Burned Gasoline (3 page)

              Times changed, and perhaps he did too. He often praised Marina for staying with him when times were dark, and she’d often simply kiss him on the cheek and tell him he was worth it. Until one day when she’d called him from another man’s cell phone saying she was in a meeting with a photographer from a modeling agency, and didn’t know when she was coming home. At first he’d been over the moon thrilled she was getting the attention he knew she deserved, her beauty left people breathless, but after the fourth or fifth meeting away in another town with no pictures to prove her work things weren’t fun and games anymore.

              The first time she’d mentioned she wanted to move to a bigger town, with more things for young people to do, he’d brushed it off and told her they were just fine where they lived, but as time went by he couldn’t help but notice her slight personality change. She got testier with him, and everything he did. She dreamed of a career in modeling or fashion, neither of them possible in their small town, and she often went with girlfriends to larger cities for weekends away from ‘this dust bowl’, as she called it.

              One early morning she’d come home from one of those trips and told him she’d met someone, another photographer. Someone who truly believed in her talent and wanted to make her a star. She’d said she was tired of living in nothingness, with no future, becoming a housewife: cooking meals for him when he got home, raising kids when he wanted them, and having an eventful outing consist of a Tupperware party. She had said she wasn’t bred for that. And during the days of his father’s sudden passing, and his mother’s illness she’d made the wound even deeper by packing her one single bag and taken the next bus away from town. She’d never been back since then. She never even called him. A text came once or twice with pictures from photo shoots, telling him to be proud of her and not dwell on her absence.

              Sure, he’d seen some action over the years, but nothing he wanted to act on except for a round or two in the bedroom. Nothing more. He’d felt mostly dead from the romance scene even though suggestions often came from left to right from ladies asking him for a date, or at least a dinner, or a just kissing behind the pub. The times he’d felt the crappiest he’d driven from town to unknown territory for some drinking and sex. Women he’d found good enough to bring back to a hotel room for a night, or even a few hours, of unromantic animalistic sexual release.

It actually hadn’t been until he’s seen that woman in the parking lot of Harold’s not too long ago that his heart had skipped a few beats too fast, and his pants had felt too tight around his crotch. She’d had that something he couldn’t quite figure out, which was just fucking fantastic. For the first time in almost a decade an unknown woman in ridiculously high heels had clambered right into his life and he couldn’t shake her. Not even Marina had ever made such an impression on him. No other woman either, ever. Apart from that woman in the parking lot of Harold’s earlier he hadn’t felt hopeful in almost ten years.

He couldn’t quite wipe her out of his mind. Sitting back into one of the chairs in the garage, an opened beer in his hand, and the Dodgers playing Atlanta Braves on the TV hanging on the wall, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. The way she had carried herself, and talked back to him. Her dark blonde curly hair, barely reaching her shoulders, and those breasts. He stopped his hand holding the cold beer bottle in midair while his mind replayed the way her hands had held them, cupped them underneath, as if she presented them to him. And him alone.

He shook his head and grinned into the air before he placed the bottle to his lips and took a full swig of cold beer down his throat. Man had she looked good. Not that she would be interested in a man living at home with his mom at the age of thirty-eight, but a man can dream, can’t he? And he sure would tonight, he thought to himself and closed his eyes trying to erase the sudden memory, but the only thing flashing across his mind was the contour of her nipples he’d seen through her fabric, and what they would feel like rolling on his tongue. Hell, it was going to be one long night.

Chapter Four

              “Alright, Nova. Baby girl, we have to eat. Mama’s gotta go into town with you to get the signal light fixed on the car. I don’t want to drive around knowing it’s not secure enough for my little munchkin… yeah, that’s you little cutie… munchkin.” She said playfully, as she placed spoon after spoon of apple sauce into her daughter’s mouth, loving every giggling sound that came out between her soft lips. Spitting not only laughter, but apple sauce right back on the table.

              With diaper bag in hand and Nova gurgling cheerfully in her car seat, she backed out the car and turned down the dirt patched road leading from her new home and onto the main highway. A quick look over her shoulders made her notice something looking out of place. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it and decided to leave it for later. She had other things to worry about.

              Being a smaller town, she’d gotten an address and business name of the best mechanic in the area, unless she wanted to drive the 20 miles into the big city, but since she decided to settle here, she’d better figure out how to live this small town life and interact with the community as much as possible. Probably wasn’t a good thing to cause angst with anyone, since the reputation would undoubtly spread like wildfire by morning.

              Driving back into town took her passed Harold’s Groceries once again, and further down the road was a small café’, a gas station, a pub with the apt name of Moe’s Mind-blowing Mob, and even further down the road, before fields of green grass and tall trees took over again, was the only school in town attached to the local library. The last few houses of the small town became smaller and smaller in her rearview mirror, as she pushed down the gas pedal some more, following the loose road instructions she had been given to the mechanic.

              “Alright, baby love. I think this might be it.” She said to Nova, babbling away in the back seat of the car as she turned into a large parking lot filled with cars either missing entire engines, or hiked up on stilts for some underground work.”Must be it. Who else would have this many cars parked outside.” She said out loud, speaking to Nova as if she was part of the car related conversation. She put her car in park, lifted out Nova in the car seat and flung it over her lower arm as she had done so many times before, heading towards the two large opened doors, leading into a building the size of a smaller plane hangar.

