Racing Hearts (Hollows Garage Book 3)

Carly had left, but was still distracting me. I was trying to get this transmission into a client’s car so I could work on her truck more, but it was not cooperating.

I saw Kye’s boots step up next to the car. “I got some news.”

“About?” I groaned, not having a clue what he was talking about.

“Carly and Slaughter.”

The transmission slipped, my shock making me lose my grip as it slipped through my hands, directly onto my chest.

“Fuck,” I yelled. A string of curse words followed the first one as I rolled the transmission off of me with a groan.

Kye had dropped down. “Why aren’t you using the jack for this?”

“Scout was using it,” I wheezed.

“Oh shit. You good?”

“Never better.” I rolled out, trying not to curl up in a ball from the pain. “What about Carly?”

“Slaughter was at Jake’s parts asking about her truck, and if anyone had come in for parts matching that year and model.”

I tried getting up, pain ripping through my chest and arms. “Well, I haven’t bought any specific parts there, so at least we are clear on that. What did Jake tell him?”

“Nothing as far as I understand. He told Slaughter that he can’t give out information like that. It’s not like Jake is ready to jump to help Slaughter. Remember, he ripped Jake off a few thousand dollars years ago? Now, Slaughter still walks in there like it never happened. Jake was pissed. He did ask why I was asking about Slaughter, though.”

“Did you tell him?” I trusted Kye, but as much as I liked Jake, he wasn’t a part of our crew and that meant I didn’t trust him knowing about Carly being here. The second Slaughter caught on that she was with us, things would blow up.

“Do you really think I would tell anyone our business?” he asked with a hard eye roll. “I told him that Slaughter might be giving us trouble again, and that’s it. I told him to let me know if he heard anything else.”

“Fuck,” I yelled again, shoving my hand into my hair before realizing it was still covered in fluid, and then swearing again because lifting my arm felt like ripping my chest open. “What am I going to do if Slaughter finds out before I’m done with this thing?” I asked, pointing at the torn apart truck in the corner.

Kye shrugged. He was the wrong person to ask, considering nothing like this seemed to bother him. “We deal with it. Kind of how we deal with everything else. You have six of us keeping an eye out, and keeping us one step ahead of him. I just wanted to let you know what I heard.”

“Yeah, and I appreciate it. You’re probably right. This is just stressing me out.” I rubbed at my chest, feeling the bruise already forming. “I’m heading home. I can’t deal with anything else today and have a feeling I will be if I stay.”

Kye nodded. “Go ahead. I’ll finish one up.”

I grabbed my stuff and my keys to head out. Some days I loved working on cars, most days I cursed the things endlessly until they ran right. Today was definitely a ‘cursing it endlessly’ day to begin with, and now that I had Carly on my mind, I had to see her.

THE APARTMENT WAS quiet when I walked in. No Riot running around and no Carly in the kitchen. I kicked off my boots and looked into the bedroom, but she wasn’t there either.

This time, I took a deep breath before I let myself panic, and told myself that they were probably out for another walk. It wasn’t exactly helping that I just found out that Slaughter was asking around town for her, but I couldn’t panic yet. Last time, I might have overreacted, but the thought of her back with Tristan and Slaughter made me sick to my stomach every time I thought about it.

I carefully set my stuff down and headed to the shower, not wanting to touch anything until I washed off the fluid that still covered me from the transmission.

I walked into the bathroom as I pulled off my shirt, but froze when I opened my eyes. The tub was overflowing with bubbles and two long legs were propped up on the side. The only other part of her showing were two perfect breasts that rose up from the sea of bubbles.

I tried to back up without making a sound. Her eyes were closed and headphones were in, so she hadn’t noticed me yet, but then my foot tangled in a shirt as I took another step back.

I swore and her eyes flew open, but before she could say a word, I was already falling, slipping on the scattered clothes. My back hit the floor with a thud, knocking the breath from my already-sore chest.

“Jax!” she yelled. “What are you doing in here?”

“Didn’t know.” I gasped for a full breath, each pull of air painful. “I didn’t know you were in here.”

I fought for shallow breaths, wondering if one fall could make my lungs collapse.

“And then decided to stay and watch when you saw that I was?” she yelled. I heard water splash as she moved around frantically.

“If you don’t move, I can’t see you from here,” I said. “Your mess of clothes tried to kill me and I need a minute before I can stand.”

The room was silent except for the faint noise of her angry music coming from the headphones. “Are you okay?”

“I think so. Just can’t breathe.”

