Wreck You Read online

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  IAN

  There was a list of things to be thankful for today. One, my father had survived an entire week without any more serious health issues. Two, I’d survived an entire week running Mason’s Electric all by my lonesome. And three, it was Friday. I wasn’t sure which thing I should celebrate most tonight, but I was damn sure celebrating something.

  “A foot long on Italian bread, please,” I told the girl behind the counter. This was one of the perks to working in the Coldcreek Plaza for the day—the Subway on the corner.

  “What’s it going to be?” she asked. She pulled the loaf of bread from where they kept it stowed away behind her, and stared at me.

  “Spicy Italian with provolone cheese, please.” My stomach growled as I spoke.

  It was becoming apparent that a large mug of coffee was not the best choice of breakfast for me every morning on the way to the shop, but food first thing seemed too heavy when my nerves were haywire. From the second I woke up, all I could think about was the shitload of stuff I had to do as soon as I got to the shop. No wonder my dad had had a heart attack. With the way he ate and all the stress of owning a business, I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner.

  “Do you want it toasted?” the girl asked. She looked young—like high school young—and I wondered why she was here. Why wasn’t she in school? Was she a dropout? My eyes shifted to her gold name tag—Kelly was printed in large letters—and then move back to her eyes. She was staring at me with a bored, jaded expression. “Toasted?” she repeated.

  No wonder she’d been looking at me strangely. I’d blanked. Sleep was a must this weekend—sleep and real food. “Oh yeah. Toasted, please.”

  While I waited for my sandwich to be toasted, I formulated a new plan of action for my sanity and weekend. After I got off today, I would head straight to my parents’ house to check in before going home for some much-needed Mojito time and sleep. Tomorrow, I would spend the day at the shop, scheduling things for the guys to do the following week, and organizing Dad’s desk.

  “What do you want on it?” Kelly asked, bringing my attention back to the now.

  “Lettuce, tomato, pickles, and mayonnaise please.”

  “All right.”

  After building my sandwich exactly the way I wanted, Kelly wrapped it up and forced me down the assembly line they had going. Brent stepped up to order his meal next, while I grabbed a bag of chips. Once he placed his order and we both paid, we chose a table near the front window.

  “Are we working late tonight to make up for this lunch break, boss?” Brent asked with a shit-eating grin.

  “No, it’s only thirty minutes.” I smirked. “Well, maybe thirty minutes. With the way you eat, it may only be a ten-minute lunch break. Don’t forget to breathe, okay?”

  “Funny.” He picked up his sandwich and took a large bite. “I’m starved. I can’t help how fast I eat when I’m starved.”

  Laughing, I took a bite of my sandwich. My cell went off mid-chew. It was a number I didn’t recognize. Panic swelled within my chest for a fraction of a second as the fear it could be something about my father passed through my mind.

  “Mason’s Electric,” I answered.

  “Hey, yeah this is Bill Roth calling,” the man said. Relief slipped through me when I remembered I’d forwarded the office calls to my cell.

  But Bill Roth, what did he want? The Roths were the wealthiest family in town. My guess was every small town had a family like them—a family who owned the majority of the commercial buildings and shops. In Coldcreek, the Roths were that family. I knew my dad had an account with them. We were the company that changed their lightbulbs in the signs along Westgate Plaza, which the family owned, but I had no clue as to what he could be calling about. We’d just changed the bulbs a few weeks ago. They should be good for a while.

  “Hey, Mr. Roth, what can I help you with today?” I asked. Brent set his sandwich down, and wiped his fingers on a napkin. He stared at me with his brows furrowed, curious as I was about why Mr. Roth was calling personally. Generally, they had someone handle such calls for them. Or so I’d been told.

