Manwich

Chapter 5

Chapter Two

I can’t believe I agreed to do this. The sentence ran over and over in Kayla’s mind the entire train ride from Downtown Crossing to Harvard Square. She emerged from the underground station into the warm June air. Skateboarders whirled around in the small brick island of the intersection. Kayla walked around them, past groups of tattooed and pierced punk rockers who hung out day and night in the central spot of the Square.

She crossed the intersection onto Massachusetts Avenue and made her way down the busy sidewalk, past the various brick buildings of Harvard University, toward the quieter residential streets behind them, all the while trying to work up the necessary courage to call the number on the card Lauren had given her. There’s no shame in it whatsoever, Lauren had said. Yeah, that’s because she wasn’t the one doing it.

Everything had seemed perfect until the moment Lauren had said that phrase—once you have the experience. She’d landed a coveted and lucrative ghostwriting position in a genre of fiction that interested her. Even the fact that Valerie Martin’s agent was right in downtown Boston, not in New York like most of the agents in the business, was a blessing. Instead of a plane ride, a simple ride on the T a few stops away from hers brought her to the office. Valerie herself lived on Beacon Hill and could walk to Lauren’s office. Well, she would be able to walk when she recovered from her accident.

Kayla reached her street, lined with duplex houses and shade-giving elms. As she turned off the sidewalk to her own house, she glanced in the driveway. Her neighbor, Shawn MacKay’s pickup was parked in the driveway and a boom box sitting on the edge of the tiny patch of lawn, blaring the Beatles song, “Help”.

Appropriate title, Kayla mused as she started up the steps. Her heart hitched slightly in her chest. She’d had a passionate crush on Shawn since shortly after he’d begun renting the other side of the duplex from her and her brother, Peter.

Normally, she went over and said hello, even though the mega-crush she had on him made her about as self-conscious as if her pants had fallen down around her ankles in the middle of Harvard Square. Today, however, in addition to her usual adolescent unease, she felt as if she had the phrase I’m about to have a ménage à trois with two hired men, pasted on her face. Hiding was infinitely preferable.

She started to make her way up the stairs, pretending she hadn’t seen him. Good trick, considering he was maybe twenty feet away, with the radio blaring.

“Hey, Kayla!”

Kayla froze on the third step, her heart crashing. Slowly she turned around, a smile pasted on her face. “Hi, Shawn.” She backed down the steps and started toward him.

He waved to her, smiling back and walked around the hood of his truck, wiping perspiration off his neck with a red bandanna. Stray wisps of golden hair hung over his forehead. He’d been working on his truck, shirtless and the early afternoon sun glinted off his chest. The man was the closest to Brad Pitt she was ever going to get. He was lean and muscled, blond hairs in a delicious covering over the generous hillocks of pectoral muscles. Even his smile resembled the movie star she often drooled over, complete with sensual, pouty lips, dimples, sparkling blue eyes and high cheekbones.

And wouldn’t you know, he had broken up with his last girlfriend about eight weeks ago. Or rather, she’d broken up with him. One early morning, sipping her coffee on the front porch, Kayla had watched the dark-haired, lithe model pack her matching luggage into her SUV and take off, never to be seen again.

He was still smiling at her when they met on the tiny patch of front lawn. He had a smudge of grease on his perspiring cheek. He could even make a smear of dirt look sexy.

Kayla fought to keep her legs from giving out on her, wondering if he could read the ménage sign posted on her forehead alongside the other sign that said, Yes, I find you the hottest guy on Earth.

“Hi, Shawn. How’s it going?” she asked and winced. She sounded a bit too casual to be convincing.

“Oh, can’t complain, except for the machine. Giving me problems today. But it’s my day off and I’m a mechanic, so what else am I going to do but work on a vehicle?”

She forced a chuckle, not liking the simmeringly erotic effect he was having on her in this particular moment. She was losing the battle not to peek at his taut waist and stomach, down the center of which ran a delicious-looking trail of golden-blond hair that disappeared into the waistband of his battered jeans.

He furrowed his brow, seeming to study her. “Hey, are you all right? You seem upset.”

She shook her head. “No, no, I’m fine. In fact, I got a really good job today.”

He nodded. “Sounds great. Why don’t we sit on the porch? You can tell me about it.”

