Charlie rolled her eyes and sighed as she picked up her cell phone. This was going to be an awkward conversation. Even though she went to college in the same city where her Uncle Miles lived, they had hardly talked in the time she'd been there. He had some weird history with her parents, so there wasn't exactly a lot of family love lost between them. But now, Charlie needed a favor.
On the other end of the line, Miles picked up. "Hello?"
"Hey, Miles, it's Charlie. Um, your niece."
She could practically hear his impatience through the line. "I know who you are, Charlie. What's up?"
"Actually," she said, going for the direct approach, "I need a favor."
"Great," Miles said under his breath, then more audibly. "What can I do for you, kid?"
"Um, so… I'm in this class. A business seminar. Actually it's more like a workshop." Miles' silence on the other end let her know just how uninterested he was in this explanation. "Anyway, our assignment for the semester is to, um. Go find a job we think we would never do normally. To learn about an industry we know nothing about and study it as an outsider, you know?"
"You're talking about the garage," Miles said, catching on immediately. Miles was the part-owner of Auto Haus, a specialty auto shop in town that specialized in fixing up obscure foreign cars. It was a second career of his after retiring from the Marines a few years back. He'd always been obsessed with cars and was now channeling that obsession into a thriving business.
"Yeah, exactly," Charlie said, relieved she didn't have to spell it out for him. "Would you be willing to, I don't know, give me an interview or something? See if I could work for you?"
"Because of course a garage is the last place on earth you would ever want to work." Charlie could hear the smirk in his voice. "Yeah, of course, Charlie. Come by tomorrow and we'll see if we can set you up."
"Thank you so much, Miles," she said. "You're really helping me out here."
"See ya, Charlie," he said, and hung up.
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The next day, Charlie got out of her car at the garage, smoothing her pencil skirt nervously. It had probably been overkill to wear a full interview suit just to talk to her uncle about a job, but she didn't want to seem like she was taking anything for granted. So she had on her best gray skirt suit, which annoyingly had gotten slightly too snug over the course of the semester, with a white silk button down underneath. It was fairly uncomfortable in the early-September Chicago heat.
Charlie walked up to the building, where she could see guys working through the open garage doors. She asked one of them where she could find Miles. Eyeing her up and down, he grinned and gestured toward an office in the back of the garage. Charlie walked over there, nervously stepping around cars and tools.
When Miles saw her, he seemed to be barely suppressing a grin. "Um, you're all dressed up," was how he greeted her.
"Miles," she said formally. "I wasn't sure if you'd want to interview me or what, so…"
He scoffed slightly and shook his head. "Don't really have time for that, we're really busy today. Look, um, why don't you just go from bay to bay and ask the guys if they need you to get anything for them. Rags, tools, whatever. Think you can handle that for your first day?"
Charlie hesitated. "Um… I guess. I don't really know where anything is."
Miles shrugged. "You're smart, you'll figure it out. Ask the guys. Look, I gotta customer who's pissed off out front so I have to get back out there, but I'll catch up with you in a little bit." Looking over her shoulder, he added, "Oh, good, there's Bass. Hey, Bass!" he called. "Come here a sec."
Charlie turned to see who Miles was addressing, and her heart leapt with excitement. Loping toward them, brow furrowed in curiosity, was possibly the most beautiful man she'd ever seen. On second glance, he was probably a lot older than her, maybe even as old as her uncle. But his chiseled features, his intense blue eyes, his slightly unruly curls… yeah, he made it work.
Charlie forced herself to breathe and act normal as Miles introduced her to this guy—Bass—and explained that he had to get to a customer but asked if Bass could help Charlie get set up with some projects. It was obvious Miles had better things to do than help his kid niece find ways to keep herself busy in his garage.
"Yeah, no problem," Bass responded. Miles quickly turned and walked off. Glancing at Charlie, Bass said, "Follow me." He didn't say anything else as he led her over to a nearby car, but Charlie thought she could feel tension radiating off him for some reason. They stopped at a bay where a tall, muscular, dark-haired guy was working.
"Neville," Bass said. The guy stopped what he was doing and glanced up.
"Hey, boss," he said. Noticing Charlie, he asked, "Who's the librarian?"
Charlie felt her face flush with embarrassment and a little bit of anger. Like this guy had room to talk, with his goofy shop shirt and greasy jeans. "I'm Charlie," she spoke up. "Miles' niece. I'm here to help out for a little while."
The guy was no longer paying attention to Bass. "Hi Charlie. I'm Jason," he held out his hand to shake, seemingly uncaring that it was covered with sweat and oil. Charlie took it and pumped it firmly, cracking a small smile.
"Alright, looks like you two are good," Bass commented, and Charlie's heart sank as she realized he was pawning her off on Jason. "Charlie, let me know if you need anything." He turned and walked off, and Charlie forced herself not to stare after him.
For the next couple hours, Charlie learned what Jason was doing on the car he was working on, ran a few errands for him to get supplies, and met the guys who were working around him and started helping them out, too. The time actually flew by as she learned a completely new language of cars and parts, and she was enjoying herself, despite her outfit having been completely ruined. The garage was hot and stuffy, despite the doors being open, so she was sweating hard, and inevitably grease, oil, and dirt were getting smeared on her blouse and skirt. Fortunately, Charlie wasn't one to get too worked up about her clothes. Frankly, she couldn't wait to wear jeans from then on.
One of the guys sent her back to the storeroom for another bottle of transmission fluid. The bottles were relatively big, and she didn't see any on the first few shelves. High up above her head, she saw a box with the brand name she was looking for on it. Narrowing her eyes with determination, she reached up over her head and slowly began shifting the box toward the edge of the shelf, figuring she could pull it down and get what she needed.