  “Listen, Ian, isn’t it?” Mr. Roth said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I know your father’s circumstances at the moment, and I’ve heard he’s left you in charge of things. Generally, I wouldn’t call in for a favor during a time like this for your family, but my bookstore in the Westgate Plaza has had something go wrong in the panel.” He paused for a moment, and I could hear him taking in a frustrated breath. “Janice, the woman who runs the place for me, called to let me know the store nearly caught on fire a little while ago. She claimed sparks were flying out of the panel in the back storage room, along with smoke. The fire marshal has been called in, but that’s not going to fix the issue. I need an electrician. Is there any possible way you or someone from your company could swing by and take a look at it right now?”

  Taking a sip of my drink, I hesitated in answering. Sparks and smoke billowing from a panel didn’t always mean there was an electrical fire. It could be something simple. Then again, it could be something serious and time-consuming. “Give me just a second. Let me look over my afternoon schedule.”

  “Okay. My concern is Janice isn’t going to feel safe there if I don’t have something done today—none of my employees in the entire strip will,” Mr. Roth continued. “I would be willing to pay an emergency fee if need be to get you out there this afternoon.”

  Emergency fee? That would be extra money my parents could sure use right now.

  “I’ll have to call and push a few things around, but I think my right-hand man and I could be out there in about thirty minutes or so.” I locked eyes with Brent and smirked when he mouthed “the A team” to me. That was our little running joke about the two of us. We were my father’s A team—the guys he sent when he wanted to get shit done in a timely manner. “Does that sound all right with you, sir?”

  “Perfect. Please be sure to bill me for an emergency fee,” Mr. Roth said. “Thank you, Ian. I’ll have someone there you can report your findings to. I appreciate your promptness.”

  “Not a problem,” I said. “Have a good day, sir.”

  I clicked End Call on my phone and set it down on the table.

  “What was Mr. Roth calling you for? Doesn’t he have people who handle his phone calls for him, as well as wipe his ass?” Brent crammed a handful of chips into his mouth.

  Picking up a pickle slice that had fallen free from my sandwich, I popped it into my mouth before answering him. “Apparently, Talon’s Bookstore nearly burned down a second ago.”

  Brent eyed me. “What? No way.”

  “The lady that works there, Janice, called Mr. Roth and the fire department because she witnessed sparks shooting out of the panel and smelled smoke.” I nodded.

  “So what are we supposed to do about it?”

  “Head over to figure out what caused it and see if we can fix it today.”

  Brent smiled wide. Mayo oozed from the corner of his mouth, and I thought I might lose my lunch at the sight of it. “This is like some CSI shit. Awesome!”

  “I guess so.” I laughed, tossing him a napkin. “Eat up so we can head over and crack the case.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  LAUREN

  Maeve hated me. There was no denying the level of hate that woman felt for me. It reflected in her eyes when she raked them over me, and in the way she refused to acknowledge or speak to me if she didn’t have to. To say I was incredibly grateful she didn’t live in the United States was an understatement.

  Along with meeting Jimmy’s mother, I’d been introduced to the rest of his immediate family—his father, Argus, his brother, Nick, his uncle, Eugene, his cousin, Larissa, and Larissa’s three-month-old baby girl, Chloe. Apparently, they were close and all lived together under the same roof. While the men in Jimmy’s family seemed slightly surprised by my presence for some reason, it was meeting Larissa that stood ou
t to me the most. She seemed to share Maeve’s strong feelings of dislike for me. From what I gathered, Jimmy appeared to notice this time. While he had been oblivious to his mother’s rude demeanor, he caught on instantly to Larissa’s. I’d never seen him so uncomfortable before. I actually began to feel sorry for him, even though the tension and hate were clearly directed toward me.

  In a way, all of the awkwardness at his family’s house proved to be motivating for him, and he’d taken me sightseeing for the majority of the next day. He’d borrowed his brother’s scooter and a couple of helmets to get us around. With the crazy winding roads, insane amount of traffic, and speedy drivers, there was no way I would have ever felt safe on a scooter by myself. Jimmy maneuvered through traffic like a pro, though.

  He took me through the old part of the city at the base of the Acropolis, where the streets were so narrow between the buildings, they reminded me of a labyrinth. In fact, there were areas where two cars couldn’t even pass each other. During our voyage to the historic areas Jimmy had insisted on showing me, I spotted three cars that had to back up in order to let the vehicle in front of them coming from the opposite direction pass through.