Kayla nearly gasped. That eerie, having-woken-up-in-a-parallel-universe sensation was coming over her again. In all the time he’d lived next door, Shawn had never suggested socializing, even though they’d often chit-chatted here and there when outside at the same time or when she occasionally asked him to fix a broken appliance in her house. He worked many hours, since he owned his own shop. His free time had always been taken up with his girlfriend. “Okay,” she said. “I have some iced tea in the fridge. I’ll bring it out.”

“Sounds good. I’ll just put away my tools.”

Shawn watched Kayla go up the steps and disappear behind the screen door of her side of the house. He liked the way her curves filled out the linen skirt she wore and how her sleek calves flexed in her stockings with each step she took.

When she was gone, he turned to retrieve his tools from the pavement of the driveway and put his t-shirt back on. He still couldn’t believe he’d worked up the nerve to make a sort of “date” with her. Since Joanne had broken up with him, he’d been suffering a lack of confidence he’d never really experienced before. Not that he’d exactly been a rake to begin with but the relationship with Joanne had felt more akin to having his masculinity put through a meat grinder and then fed to hogs.

Having regained his bachelorhood, he’d done some reflecting and realized that the few other relationships he’d had before Joanne hadn’t gone much better. He seemed to have an unhealthy penchant for women who made a job of being disappointed in him, as if they’d expected him to become something other than a small business owner who fixed cars for a living. He’d begun to think that maybe something needed to change.

At first he’d considered giving up the idea of a relationship but certain parts of his anatomy didn’t want to go along. So, that decided, he started to rethink the type of woman he should go for. Shortly after that, Kayla had been out hanging her washing on the line in the backyard and he’d noticed her in a way he never had before.

Sure, she was pretty. He liked her soft blonde hair and the way she wore it pulled back. She’d been wearing a tank top and jeans that hugged her hips, exposing her belly button. He’d always thought she was cute and was surprised that he never saw any guys hanging around, with the exception of her older brother, who owned the house but was now working in an American bank in France.

Watching Kayla pin a blouse up on the line with careful movements, he’d noticed her softness, the gentle way she handled everything she touched. She seemed like a kind girl, somewhat shy and quiet. Those qualities had touched something deep inside him, revealing a need he’d probably had for a long time and ignored.

Silently observing her doing a simple household task in the yard in late spring, he’d found himself developing his first crush since grade school.

He wiped the grease off his wrench and pliers and put them back neatly in the toolbox, carrying it up to his front porch and setting it down. Kayla had a swing on her side of the porch and he went and sat down to wait for her, figuring she needed to change out of that cute little business suit she’d been wearing.

Apparently, she’d been to see that literary agent she had spoken about in the past. He knew enough about Kayla to know she loved to write but was too shy to try to publish her own work, even under a pen name. She had a terrible fear of rejection. Well, he certainly understood that fear, especially after Joanne had called him a goddamn perverted grease monkey, along with a few other choice names that put a dent in his sense of manhood. Joanne just couldn’t seem to understand that many men had a voyeur living inside them who loved to watch a woman pleasure herself. Had it been worth making him feel like a scum-sucker over asking her to do it?

He swung back and forth, watching some kids play with a ball in the yard across the street. That scene with Joanne was still painful to think about. But it hadn’t just been the wanting-to-watch-her-masturbate thing that made her leave. Their relationship had been suffering for months. Ever since Joanne’s modeling career had begun to take off, she hadn’t wanted to know him anymore. She hadn’t wanted to be with a guy who owned an automotive shop for a living and came home with grease under his fingernails. And, well, he was all for the woman in his life having a career but it had looked like they were barely ever going to see each other and he’d had a lot to say about that. Joanne hadn’t liked what he’d had to say.

The screen door creaked open behind him and Kayla came out, carrying two glasses of iced tea. He stood up and took one of the glasses from her. As he’d thought, she’d changed into one of her tank tops and a denim skirt that reached just above her knees. And she sure looked pretty. His gaze stole to the smooth, pale skin of her neck and upper chest. Her breasts weren’t large but their round fullness pressed against the knit material of her blue top, stirring his imagination, as well as some other parts of his anatomy. “Thanks, Kayla.” He sat back down and slid over to make room for her. “I appreciate it.”

