Page 10 of Cassie
Want that for you
Cassie
Two weeks, she thought, easing into the chair at the kitchen table, the leather of her jacket creaking in response. Two weeks and two tries, and she had yet to make it into the garage except to escape with her car.At least the neighbors don’t think I’m weird for parking on the street. Or maybe they did, she didn’t know, because she hardly talked to any of them. “Okay. Today’s the day. Third time’s the charm,” she muttered, sweat breaking out across her face and shoulders. At least this sweat didn’t have anything to do with fear but was due to the massive black leather jacket she was wearing.
Her two weeks of working up to this hadn’t been spent idle. In between the demands of her job as fact researcher for an online technical magazine, she had gone shopping. Not in a store, of course, that would be predestined to wind up a disaster, but online where she could be anonymous. She snorted.Retail therapy done my way.
The jacket she wore, unremarkable in design, felt soft as butter against her skin, and fit her well. It should, as it was the third one she had ordered, finding out that the places that included measurements instead of sizes were the only ones that had a handle on what would work. Jacket, gloves, boots, headband—although, to be fair, that wasn’t leather—and she also had a pair of chaps on order.Today isn’t so cold I’ll need those just to walk to the garage, though, she thought and snorted again.
Today her goal was to walk to the garage, open the door, and go stand next to the motorcycle, helmet in hand. Mentally she rehearsed the things she needed to do. The first being stand from the safety of her chair.Yup, she thought,stand and walk to the door. Open it and walk outside. Five steps to the garage. With a sigh, she stood. And, immediately sat again, stomach quaking. “Nothing bad will happen.”
An hour later, she made it.
An hour after that, she was still standing beside the motorcycle, helmet in hand. Not because she was afraid, but because she had no idea what to do. If she sat on it, would it tip over? Could she break it if she pushed the wrong button? Would it roar to life and crash through the garage door if she did the wrong thing? Remembering the man who delivered the bike, she retreated to the house and found the card. Without giving herself time to chicken out, she dialed the number written there in bold ink and waited. A man answered, “You got the house, whatcha need?”
Looking at the card, she read aloud the name written there as if it were a question, “Tugboat?”
“Minute,” came the response and the call went silent. A moment later and a different man’s voice said, “You got Tug, whatcha need?”
“Mr. Tugboat,” she began and was startled to silence when he laughed loudly.
“Just Tugboat, or Tug, honey,” he told her warmly, amusement still in his voice. Cassie grimaced and made a mental note, hating she’d already messed up.
“Tug,” she began again, feeling stupid saying it because it seemed absurd to call a man by the same name you would a ship.Is a tugboat a ship, or a boat?“This is Cassie Williamson. You told me to call if I had questions—”
He interrupted her, his voice smooth and soothing, somehow becoming even more welcoming. “Yeah, I remember you. You picked up that pretty little cruiser we had. Nice choice. That’s a real nice bike. How’s she ride?”
She huffed out a silent sigh. He was right. The bike was pretty, and the way he’d immediately associated the machine as female, anthropomorphizing cold steel and paint into something more welcoming, seemed to fit.Girls need names, she thought, then dismissed it as she said, “Well, that’s kind of why—”
“You don’t ride, do you?” His question wasn’t condescending or snide, more like he was trying to make sure where he was in the conversation. Looking for a handle on a problem he wasn’t certain how to approach.
“Not actually, I don’t. That’s why I—”
“Be there in five,” he said, and the call disconnected.Disconnected. He’d hung up.
Her hands began to shake.
Be there in five.
As in minutes.
Her breath came faster until it was whistling through her nose on each inhalation and exhalation, darkness creeping in along the edges of her vision.
Be there in five. He was coming to her house.He’s coming here.
The distinctive sound of her garage door making its way up on the overhead tracks broke her out of her fog, suddenly aware she was shivering and wringing wet with a sweat definitely not to do with her choice of wardrobe. Whirling, she saw the man who had delivered the motorcycle coming out of the pass door, disappearing as he strode up the walkway towards her back door.
It hadn’t been five minutes. Surely it had only been seconds since the call disconnected.
Thump. “Miz Williamson. Cassie, honey, open up.”
Tug had come to her house. He’d found his place in their conversation and decided that place was here. He knew her name, calling it out as if they were long-separated friends, back together at last. “A minute,” she mouthed, aware on some level that the words hadn’t actually left her mouth.
“Cassie?”
“Jus—just…um. A, a minute,” she forced out. Her voice broke in the middle of each word and she first heard him respond, then saw him appear again walking towards the garage. He turned around right before going into the dark opening and through the window, across the short distance that separated them—their eyes locked. He paused and stood there. Simply stood looking at her, and then slowly his head tipped to one side.
She watched as poignant changes flowed across his face, the mustache that framed his mouth tying everything together in an expressive canvas painted with his responses to this connection hanging delicately between them.