“I am not getting out to help you.”

I gave a painful laugh. “Thank you for the concern.”

“Well, it’s hard to care when you just walked in on me naked.”

“And wet,” I said, regretting it the moment it came out, but she looked so hot it was hard to miss. Pain pinched between my shoulder blades, making me groan and helping to take my mind off her very wet body so close to me.

“Jax!” she yelled.

“You screaming my name is not going to help the situation.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means I just walked on the absolute hottest view in the world and I am trying to not make you more uncomfortable, but I will fail if you start saying my name like that.”

“How much did you see?”

“Listen, I’m not going to lie. I tried to be a gentleman and look away, but there was plenty to see before I did.”

Silence surrounded us again, and I didn’t fill it.

“Yeah, I know there is,” she said, her voice so low it almost sounded sad.

“That sounds like you took my comment the wrong way.”

“Nope. I got it.”

“I meant that those bubbles weren’t covering everything, so while I didn’t mean to, I saw some parts, and at risk of sounding like a pervert, the things I did see were pretty fucking great. None of what I said was a dig at you.”

She groaned. “Not helping.”

My lips twitched, but I hid my laugh. “Fine, then. How was the rest of your day? Where’s Riot? He wasn’t slobbering all over me yet. I assumed you were out on a walk.”

“He’s in the bedroom because he tries to get in the tub, and the rest of my day was fine. I didn’t realize you would be home so soon. I guess I lost track of time after I got back. I lose track of time so easily now with nowhere to go.”

“You aren’t entirely wrong on the time. I dropped a transmission on my chest. It hurt to breathe, so I decided to end the day a little early.” I decided right there that I wasn’t going to tell her about Slaughter asking around. There was no need to freak her out more right now.

“Are you serious?” she said, and I heard the bath water splashing around. “Are you okay?”

In seconds, she was next to me, a towel wrapped around her, covering everything now.

It was hard to cover up her cleavage, though, and it was currently in my face as she leaned over me.

“That doesn’t look good. Do you need to go to the hospital?”

“No. I’m good. It’s just going to be a bruise.”

“A very large one and it could hurt the muscle there. I’ll make you a salve for it. It won’t heal it, but it will hopefully cut down the time it will take to heal.”

“You’re going to make a salve?” I asked, trying not to laugh and cause more pain. “What does that even mean? Are you some sort of witch?”

“Maybe. You should probably be more careful around me just in case,” she said with a smirk. “In the meantime, I have a recipe for the salve and lucky for you, I grabbed all my weird ingredients at the store the other day.”

I stared up at her, determined to get the full smile that was threatening to show up.

“What kind of weird ingredients are we talking about? Like olive oil and tomatoes, or worms and dead bugs?”

She laughed, her hands still on my chest, and I didn’t want it to end. “Olive oil and tomatoes? I’m not rubbing an Italian dish all over your chest. And I don’t know what store you are going to that sells worms and dead bugs, but I meant more herbs, oils, and stuff.”

“Honestly, you could rub any of those things on me right now, and I would still be a happy man.”

She pulled back, dropping her hands from me as I groaned.

“Okay, this is done. Are you ready to get up and go?” she asked, seemingly trying to hide how red her cheeks were getting.

“I’m suddenly enjoying myself.”

“Enjoying laying on the bathroom floor?”

“Talking to you.”

The scowl that crossed her face was one that was becoming burned into my brain.

“Too bad,” she said.

“I’ll go. I’m going to close my eyes and get up. If I die slipping on more of your clothes, are you obligated to carry me out of here?”

“No, but I will be nice and let your friends know where you are as I run away. And close your eyes tight, no more looking. I’m already self conscious now.”

She helped pull me up, my eyes closed, and I tried not to open them as I felt around, while also trying not to comment that her body was a dream come true.

“I can promise that you should not feel self conscious. I didn’t see it all, but I have a very strong imagination and you definitely have nothing to feel self conscious about.”

“You’re saying that to be nice and I hate it. Now leave.”

Unless I started crawling across the floor to beg to see more, I couldn’t think of any other way to tell her that I liked what I saw in a way that wasn’t going to be weird.

I mean, I was suddenly fine with the idea of crawling back over to beg, but I didn’t think she would be.

I closed the door behind me, trying to calm myself with a deep breath, but pain pinched in my chest again.

Damn, I see one pair of boobs half covered in bubbles, and I was ready to drag her out of the tub and into my bed.

I had to stop. I was going to ruin my own life all over again by falling for the girl who had already made it clear she would be leaving me as soon as possible.