It wasn't until the box was tilting toward her that she realized it was much heavier than she'd originally realized. It tipped over the edge of the shelf, and Charlie desperately held it up with both hands, letting out an involuntary scream. She couldn't lower the box down and keep control, and if she let it go, it would plummet down onto her head. "Damnit!" she yelled, pushing futilely against the bottom of the box, not wanting to call for help and seem weak. She felt her arms start to shake with the effort of holding it up.
Suddenly, there was a strong presence behind her, arms reaching around her, supporting the box and heaving it back up onto the shelf. Once it was securely in place, Charlie's arms collapsed to her side, and without really thinking about it, she stumbled backward into the man who had saved her. Warm arms wrapped around her for just a second as she regained her balance, and she laughed with relief. Turning around, she started to say, "Thanks, that was really stup…"
The words died on her lips when she saw that it was Bass standing behind her, fixing her in place with an intense stare, clearly showing his displeasure at her having been in danger. After a moment, he said, "Yeah, it was. Stupid. I know you want to give a good impression here, but getting yourself crushed by a box really isn't necessary. Even the guys ask for help with that stuff."
Charlie nodded. "Yeah. Got it. Thanks for coming to my rescue." She involuntarily rubbed her arms where he'd caught her.
Something shifted in Bass's eyes, but it was gone as soon as she'd noticed it, and he just cracked an ironic smile. "Yeah, sure. Any time." With that, he turned and left the closet, leaving her alone.
Charlie realized she'd never gotten the bottle of fluid, but she just went back out to the floor and told Jason it had been too high up. He and another guy, Marco, ran and got what they needed. Charlie slipped back into the easy banter they'd had going before, but she was still shaken up by her encounter with Bass. The feeling of his body against hers, even for just a split second, had been electric. It was almost tempting to pull another box down onto her head just to see if he would save her again.
For the rest of the day, Charlie couldn't help but be aware of where Bass was, whether it was working on a car himself, giving instructions to the guys, or handling a customer. Strangely enough, she felt like he was watching her, too. Their eyes kept meeting across the room. Usually, one of them would immediately look away or pretend they'd been looking at something else. But a few times, the looks lingered, and Charlie forgot to breathe as she lost herself in Bass.
As they were winding up for the day, Jason asked her, "So how'd you like your first day in the garage?"
Charlie smiled, "I'm liking it more than I expected to. Though you guys really do smell terrible," she added.
Jason laughed. "You'll get used to it in another day or two, trust me."
"Yeah, I'm not sure that's a good thing," Charlie joked.
Still smiling at her, Jason asked, "So listen, Charlie, I know we just met, but if I don't do this now, I'll be like the tenth one of these guys in line, so I'm just going to ask you—do you want to go out sometime? Grab a drink around here or something?"
Charlie hesitated. Jason was certainly really good-looking. And of the guys she'd met that day, he was probably the one she'd clicked with most. Even though she didn't really feel like saying yes, she couldn't think of a reason to say no. So she nodded. "Sure. We could do that." She gave Jason her number and they planned to meet up at a nearby bar on Thursday night.
Just as Jason was putting away his phone with her contact newly saved, Charlie glanced up and saw Bass watching them. She couldn't quite read the look on his face, and it remained impassive as he stared her down for a couple of seconds then walked away. Charlie's heart began to race again. The crazy thought that she would have had no hesitation saying yes to going out with Bass raced through her head. Forcing herself to focus, she smiled at whatever Jason had just said, and nodded.
A while later, Charlie was in Miles' empty office, browsing the internet on his computer to kill time while waiting for him to come talk to her about her first day. The office opened into the garage's main area. Suddenly, she heard voices just outside the cracked-open door.
"Damn, what do you think of the new chick?" said a loud, grating voice she didn't recognize, though she had apparently met the guy that day. "She is a hot little tamale!"
Charlie heard a laugh, and her spine tingled as she suspected whose it was. Sure enough, Jason's voice replied, "Tamale? Whatever, man. She is fucking hot, though. Cool chick, too. We're going out later this week."
"Daaaaaamn, bro!" the first voice said, and Charlie heard the sound of slapping fives. She rolled her eyes. Guys. Idiots. "Hey boss!" the obnoxious voice continued. "Don't you think the new chick is hot?"
"What, Charlie?" Charlie's eyes widened as she recognized Bass' voice. "Don't let Miles overhear you saying that, I'm pretty sure he'd kick your ass."
"I'm not asking Miles, I'm asking you! You don't think she's pretty?"
Bass paused, and Charlie realized she was holding her breath. "Yeah, of course she's pretty. Way too young for me, but you guys have fun," Bass replied smoothly.
At that, Jason laughed again. "Too young? You're so full of shit. What was that girl you had around here last week, Mia? Leah? She was at least as young as Charlie, you didn't seem to mind then."
"Mia," Bass confirmed. "Yeah, that was nothing."
"Sure, nothing," the other guy said. "They're all nothing to you, right Mr. Bass? Just a new girl every week—it's nothing, for this guy! Some of us would kill for such nothing."
Bass snorted, then said, "Anyway. Like I said. Miles, niece, ass kicking, all of you. So watch it."
Jason and the other guy replied with "Whatever," "Sure man," "Okay," as the three of them apparently walked off to another part of the garage and their voices faded away. Charlie sat frozen in their wake, inexplicably disappointed that Bass thought she was too young for him. As if you thought he would be interested in you otherwise, she admonished herself. Just because he was one of the sexiest guys she'd ever laid eyes on, and he'd totally saved her earlier, was no reason to get all hung up on him. No reason at all, she decided.