Which was usually too late, but what-the-fuck-ever.
I’d deal just like I always did.Chapter 6
Describe your sex life using a movie title: How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days
-Sadly, Royal’s actual love life explained far too well.
Royal
It was the coughing that had me putting my helmet on the bench and walking to the bay door.
Someone—the someone that I refused to think about—was coughing so hard and much that they sounded like they were dying.
I looked across the street and contemplated ignoring it, but I couldn’t do it any longer.
He sounded really bad.
Walking to the office, I hollered at Stratton.
“I’m going to get a Dr. Pepper,” I said. “Do you want one?”
“No,” he called right back. “I just went and got one.”
“Thanks for the offer, asshole,” I called.
His laughter followed me across the parking lot.
Instead of going straight to his shop, I really did stop in and get a Dr. Pepper.
After studying my brother’s face—which was healing fast, but still covered in sickly colored yellow bruises—I heated half of my Dr. Pepper up in the microwave.
“Someone sick?” he asked.
“The mechanic right next door,” I said. “He’s coughing so bad that I can’t hear myself think. I’m bringing him this drink in hopes that it helps.”
Jimmy grunted. “Tell him thanks for saving my chair. I went by yesterday to tell him, but he wasn’t in. The shop was closed, and he had a sign on the door that said he was at the doctor.”
I nodded.
“Will do,” I said as I pulled the paper cup from the microwave and nodded at Jimmy.
“Dinner at six?”
He grunted out an affirmative, and I left the store, only to be assaulted by the coughing as soon as I no longer had the shield of the store around me.
Rounding the corner of the convenience store, I came to a stop in the mechanic’s shop and stilled.
My eyes took everything in, and I was in awe.
I hadn’t actually been over here in a while. At least since it was owned by the previous tenants.
But the old, nasty mechanic shop had been transformed into a cleaner version of its former self. It was also bright and airy instead of dark and dingy.
The coughing man that I’d come to see was bent over the hood of a classic muscle car that had gleaming cherry red paint.
Justice was tightening a wrench on a bolt on the motor while simultaneously coughing his lungs up.
I cleared my throat and his head turned in my direction.
I hadn’t surprised him. He’d known I was there.
No surprise there.
He stood up straight and breathed deep.
I could hear his wheeze all the way from where I was standing.
“You sound awful,” I found myself saying.
“Feel awful,” he agreed. “What are you doing here?”
I held up the paper cup and said, “Got you a drink.”
His eyes lowered.
“What is it?”
He made no move to take it, and my lips twitched.
“It’s heated up Dr. Pepper,” I said. “I drink it when I’m sick and have a cough like you. I swear to God, it works.”
Justice’s eyes narrowed. “Really?”
“Promise.” I crossed my heart with the half a bottle of cold Dr. Pepper. “It works. I swear.”
He walked over to me, and my breath caught as I watched him move.
He was sexy as hell, even obviously sick as he was.
When he got closer, I could hear his wheezing even better.
“Why are you working when you’re so obviously sick?” I wondered, holding out the cup.
He gestured for me to come deeper into the shop and took the cup as he did.
I followed him into the small office that I could see toward the back of the shop.
“I have a deadline.” He gestured to the muscle car with his thumb.
I looked at the muscle car with a disinterested eye.
“I can hear you all the way at the shop,” I told him. “Your hacking is concerning.”
He grunted out a ‘whatever’ and then looked at the drink in his hand as if he was actually considering drinking it.
I knew it was a possibility that he wouldn’t, but with him considering it, he must’ve been feeling awful.
He started hacking again, and I walked up to him and took the drink before he could spill it.
He bent over and rested his hands on his knees, his head hanging limply.
I got concerned when his face turned a bit white, then blue.
I took a step forward and started pounding my hand down on his back.
“Jesus,” I said. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
He stood up straight, but only long enough to pull out an inhaler from his pocket. He roughly yanked the cap off, then placed the inhaler to his lips.
“How many times have you had to use that?” I asked as I watched him hold his breath after taking the first puff.
His eyes met mine as he let loose the breath he’d been holding. But he didn’t say anything while he took another puff, holding his breath so long that his eyes started to water.