She smiled. And a very pretty smile it was. Her lips, already full, curved upward in a delicious way and her blue eyes warmed in spite of that air of shyness she carried with her all the time. “No problem. It’s pretty warm today and you looked like you were working hard.”

He chuckled and wiped the cold glass across his forehead. “I was hardly working, really.”

The swing moved slightly as she settled onto the slatted seat not far from him. He tried not to stare at the smooth skin of her thighs.

“Well, it looks like hard work to me, repairing cars. I can’t tell one end from the other.” Her gaze settled on the two children he’d been watching a few moments earlier. She seemed hesitant to look him in the eyes. “Really, I’ve always admired that you can do that stuff.”

She glanced at him, sending a frisson of warmth through him. It shouldn’t feel that good to have a woman compliment him but it did.

She nodded. “If I had a car, I’d bring it to your shop.” Peter had offered to leave her his car when he moved to France but she knew she didn’t need one living in the city and so he’d sold it and gave her the money to use for bills.

He smiled and took a sip of iced tea. “If you had a car, I’d fix it for you. I fixed Peter’s.”

Kayla’s cheeks burned a shade of pink and she looked down. That was how they’d met.

A somewhat awkward silence settled over them.

Shawn decided to break it. “So, what’s this new job you mentioned before?”

Her gaze snapped up, blue eyes wide. She looked alarmed. “Job?”

“Yeah, you told me a few minutes ago you got a really good job today. I assume it was writing?”

Her features relaxed somewhat. “Oh…of course! The job. Yeah. A famous romance writer, Valerie Martin, needs me to finish her current manuscript. You probably haven’t heard of her.”

He shook his head. Being a guy, the thought of reading a romance novel kind of churned his stomach. “No, can’t say I have.”

She chuckled. “I wouldn’t have thought so.”

He leaned against the back of the swing. It was nice just sitting here with Kayla, chatting. “Oh, wait, you don’t mean the writer who’s been in the news? The car accident?”

“That’s her. Poor woman.”

“I hope she’ll be okay.”

Kayla nodded. “Thank God, she doesn’t have any internal injuries. Lots of broken bones that left her unable to work.”

“This is the kind of thing she’s had you in the background for, I guess.”

“It is. It’s a bummer that she has to suffer like that, though.”

“That’s for sure. I’ve had my share of broken bones. When I was a kid, I used to love climbing trees, no matter how high or how slippery. It hurts.”

“I’ve never had that happen,” she said. “I’ve never been terribly daring. I never even liked to do cartwheels.”

He grinned. “Then it’s pretty gutsy of you to be finishing a manuscript for this bigwig writer.”

She looked down. “My name won’t be on it or anything like that.”

“That doesn’t matter. It’s brave anyway. I couldn’t do it. I can’t imagine writing a novel.”

He took a sip from his glass and, from the corner of his eye, saw her staring at him. He turned. “Did I say something bad?”

“No, not at all. It’s just refreshing to hear someone not talk about writing romance as if it’s as easy as writing a shopping list. So many people think that somehow it takes less work to write romance than something literary.”

He smiled in a way he hoped was sympathetic to the lament in her voice. “I majored in English and philosophy in college and I know how hard it is to compose anything. Writing is writing.”

Her lips curved upward in a shy return smile. “I appreciate your saying that. I knew you studied those things but I’ve never asked how you came from there to owning an automotive shop. May I ask?”

He sloshed the melting ice cubes gently around in his glass. “You may. I had my own little shop from my garage at home. That’s how I worked my way through school. It was so successful, I expanded it.” He shrugged. “I like working with my hands. I studied English and philosophy simply for the joy of reading and discussing.”

She was watching him again. Her blue eyes felt like a caress on his face, rather than the withering glare Joanne had given him every five minutes in the death throes of their relationship. He found kindness rather refreshing.

“So, what is Valerie Martin’s book about?”

She looked away, the pink in her cheeks deepening again. “You know, the usual. A woman is escaping an unwanted marriage. The hero, Ethan, is asked to track her down. They fall in love and well, there are complications. The thing is, Valerie was halfway through when this accident happened. That leaves me exactly one month to write nearly half a novel.”

He whistled. “Wow. That’s a lot. Like I said, you’ve got guts, Kayla.”