              “Hello!” She called out and heard her own voice echo off the walls in the large hall, which was filled with even more cars, and endless walls of unknown tools. No response came back from her call.

              “Hello, is it anybody here?” She tried again. Suddenly shuffling was heard from a few cars down, and two long dirty legs came rolling out from beneath one of the cars on a creeper. Long jeans clad legs, a hint of a tauntingly fit belly peeking out between the waist band of his pants and his blue t-shirt. Standing up, facing away from her, placing a few tools on the hood of the car, the tall man slowly turned in her direction. “Yeah, what can I help you with?”

              Their eyes locked, and during those few seconds it seemed as if time stood still.

              “Hey, you’re the girl from the parking lot at Harold’s yesterday. Am I right?” He said, as a matter of factly, wiping off his grimy hands with a white fabric cloth immediately turning dark brown.

              “Yes, I am.” She answered, holding Nova’s car seat even tighter to her body. He had looked cute yesterday, but with some work sweat going over his vigorous body, his hair a bit messy, and a few days long stubble across his face, he looked absolutely gorgeous today. She suddenly felt a slight blush coming over her face, and she instantly looked down at her feet as if rubbing away some imaginary dust underneath her boots.

              “So, what brings you here?” He said calmly, throwing the dirty cloth away into a pile of others around the corner of the car, and walked over to wash his hands on the sink sitting on the wall.

              “I’m… uhm… my car.” She wouldn’t let him see her blush, even though it was quite remarkable in color. At the same time she couldn’t even finish a simple sentence knowing the smirky smile he was sporting must have come from noticing her embarrassment.

              “Yeah, you probably came for your car. What’s wrong with it? It looked good from what I could see at the parking lot, you know, before you told me off.” Damn it, she wished he didn’t remember that, but who wouldn’t. She had to learn to keep her mouth shut sometimes, otherwise these situations would just keep repeating themselves.

              “Well, the car is running great, it’s just the a…. the a… you know the light?” God, she sounded like an imbecile.
The light
. She kept repeating to herself, as she turned around with Nova still in her seat on her arm and walked out to her parked vehicle outside the large hangar doors. She couldn’t look at him, and needed an excuse to walk away and cool down her burning skin until she could face him again.

              As soon as she reached her car, and put down Nova’s seat on the ground, she heard a few heavy footsteps behind her, and suddenly he was standing right next to the hood of the car.

              “You mean this light?” He said, with a smile, and with one hand in his pocket his other pointed at her left turn signal missing its glass covering.

              “Um, yeah.” The most clever answer she could come up with. He nodded down at the light with a smile, and then looked right at her.

              “I’ll order a new light for you. They don’t make just the glass replacements anymore. You have to replace the whole light socket, but I’ll do it. Can have it here by next week hopefully.” Running his large hand over his lower face he looked down at the car seat sitting next to the front door of the car. Nova cooed and chewed away on toy.

              “Congratulations, how old is your daughter?” She looked smilingly down at her daughter, then let her eyes wander back up to his, staring intensely into hers.

              “Her name is Nova, and she’s nine months already. Time goes fast when they’re this little.”

              He nodded, and looked back down at her daughter. “Didn’t see the baby with you at the parking lot yesterday.”

              “No, I had a friend sit with her for just a few minutes while I ran into town for some things.”

              “Oh, okay.” He kept nodding his head. “So, anyway, you want me to order that part for the car?” Change of topic.

              “Um, yes please. If it’s not too much trouble?”

              “No problem at all, just need you to come inside and fill out the order information before you leave.” He turned on his heel and pointed her back inside the building again. With Nova’s seat back on her arm, she followed quickly in his steady steps across the floor to the little counter filled up with papers, magazines, and laptop.

              “So, I need your name, address, and payment information on this piece of paper and then you’re good to go.” He handed her an order sheet and a pen. Their fingers touched slightly as she grabbed the pen from his strong fingers, and something instantly ignited inside her. Immediately she looked up at his face and noticed he must have felt something too, staring right back into her eyes. Quickly he turned away toward the laptop, typing in some random numbers, while she filled out the information needed to place the order. As soon as she was done, she placed the pen next to the sheet and gave him the paper over the counter. He slowly looked it over, and nodded once more.

              “So, your name is Raylyn? Well, nice to meet you.” He said and kept looking the form over.

              “Oh, I’m sorry.” She answered. “I should probably have started with that. I didn’t mean to be rude... well, yeah, I’m Raylyn, and you’re Jeff right?” She said, pretending she was thinking really hard trying to remember it from yesterday, even though she knew it as clear as the day.

              “Yep, Jeff it is.” He said, letting that small smile arrive on his face once more while typing in her information on the screen in front of him.

              “Jeff as in… Jeff Daniels, the actor perhaps? Or Jeff Gordon, the race car driver?” She hinted jokingly, trying to break the nervous streak she still had going on around him. He smiled a bit bigger, and kept writing.

              “No, Jefferson Davis actually. My folks were digging deep into the history books when they named me. It’s just not something I usually mention. Jeff for short is fine.” He finally turned around and placed her paper on the counter in front of her. “Alright, Raylyn…” He didn’t make it any further before she cut him off.

              “I’m Raylyn because my blonde hair made my parents think of rays of sunlight when I was born… sorry, I don’t know why I said that. I’m sorry I interrupted you.” His smile crept up even further, and being this close face to face over the counter, it gave her a glimpse of his teeth between two very good looking lips. Lips she would like to taste.