My ears perk up. “Oooh. Tell her to save me some. I’ll be by for dinner.”
“Fucking hell, Peck. She’s my girlfriend. Not yours.”
“Clearly,” I say, rolling my eyes. “But she likes cooking for me too. As friends. As family.”
He heads to his truck. “If I didn’t need ya around here, I might strangle ya.”
I laugh as I get back to the tractor. Satisfied that the oil is doing its thing, I head underneath the back end to check on a bearing. The gravel bites in my back as I get situated under the machine.
No matter how many rocks I pick out of my hair or how scraped up my skin gets, I’d never trade this job for anything in the world. Every project is like a puzzle I can solve. I know I can. And when I do take something broken and repair it, it gives me a high. When a farmer calls and asks Walker to send me to a field to get his equipment back on track, it maybe even gives me a purpose.
There’s nothing like it.
There’s nothing like knowing you’re useful, that you’re good at something. That someone needs you around … even if it’s for something as ordinary as fixing equipment.
I check the bearings and make sure they’re good. Climbing out from under the tractor, I watch a car pull into the parking lot. It’s a blue compact car with a cute little brunette in the driver’s seat.
Leaning against the tractor, I grin as Dylan steps out of the car.
“I’m Peck,” I call out. “Just thought I’d start everything off right this time.”
She grins. “I got that. Thanks.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I came to see you.”
I press off the tractor.
She’s so darn pretty.
I take her in as she approaches and realize I’m not even looking at her physical traits. I’m smiling at the possibility of what’s going to come from her mouth. Despite her jazzing me, bantering back and forth with her and having her give as good as she gets is entertaining.
I chuckle.
“What?” she asks.
“Nothing. What’s up? Need to blame me for some other deviant’s mistakes?”
“Ha-ha. No.”
I rub a hand down the side of my face. “Then are you coming to blindside guilt me into making a purchase for some random housewares that really have nothing to do with me?”
She drops her chin and looks at me through her lashes. “Really, Peck?”
“Ah, that’s a good sign! You’re using my real name.”
She tries not to laugh but fails. Finally, she gives in, and the sweet sound billows across the parking lot.
A truck honks as it passes, and I wave without looking at who it is.
“Your real name can’t be Peck,” she says.
“And why can’t it?”
The idea that maybe she’s just offended me flitters across her face. “Well, I guess it can. It just doesn’t seem like a proper first name. That’s all.”
“Is there such a thing as a proper first name these days? You’ve got kids named after space dust and fruit and cartoon characters. I don’t think Peck is that crazy, to be honest.”
She grins. “I dated a guy once—well, I don’t know if you could say I dated him, if you know what I mean. But anyway, his name was Prince. His actual God-given name was Prince. Who does that?”
I mumble something. What? I’m not sure. I’m too busy trying to shove off this idea of her going at it with some dude named Prince.
“Your name is Dylan,” I tease, rerouting my brain away from the guy I’ve decided I dislike. “What kind of name is that for a girl?”
“Hey, now. That was my grandma’s name.”
I jab at her with my elbow as I start to walk away from her. “I’m just kidding.”
She follows me across the parking lot, sidestepping the mud puddles. Her nose crinkles as she touches the water with the side of her foot.
I get to the door of Crank before her and pull it open. Watching her try to get by the last two holes—the deepest ones in the lot—will be the highlight of my day. She bites her lip as if calculating quantum physics as she studies the possibility of hopping between them.
“Um, you could go around them,” I suggest. “Or walk through them like I did.”
“Ew. No.”
“It’s water. It’s not gonna kill you.”
“It’s mud and oil and … stuff.” She sighs. “And I’m not going around them. This is my path, and I’m bending it to suit me.”
“Well, if you could bend it a little faster, that’d be great. All the air conditioning is going outside.”
She puts her hands on her hips. “You could shut the door.”
“And you could just walk through the damn puddle.”
Firing me a last playful glare, she tries to hop over the last two holes. Her shirt glues to her body as she bounces, her hair shifting around her shoulders. It’s playful and fun and fucking sexy, and I’m not prepared when she loses her balance. Her flip-flop must get wet because she slides to the side, her legs splitting apart into a wide stance, and she grabs my arm to steady herself.