I groaned, realizing she locked Riot in my room, which meant my bed and blankets would be torn apart like he did every time he found a spot where he wanted to make himself comfortable.

But when I opened the door, all I saw was Riot on the bed, flipped onto his back, sleeping on perfectly straightened blankets.

“Apparently you like my bed?” I said, stripping off the last of my clothes and grabbing a towel. His head rolled to look at me, but he didn’t move, happy and content.

I sighed as my shoulders sagged. I was so tired, and still needed to clean myself up, but at least I could look forward to seeing what she was planning to put all over me. I was running myself into the ground at this point. Trying to make sure I was keeping up with work, her truck, life in general, and now Carly. The thought of coming home made me more excited each day, and I couldn’t find a way to stop it.

“I’m going to use someone else’s shower,” I yelled, knowing no one else would care.

“No, wait,” she ran out in the towel. “It’s all yours. I was just trying to clean up. I wasn’t trying to take it from you.”

I furrowed my face in confusion. “What? You weren’t. You’re allowed to bathe when you want.”

She looked up at me. “Yeah, but I didn’t want you to get mad that I was still in there when I knew you wanted to be. I just didn’t want to leave it a mess, too.”

I kept all my swear words to Slaughter to myself. Apparently, he made life hell for her, and that was more obvious by the minute.

“You aren’t second to me, Carly. You can use the bath before me, even if you are in there for hours, it’s fine. Even if I do want a shower,” I said with a laugh. She was trying to keep her head high and eyes hard, but she honestly looked upset.

Her face finally softened, and I made a small, careful step closer.

She was still staring, and I smiled more when I realized she wasn’t staring because she was freaked out. She was staring at me, and I was suddenly pleased that the towel was wrapped a little lower than normal around my waist, giving her plenty to look at.

“Carly, my eyes are up here,” I said, keeping a playful tone and hoping she would play along with me.

She jumped, a red covering her cheeks as the scowl set in. “How the hell does that happen? I have seen your fridge. You eat burgers and frozen food, and wash it down with energy drinks.”

“How does what happen?”

“Abs!” she yelled.

“Oh. I don’t know, good genetics? Working out, and constantly working on cars all day sweating my ass off?”

She made a sound of agreement before finally looking up at me. “I’m getting dressed and cooking. What do you want?”

I stepped closer, only a foot between us now. “Anything.”

She rolled her eyes. “Seriously? That seems like a trick somehow.”

“A trick? No. I will eat anything you cook.”

“Anything?”

“Yes. And don’t even test me, you will lose. You can cook any type of meat or cuisine and I’m eating it. Unless you purposefully make it disgusting.”

She looked back down at my chest, her lips pursing together and I couldn’t look away from them.

“Your bruise is already looking bad. I’ll make that salve right now, too. It will help it feel better in a day or two.”

“A chef and a witch? How did I get so lucky?”

“And here I thought you were still disappointed that I wasn’t some old man on the side of the road.”

“At first, it was really hard to come to terms with,” I said, shaking my head. “But then I realized there is nothing to be disappointed about with a roommate who knows how to cook, make potions and salve to heal me, and looks —” I stopped as her eyes trailed up my body, a hard, hooded, glare meeting my eyes. “You know? I’m going to go shower. I’ll help you after I’m done.”

She nodded, her face scrunched. “Good choice.”

I couldn’t figure out how I managed to find the hottest, angriest girl around sitting on the side of the road, and somehow convinced her to come back to my apartment, but I didn’t think I could push my luck.

I showered as fast as I could, still taking way too long to scrub off fluid and dirt. By the time I threw on shorts, grabbed a shirt, and came back out, she was cursing in the kitchen.

“You good in here?”

“No. Wait, no.” She turned to me, a bowl in her hand. “Don’t put on a shirt.”

“Happily, little witch.”

She rolled her eyes before reaching into the bowl and slathering my chest with a green, sticky goop.

“What does this stuff do exactly?”

“Basically just helps the muscle. The bruise won’t disappear immediately, but it should hurt less after tomorrow.”

I looked at her as she worked, slathering her potions across my chest.

“Thank you,” I said, enjoying the feel of her hands on me again, already wondering how many times I could ask to have this reapplied.

“That was very nice of you to make for me, and I will try to believe it was only because you wanted to help, and not because you wanted to run your hands all over my bare chest.”

Her mouth dropped open. I should have expected it, but I didn’t see it coming as her hand came up and smacked the sticky salve all over my cheek.