She looked down and smiled that sweet, shy smile of hers. A little fist inside him was giving him a knuckle sandwich for not having noticed her sooner.

They sat and chatted for a few more minutes, until their iced tea glasses were empty. He murmured something about how he shouldn’t keep her from her writing. She did look quite distressed at the mention of writing and Shawn wished he could help her but he couldn’t imagine how.

He thanked her for the iced tea and went down the steps, crossing over to his side of the duplex. He decided to take a shower and spend some time reading before he called his folks to find out when his kid brother was coming for a visit. He hoped Ryan would be there to help him celebrate his thirty-third birthday at their mother’s house the following week but Ryan was an up-and-coming photojournalist who tromped around the globe to exotic destinations, snapping pictures for journals such as National Geographic and getting into spots of danger at times.

Shawn shook his head, hating, as always, that he had to worry about Ryan that way. But Ryan had their mother’s stubborn nature and had never given up going to the world’s political hot spots, no matter how much Shawn implored him. Well, everyone had a wild streak and that was Ryan’s. One day, however, Shawn decided, he’d find a way to get Ryan to stay a bit closer to home. And out of harm’s way.

Shawn went into the house and to his bedroom. He pulled off his t-shirt and tossed it on the bed. As he did so, his eye fell on a book on the bedside table on what had once been Joanne’s side of the bed. Funny how he hadn’t noticed it before. He went over and picked it up. A romance by Valerie Martin. Eerie coincidence.

The cover showed a woman in a Victorian-style dress with tight corset and bodice in the arms of a big-muscled galoot whose lips were suctioned to her neck. Passion’s Embrace. He chuckled and opened to the back inside cover, where there was a small black-and-white photograph of the author, an attractive woman in her early forties with glitzy makeup and a perfect brunette coiffure. Somehow, he couldn’t picture Kayla, with her innocent farm-girl looks, in such a photograph as this.

He went on to read the blurb. One phrase in particular caught his eye. Miss Martin is a firm believer in writing only from experience, love scenes included. She attributes her growing success to this philosophy.

Shawn read the sentence over. And then once more. Hmm. Suddenly, he found himself wickedly curious about the manuscript that Kayla would be working on for Valerie Martin. He put the book back down on the nightstand. Mind your own business, McKay. He continued to strip off his jeans and boxers and went to the bathroom, turning the shower on. Cold.

He tried to think of other things while he showered, dried off and dressed but the fact that Kayla was writing for Valerie Martin and that there was a book by the same author on his bedside table was too much coincidence to stop giving it his attention. That and the fact that, well, Kayla was really pretty and sweet. This afternoon, stealing glances at her thighs and the skin that was exposed by her tank top, the full swells of her breasts against the soft material, all he’d wanted to do was… Well, for starters, do what the guy on the cover of that romance novel was about to do to the woman on the cover.

Shawn heaved a large sigh as he felt his lack of confidence rear its ugly head. He thought of Joanne and grimaced, wondering how much longer he’d let the insults she’d hurled at him control his actions and feelings. Wasn’t two months long enough for that?

He decided it was. Christ! Since when did he take so long to bounce back? How long would Shawn MacKay, from a blue-collar neighborhood in South Boston, who’d worked his way into a prestigious college, graduated with honors and a double major and built his own business, let some would-be supermodel make him feel unworthy?

Shawn combed his wet hair back and looked at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Asking his next-door neighbor out for pizza couldn’t be as big a risk as some he’d taken in his life but at this moment, it felt like one. He looked into his own eyes, trying to discern his true motivation for wanting to ask her out. Did he genuinely like her, or was there some sort of itch, some rousing curiosity he needed to satisfy?

The answer wasn’t clear and there was only one way to find out.

Before he could lose his nerve, he headed out of the house, finding himself at Kayla’s door. Within seconds of his knock, he heard her footsteps on the hardwood floor of the hall. The door opened and that shy smile spread across her face when her blue gaze met with his. She also looked a bit puzzled.

“Hi, Shawn.”

He pushed his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. “Hi. Kayla, I was wondering, are you working tonight?”

Her eyebrows rose. “Actually, I have the night off.”

His heart thumped in his chest. “Well, I know you have a lot of work to do on that book but I was hoping you’d go get some pizza with me later.”