Bang Gang

She stopped trying to make me feel better. “He probably didn’t know,” she said. “That Mandy would blab like this, I mean. He hardly knows her.”

“I’d say he knows her pretty fucking well from the sounds of it.”

“She’s probably exaggerating… you know what she’s like… you can’t take her side of the story as gospel…”

“No,” I said, and downed my coffee. “I can’t take her word for it. Which is exactly why I’m going to hear it from the stud himself.” I grabbed my bag. “Right now.”

She grabbed hers, too.

Tonya let out a gasp as I swung my trusty little Ford into Trent’s yard. The adrenaline had me on edge, over-steering enough that I nearly clipped Betty Baker’s old Mini Cooper, but from the looks of the bumper on it, another little knock would be the least of her concerns. I pulled up with a screech beside Darren’s hulking black beast of a truck, and Tonya opened the passenger door right next to it, swung her legs out to give her a clear view of the garage entrance, then lit up a cigarette.

“I’ll wait here and block his exit,” she said. “Holler if you need me.”

“Enjoy the show,” I snipped.

She blew out a long plume of smoke. “I’m here as your cheerleader, not for entertainment.”

I rolled my eyes.

My legs felt weird and shaky as I crossed the tarmac to the garage office, mood veering between rage and this nasty little shard of hurt that wouldn’t stop stabbing. Darren Trent, trusted local mechanic, father of two. Foul-mouthed, arrogant, loyal, hardworking, infuriatingly stubborn, brooding, blunt, honest, hot…

… Gigolo.

Gigolo.

A fucking man-whore.

I still couldn’t quite believe it.

I tried the handle, but it was locked. Impossible. No way would Darren close up on a Monday. And his truck was here, bold as brass. You couldn’t miss the fucking thing.

I tried the handle again and it rattled but wouldn’t budge. I pressed my face to the dirty window and peered inside and there was nobody, just an empty counter. I knocked. Nothing.

What the fuck?

I walked around the side to the main shutters, and my heart did a flip as I saw the sports car there. A red Porsche, the kind of car that screams money. I checked out the badge and the licence plate — expensive and new and definitely not from these parts. I took a step towards it, checked out the scarlet paintwork, peered inside to see a woman’s jacket there, her makeup bag still open on the passenger seat. The shutter doors were down and bolted, the whole place closed up tight.

But Buck’s estate car was in its usual spot.

I rapped the shutters, then pressed my ear to the metal.

Nothing.

I rapped again until they rattled and shook.

Nothing.

I stepped back, looked around, scoped out my options as my heart thumped. He was fucking. Of course he was. The woman from the Porsche.

I shouldn’t care. Didn’t want to care. But the girls…

The village…

I hammered on the shutters again and this time there was rage in it.

“Darren! I know you’re in there! I need to talk to you!” Nothing. Not one fucking sign of life. I hammered again. “Darren! It’s about the girls!”

A clank from inside, and I knew he’d heard me. I folded my arms, waiting for the doors to open, not truly ready to believe he was fucking some posh Porsche-driving bitch in there on a Monday morning, but of course he fucking was.

She strolled out as soon as they cranked up, ducking a salon-blonde head under the door with a lipstick-smudged smirk on her face. Her dress was crumpled and her hair was greasy, and she had a black smear across her insanely huge cleavage.

Her diamonds caught the light and twinkled, and her toned legs looked so tanned. Her lips were plumped, and her eyes were glazed and cock-hungry.

She looked me up and down as she passed, and her snarky smile told me everything. She’d weighed me up in an instant and found me lacking, and suddenly I felt plain and awkward, my fingers brushing at the butter stain on my top even though she’d already seen it, already seen the circles under my eyes from a night up with Ruby’s night terrors, already seen the limp mousy hair that hadn’t seen a bottle of dye in years and the eyebrows that drastically needed shaping.

She’d seen me, and she’d judged me. Signed me off as a plain Jane battering down her ex’s door.

She shot a glance back towards the garage before she got into her car, blew a kiss and gave a big smile. “Till next time, boys.”

And then there was Darren, half-clad in the same pair of tatty old overalls he’d been wearing since he’d opened this place, yanking down the plain black t-shirt he’d certainly just pulled on over his head. His arms were as toned as they’d ever been, the dark lines of his tattoos twisting up around his elbows, smeared with oil.