Page 51 of Unrivaled Love
My goal now is to get her to want to open up to me. I clearly need to rebuild some trust and get her onside.
She waits for me to lead the way and I step past her towards the driveway. I wince at the sight of her smashed car. And the buzzing of the live wires in the air is a little terrifying. We steer clear and I approach the garage door and open the keypad.
"No power." She says in a dummy voice and I have to bite back my remark. Insulting her is not a good idea.
I move over to the little handle thing on the door and twist it like I saw my dad do once. I'm honestly not sure what's supposed to happen so imagine my delight when the door pops up a few inches.
"No problem, Killer." I tell her with a wink and I lift the door up the rest of the way.
Jo follows me into the garage and I head to the corner with all the hockey equipment.
Sticks are lined up along the wall. There's a bag of pucks hanging off a utility hook. And below them is a closed storage bin. In it are all the padsand gloves I grew out of but my parents never drove back to Grand Junction to resell.
The sweat in that equipment has fermented over the years being trapped inside this bin.
Jo knows it too because as soon as I move to pop the corner of the lid she backs up and covers her nose.
"You seriously put the scissors in there? We'll need to disinfect them!" She says with her nose pinched.
I chuckle but it gets cut short as the scent accosts my nostrils.
I manage to hold in my gag as I reach in and pull out the scissors and then the kitchen knives I also hid here.
"We should probably burn these," I say as I set them on the ground.
"Absolutely." She agrees with her nasally voice. I close the lid and lower the garage door. We head back to the front door and Jo uses the key to let us in.
"So are the pranks over now?" Jo asks as I start to cut down the yarn.
"Sure," I tell her. "I was running out of ideas anyways."
"No you weren't." She laughs and I join her because she's right.
I've got dozens of ideas for pranks I could pull on her but I want to do them in good fun. I want a future with her where we can prank each other and joke around and end the teasing with kisses and hugs.
Maybe it was seeing her sad. Maybe it was some of her confession that I commandeered. But I get the sense Jo needs a friend.
And I was her friend once.
And, being her friend is a good place to start if I want to be more than her friend.
"I was going to use these," Jo says as she holds up the nail clippers that were on the counter.
"To cut through all this yarn?" I ask with a laugh.
"That's all I had! And you were smart to hide the scissors in that bin. I would have never willingly opened it."
"I can be pretty smart if I put my mind to it."
"You can be very smart, Bryson." She says and I take the compliment with a smile and continue cutting the yarn.
***
"My mom is going to kill you for wasting all this by the way." Jo says as she helps me stuff the yarn into a garbage bag.
We’ve worked well together to get the yarn cut down. The angry tension is gone, the sexual tension too, as my erection deflated. The sun is setting but things feel brighter in the house despite the fading light.
"I'll replace it."
