to make sure she’s worthy of Joey first, worthy of being in our lives.

  And, of course, if she’s game to date a single father.

  Before I can even clear my head and start breathing again, she’s standing in front of me. Tucker throws an elbow into my side and I snap out of my haze then exhale.

  “Hey, what can I get you boys tonight?”

  We all start talking at once.

  “Dr. Pepper.”

  “Coke.”

  “Sam Adams.”

  “Water.”

  She blinks rapidly and then repeats it back to us. We all nod like idiots. “Great! I’ll be right back with those drinks.”

  “Isn’t that the same chick you were checking out when we first got here, Hudson?” Tanner asks once Rae’s out of earshot. He noticed. Awesome.

  “I wasn’t checking her out. She just looks familiar. I think we did a job for her a few weeks ago.”

  I look to Tucker, hoping he’ll go along with me. He dips his head, letting me know he understands. Then I eyeball Gaige, my other best friend, letting him know too. He shrugs and goes back to picking apart the napkin he’s been playing with.

  Gaige is very…quiet. He comes off as shy, but he’s not; he just chooses his words carefully, and I completely respect that. Words are important, and he’s not into wasting them. He’s been this way for as long as I can remember. He’s the prettiest asshole among us, but doesn’t use his charm, like Tucker does, or attempt to, like Tanner does. It’s not his style. When I met him at seventeen, I thought he was moody and antisocial. After getting to know him better, I realized he’s just thoughtful, and a damn good friend.