Page 10 of Knot So Social

I check the rear rubber. “Yes, ma’am. This one’s balder than my boss.”

“All right.” She sniffles and offers a weak grin. “Next paycheck then.”

I doff my hat. “Drive safe, and have a good day.”

I walk back to my car, humming a merry tune, but it dies as I glimpse the dash clock. 8:10.

“Shit!”

I throw the car into gear and roar out into the road, risking narrow gaps in the traffic to get back on course. My pain-in-the-ass boss is gonna have plenty to say about me being late again. I screech into the parking lot, spraying gravel as I brake hard.

Sure enough, he’s waiting just inside the workshop, body rigid.

“Jeremy,” he begins, voice tight as a bow string as he slaps the bookings' clipboard.

This is not a good way to start the day. Not when it took me so long to get this job in the first place.

I raise my hands in surrender. “I’m sorry, Mr Kalone, but you see, there was a cat, and a lady with a flat tire and she was blocking traffic—”

“I don’t care what your excuse is!” he says, voice rising to a roar as he finishes. He folds his arms over his chest and his cheeks redden, making the blue veins right under his skin stand out more. “You are contracted to be here at the right fucking time, to put tires on our clients’ cars. I keep a tight schedule so we can all make a living in this damn economy, and now you’ve put us twenty minutes behind!”

He radiates fury like heat waves on a scorching day.

I sigh. “I am sorry, sir. But the lady said she’s coming—”

“I don’t fucking care if she’s an omega in heat! When I hire, I expect my employees to show up! And you, Jeremy, are not showing up.”

Icy fingers clutch my spine as I stare over his head at the workshop. The other lads keep their eyes on their cars, but of course they can hear us, or at least see what’s going on. How many times am I going to get chewed out like this?

Why can’t you follow through? If you make a commitment, keep it.

Maybe the woman would have managed on her own if I didn’t stop. But she needed help. It’s my fault for not leaving earlier. The job’s decent and I really want to do my best; I just keep losing track of time.

I clench my teeth together. All I wanted to do was help.

“Well? Can’t even apologize?” my boss hisses.

“I did, sir. I’m very sorry.” I lock my hands behind my back, unable to meet his eye. “Can I get on with the job now, so we don’t fall further behind?”

He shoves the clipboard into my chest and stalks away muttering. Can’t be sure, but I catch snippets of “Now he wants to work?” and “Kids these days.”

I check the first car on the list and grab keys off the big board near the office door to move it onto the ramps. I’d argue that I’m way past being a kid, but how many times has my family told me to grow up? I am grown up. My boots are the largest size available, my hat fits an adult head. But, like Peter Pan, I apparently lack some vital ingredient known as “growing up” that everyone else is guzzling faster than my truck sucks gas.

Is it so terrible to think people matter more than a job?

Mr Kalone disappears into his office to obsess over money, and I spend the day changing tires and doing wheel alignments. The garage also offers vehicle servicing, but I don’t have the training for that. Would be nice to perform the variety of tasks the other guys do, but at least I don’t need any gyms to keep my arms in shape.

Was planning to ask the boss this week if he’d consider transitioning me into an apprenticeship as a mechanic, but now I better wait awhile until he’s forgotten his anger. Which means I need to be on time for the rest of the month.

A mechanic is a respectable trade, and a trade’s a good job to have. Steady, reliable. Something people need. That was my brother Joel’s theory for going into the electrical field, and it worked well for him. Now he’s got his own company, and a fiancé. I’ll probably be hearing about kids any day.

In a word: successful. Synonym for “adulting.”

Joel’s the golden boy. We shared a womb, but the family has a sneaking suspicion he leached all the intelligence. Twins or not, he’s the child who always got it right. Maybe if I show I can settle down, hold a job for more than a year, then I’ll stop getting all those sidelong looks at Thanksgiving dinner. Maybe Joel and his new fiancé will want to spend time with me again.

And start my own family? Well, that doesn’t seem to be on my cards anytime soon. People swarm around me every day but none seem to see me.

I pause to wipe sweat off my face and straighten my back. A quick check of my phone reveals a few text messages, all from women I hooked up with to relieve some tension who want round two. But none of those simple lines of text ask about me. Just my availability. Might as well give my alpha cock its own hotline and bypass the man altogether.