  Squeezing Jimmy with my thighs a little tighter as we rounded another corner, I stroked my fingertips across his stomach. The feel of his solid muscles beneath the soft cotton of his T-shirt sent flickers of pleasure through me, reminding me of what I’d set out to do on this trip—have sex with my godlike boyfriend in another country. Too bad his mother was a stickler for traditional ways. Jimmy and I weren’t even allowed to sleep in the same room while under her roof. She was totally killing my birthday buzz.

  “Let’s grab something to-go from this café. We can head to the Panathenaic Stadium, and eat as we walk through it,” Jimmy suggested. He cut the humming engine of the scooter and rested his helmet on the handlebars. “I want to show you all the amazing sights here for your birthday.”

  “Sounds great.” I smiled, but it was forced.

  I hadn’t come here for a school field trip to see all the educational aspects of Greece.

  If I was going to go sightseeing, then I wanted the homegrown tour, not the I’m-an-American-tourist-idiot version. I wanted to see all the hidden gems only the locals knew about, and breathe in the culture and life of the place. Didn’t seem as though any of that would be happening.

  * * * *

  The Panathenaic Stadium sounded cool, but it was the first word that gave it that allure. I should have paid more attention to the second word—stadium—because that’s all it was. A large open stadium that happened to be the sight of the first Olympic games in modern times in eighteen something or another. Then Jimmy took me to some tomb of an unknown soldier, the Acropolis Museum, and some temples of people like Athena. By the time his tour was over, I was exhausted, sweating profusely, and positive I would have one hell of a sunburn later.

  “When are we planning to eat again?” I grabbed the helmet I’d been using all day off the handlebars. “I’m starved.”

  “Dinner, at my parents’ house again.”

  Great. Guess any romantic dinners at an actual restaurant were out of the question while we were here, too.

  “Okay, but do you think they’ll be eating a little earlier tonight?” I asked.

  If not, I would have to make Jimmy stop someplace on the way back so I could grab a snack of some sort, because it felt wrong to be nabbing food out of a pantry owned by a woman who seemed to loathe me. There was no way in hell I could wait to eat until around nine again though. Greek people ate dinner so flipping late.

  He smiled and climbed on the scooter. “Probably about the same time. We can stop and get you something small if you like.”

  “Yes. That would be great.” Pulling my helmet on, I hoisted my leg and positioned myself behind Jimmy. “I’m going to need to make a phone call before we get back too. I need to check in with everyone.”

  I’d received text messages all day wishing me a happy birthday, but I knew everyone would want to hear my thank yous more than read them, so I’d decided to take a time-out at some point today and attempt to call home. I just prayed my cell would have some decent service. In front of the airport, I’d gotten three solid bars. At Jimmy’s parents’ house, it was barely one.

  “We can go back to the little café we went to this morning. You could get something there and make your calls,” he suggested.

  “Sure, let’s go.” I wrapped my arms around him tighter, and pressed my chest against his back, glad our tour of the city was over for today. Maybe tomorrow would be better. Maybe tomorrow he would take the fucking hint about what I really wanted to see while here—him naked.

  We cruised back to the little café I couldn’t read the name of, and I ordered something Jimmy claimed I would love. I stepped outside to sit in a chair beneath an umbrella to make my phone calls. Calculating the time change, I realized it was only lunch there. I decided to call Paige first. She was probably at her desk, eating some sort of Panini sandwich while messing around on her cell phone anyway.

  “What are you doing taking a time-out to call me? You’re supposed to be enjoying Greece and Jimmy to the fullest,” she answered after the second ring.

  “Yeah, not so much,” I muttered. “My boyfriend has become the boring tour guide, who insists on showing me all the educational buildings. There’s also been no sex, because his mother hates me. This trip has actually been nothing like what I envisioned.”

  “Oh no!” Paige gasped. “His mom hates you?”

