Page 53 of Truck Me

Instead, I grumbled my way through shoveling it aside. Thankfully, my back door wasn’t as bad, and I avoided getting snow in my house.

Since I don’t have to work today, I decided to get some work done on Charlotte’s car while I’ve got a break. It’s the least I can do since … Well … I don’t really know. Since I fucked her?

I haven’t seen her since that night. My mind has been so distracted with thoughts of her that I don’t even know how much time has passed. A week? Two? I feel like I’m losing my damn mind.

My want to see her as turned into need. And I don’t need anyone.

That’s why I’m freezing my ass off in my garage, working on her car. If I get her car fixed, then that’s an excuse to go see her.

“Fuck,” I mumble and scrub my hands over my face. When did I become such a chicken shit? When I want to see a woman, I go see her. Period.

Since the woman you’re dying to see, touch, taste, and fuck is Rayne’s aunt—that’s when.

I head over to the wood-burning stove and add a couple more logs. It takes a while for it to warm up this large space, but once it does, I’m usually sweating. I could’ve put in central heating and cooling, but this old stove was in my grandfather’s garage before he passed. It had been in storage for years. When I decided to build my own garage, Grams said I could have it.

I didn’t get to know my Gramps before he passed, but I wish I had. Grams always talks so fondly of him. He sounds like he would have been a great father figure. Then again, it wouldn’t take much for someone to be a better father than my own. Having this stove here makes me feel like a part of Gramps is with me.

I check the thermometer, and it’s only two degrees outside and forty-seven degrees inside. That’s ten degrees warmer than it was before I started up the stove. In another hour or so, it should be warm enough that the chill no longer bothers me.

I turn to head back to the bench to get back to work on rebuilding Charlotte’s transmission, but I don’t make it two steps before Bullet is at my feet whining.

“What is it, girl?” I scratch behind her ears before I keep walking.

She runs in circles around me before she darts off toward the door and sits in front of it. A low growly whine comes out of her.

I frown. “You don’t need to go out again yet. Go lay down.”

She drops her head and slowly makes her way to her bed, close to the stove.

Bullet loves playing in the snow. If I’d let her, she’d run around out there for hours on end, but I don’t have time to keep an eye on her, nor do I want to freeze my ass off right now. I already did enough of that this morning, clearing a path to my garage.

I don’t get far into the transmission rebuild before my mind wanders back to Charlotte. Images of her long dark hair wrapped around my fist while her lips stretched around my dick have haunted me for days. The way she felt—all soft and warm to my hard and cold—has kept me up at night.

How many times am I going to do this to myself? She clearly doesn’t want a repeat. She hasn’t been back to visit me since that night.

I should let her go.

Forget it ever happened.

I shouldn’t have done it anyway.

Not with the history I have with Carol. She may be gone, but that doesn’t negate what we did or the relationship we had.

I cared deeply for Carol. We weren’t in love, but we enjoyed spending time together and the sex was fun, even a little adventurous. I knew I wasn’t the only one she was seeing, and we always used condoms. That’s largely why I never said anything to her parents after she died. I didn’t want to stir up shit when there was a high probability that I wasn’t Rayne’s father.

But now I’m not so sure. I see resemblances of me in her all the time. Especially our eyes. I don’t know if it’s wishful thinking or paranoia or regret. Regardless, I genuinely love that kid.

I’d do anything for her.

Even keep my damn mouth shut if it meant her life was never turned upside down and destroyed because I made the wrong decision ten years ago.

It’s why I can’t think about Charlotte in that way ever again. I have to get her out of my mind and life for good. Seeing her means risking this secret. Her family has enough problems. They don’t need me dropping a bomb on them that might destroy their family.

But Carol didn’t make me feel the way Charlotte does. I could go weeks without seeing Carol and I was fine. There were times we’d gone a couple months without so much as a conversation between hook-ups. We didn’t have that kind of relationship.

Charlotte haunts me. And it only seems to get worse with each passing day.

Somehow, despite my distracted thoughts, I get some work done on the transmission before I decide to take a break.