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“You having grilled cheese and soup today?” Haley asks.
“Yes, please. Can I have a chocolate shake with it?”
“Absolutely. Are you taking it to go?”
“I am. I want to get back to the garage,” she says, still not looking at Ghost or me.
“She’s stayin’ here for lunch. Autumn, you don’t get paid to work for lunch so you can stay here with us,” I tell her, not letting her argue with me.
Haley nods her head before taking the order back and getting to work on Autumn’s milkshake.
“First of all, it doesn’t matter where I eat my lunch. If I want to go back to the garage, I can. You don’t own me, Brick. Hell, you haven’t talked to me in weeks. So, if I don’t want to sit with either one of you for a meal, then I don’t have to. You had your fun and I haven’t made a big deal out of it. I told Ghost I wasn’t going to make a big deal out of it or be clingy. Have I done that? No, I haven’t. You both decided to start ignoring me, and that’s fine. So, keep on doing that and we can continue on as we have been,” Autumn grinds out, showing us the fire we don’t really get to see. No one gets to see this part of her if I’m correct.
“You’re right, we’ve both been ignorin’ you and there’s no reason for it. We’re all adults and spent some time together. I don’t usually act this way when I’ve been with a woman. All I can do is apologize and try to work on it movin’ forward. That starts with us havin’ lunch together today,” I tell her, not sure what the fuck I’m doing when I just said I wasn’t gonna get close to her or spend time with her when I didn’t have to.
“I call bullshit,” Autumn says as Haley returns with her shake and our sodas.
“Autumn, I know things have been awkward and shit, but that’s on us. We’re not used to bein’ with women who haven’t had sex before and we’ve handled the entire situation wrong. So that is most definitely on us. Brick and I can be assholes, but you’ve done nothin’ wrong. You’ve done everythin’ you said you would. I’m sorry for makin’ you think you did somethin’ wrong or if you’ve felt any type of way in the last few weeks,” Ghost says once Haley leaves us alone again.
“And you should know that nothin’ happened with that club girl. I wasn’t gonna let anythin’ happen with her,” I tell Autumn before taking a sip of my coffee.
“It doesn’t really matter if you do have sex with her. We’re not together and I don’t have any kind of ownership of either one of you. I’m simply one more girl in a long line of them. There’s no reason I need to know anything about who you do and don’t have sex with,” she says, though I can see the pain filling her eyes.
Autumn wants more from us than what she’s made out. I don’t know if it’s just us in her bed again or something more. What I do know is this silence from us has been hurting her and there’s no reason for it. We don’t go out of our way to hurt women for any reason. Yet, we’ve done so with her. I’m pissed at myself for how wrong we’ve handled everything.
“Can we be friends?” Ghost asks her, hope filling his eyes as he turns to face her fully.
“I don’t know, Ghost. I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be in Cedar Bay. There’s no point in us being friends when I’m just going to leave. Quinn is my friend and that’s all I need.”
“Hey!” Haley says as she brings our food over. “I’m your friend too, Autumn. If you don’t want to hang out in a group, which I completely understand, we can hang out alone. You just have to let us in.”
“I know, Haley. The thing is I don’t know how long I’ll actually be in Cedar Bay. So, the closer I get to people here, the harder it will be to leave. I know how much it hurts to be left behind and I’m not about to willingly do that to anyone else. I’m sorry,” Autumn says, accepting her plate and turning her face toward the food as I look at her.
There is so fucking much we don’t know about Autumn and I have no doubt in my mind that she’s not going to let any of us get close to her now. None of the girls have pushed to include her or spend any amount of time with her except for my sister. Ghost and I completely fucked everything up by ignoring her. Autumn doesn’t seem like someone who forgets things too easily and our actions have made things very clear to her. At least in her mind. Venom is going to have to come up with another plan for getting personal information about this woman because she’s not gonna let anyone else in. I thought Ghost and I had trust issues and kept people locked out. We’ve got nothing compared to Autumn.
Autumn quickly eats her lunch before asking Ghost to let her out. She makes her way to the register and pays for her food before leaving the diner. Not a word is said to Ghost or myself as we watch her leave.
“We fucked up,” I murmur, staring at her until she disappears from the parking lot.
“We did. She’s not gonna let us back in now,” Ghost agrees.
Haley lets us know Autumn paid for our lunch before she left and also included a tip. I shake my head at the thought of her paying for our meals knowing we fucked up. Ghost and I head out and I make my way back to the clubhouse to grab Brindley from Vanessa who’s watching the kids today. I’ll spend the afternoon with my favorite girl and get all the love I need.
Chapter Eight
Ghost
BRICK AND I have been working on talking to Autumn more. I have more chances to get close to her than he does though. When we’re at work, I spend a few minutes in the office with her when I drop off my paperwork and make sure I’m the one sitting next to her when we have lunch. She’s very quiet and I know she doesn’t understand our sudden change in attitude when it comes to her. I really don’t know how to explain it. While I want to find someone to settle down with, and I could see myself with Autumn, I don’t know much about her. She never shares personal details if she doesn’t absolutely have to. I can’t blindly trust someone and that’s why I’m having a hard time letting myself get too close to her. It sucks, but that’s how I am.
My best friend is another story entirely. He doesn’t trust her because she won’t talk about herself whenever we do manage to spend time with her. If she does answer a question, it’s usually just a generic answer or one word. Autumn won’t go into depth about anything. So, Brick is trying but he won’t let himself open up to her either. He’s honestly doing better than I thought he would as far as spending time with her though. I’m going to count it as a win even though I know he’s frustrated as fuck when it comes to Autumn. He’s fighting everything he feels about her because she won’t open up. Brick isn’t used to having to fight off what he feels about anything so he tends to lash out. Thankfully he hasn’t lashed out at her yet. I don’t think he’ll be able to fix the situation if he does lash out at her.
Brick has also stopped avoiding working at the garage when we need him. He mainly comes here when a guy wants to have a day off or something so we’re not short staffed. Until the day we made Autumn eat with us at the diner, he’d been avoiding coming here. Now he has even stopped in here a few times when he’s not covering a shift for someone. He might not show how he’s feeling with all the guys here, he does spend a little bit of time with her in the office when he takes his paperwork in to her. I’ve seen him flirting as long as it’s just the two of them or three of us. He won’t do anything if one of the other guys is around. I’m sure it’s confusing as fuck for Autumn.
The garage has gotten even busier over the last week. With all of us able to work in the garage on the vehicles and not rotating who works in the office, even more cars, trucks, bikes, and other vehicles are getting done and it’s been great. Whoever is in the tow truck for the day also doesn’t have to remain in the shop or truck waiting for a call to come in either. The person can work in the shop until a call comes in. Autumn has a rotation on her desk of who is on tow calls for the week and just lets the person know when she gets a call. The office is so damn organized now and the customers appreciate not having to wait for someone to get in there to help them. I can honestly say Venom hiring her is the best decision he’s made in regards to King’s Kustom.
“What’s up?” Venom answers his phone in the bay next to me as I work on a bike that looks as if it went through a fire and somehow managed to survive.
I try not to listen in despite only hearing one side of the conversation. Venom listens for a minute before responding.