  “Yup, the woman can’t even stand to be in the same room as me for whatever reason. His cousin is the same way. She’s constantly giving me the evil eye. It’s so awkward. I actually sort of feel bad for Jimmy because of it.”

  “Aww, I’m sorry.” Paige pouted. “Well, happy birthday…at least you’re in Greece. Right? I mean, this is a birthday to remember even if it’s only because of where you are.”

  “This is true.” I placed my phone into the crook of my neck and adjusted the strap on my sandals. “Maybe tomorrow will be better.”

  “There you go, think positive and enjoy yourself. This is an experience of a lifetime!”

  Jimmy walked out of the café with my food and a drink in his hands. Girl-talk time was up. I would have to wait until tomorrow or when I got back to dish more about this entire effed-up vacation.

  “I will. Tell Blaire and Eva I said hello. I’ll see you guys in a few days,” I said.

  “Okay, have fun! Enjoy the place if you can’t enjoy the people.”

  I laughed. “I’ll try.”

  I set my phone on the table, and reached for the drink Jimmy held. Sipping on the concoction, I glanced past him and took in the sunset. It was made up of the most vibrant oranges and pinks I’d ever seen.

  “What did you order me?” I set our shared drink on the table, and shifted my attention to the food between us. It was a salad, at least I thought it was.

  “Horiatiki,” Jimmy said with a smile, knowing I wouldn’t know what the hell he’d just said.

  “And that’s the word for salad, right?”

  “Correct. It’s a Greek salad to be exact.” His smile never left his face; it merely widened.

  Returning his grin, I realized Paige had been right. I needed to see this trip for what it was—an experience I would most likely never relive. I was here with Jimmy. We were eating at a little café…without his mother. And there was a beautiful sunset happening directly in front of me. Calling my parents could wait until later tonight; I needed to soak in this moment while I could. I took a bite of the salad and smiled around my fork. Happy birthday to me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  IAN

  As soon as I walked into Talon’s Bookstore, the fire marshal eyed me and headed in my direction with a grimace on his face I didn’t care for. The distinct scent of burnt plastic lingered in the air as I continued through the shop. Brent stepped into the store just as the fire marshal reached me.

  “
There were two lines to that breaker, which is wrong. You should have only used one. Are you not up to par with the newest codes?” the fire marshal demanded.

  “First of all—” Brent started in, but I stopped him. There was no doubt he would get ugly with this guy. Between the two of them, there was obviously too much testosterone, and they would surly continue to butt heads if I didn’t intervene.

  “Hey, I’m Ian Mason. I’m with Mason’s Electric, and we didn’t wire the place. For all I know, these buildings could have been wired twenty years ago,” I said calmly.

  “All right.” The fire marshal tugged at the waistline of his pants and dropped his intense stare. “So, do you know what could have caused it, then? Would it be a breaker?”

  “I won’t know until I look at it.” God, I hated guys like him. They came at you all huffy puffy as though that was the only way to get crap done on a job. It wasn’t. All it did was fuel a stressful situation even more. “Where’s the panel at?”

  “Back here,” the fire marshal said. He tugged at his pants once more before leading us toward the back of the shop.

  “Bet this will be in the newspaper,” Brent whispered as we followed the marshal. “Bibles nearly burned—that’s what the caption should read. It would damn sure draw attention, that’s for sure.”

  I chuckled, because he was right. This probably would be in The Coldcreek Press. Actually, most of Coldcreek would view this as newsworthy information, considering Talon’s was the only Christian bookstore in town. In fact, some of the gossiping old ladies would probably write this off as a sign from the devil, and another service would be added to the churches for the next few weeks in order to ward off the devil from any more sinful behavior and encourage him to move on. I could see it now.

  As the panel came into view, the scent of burnt plastic strengthened, and the room took on a hazier look. Brent and I went straight to work, trying to figure out what the problem was. After a few minutes of searching around the panel and observing the breaker in question, we concluded that the breaker had indeed shorted out. A simple fix.