Painted Lines Read online

  The day passed quickly, with lots of coffee helping me get through it. I noticed Thayne watching me more than once but I ignored him. I escaped quickly after our time was up and headed home. I decided to take a nap and laid down on the couch with TV on. I didn’t fall into a deep sleep but I felt better when I got up an hour later. I was treated to Cam cooking dinner, and I got to hang out and play with Zadok. I noticed the concerned glances but I ignored them and focused on the baby. He was growing so quickly, it was amazing to watch.

  “Everything okay?” asked Cas during dinner.

  “Fine,” I told him moving my food around on my plate.

  “You sure?”

  “Yep,” I replied and gave up playing with my food and went to the kitchen and began cleaning it up. Everyone brought their plates in and I continued to ignore the looks. After I had cleaned the kitchen, I went and curled up in the corner of the couch and read until everyone finally headed off to bed. I stayed up reading, then eventually watched an old movie. When the sun began to peek through the curtains, I got up and began my day.

  We quickly finished with the beginning ceremonies and were allowed to begin tearing the engine apart. I was given parts to clean after Kale inspected each and every one of them. He would determine if they were viable or not, then either give it to me to clean or add it to the list. I had to take breaks every now and then for cups of coffee, the fumes from the parts cleaner would leave me woozy. Finally, half way through Kale thought he figured out where the problem lay with our engine, so Simon, Liam and Kale went into planning mode trying to figure out what they needed to do next. I continued to clean parts, not paying any attention to them and what their game plan was.

  We were finished for the day and I stumbled out of the stall and straight into someone else. I looked up, an apology on my lips but found grey blue eyes staring down at me. I shook my head trying to shake off the effect he had on me.

  “Sorry,” I finally got out.

  “Not a problem,” he said still watching me. “You okay?”

  “Fine,” I replied instantly.

  “Thought we decided that word wasn’t allowed?”

  “You decided,” I told him, “when we were friends.” Then I walked away.

  I noticed Cas had shown up at some point and was watching me with a scowl on his face. I sighed—great this should be fun. I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong, but Cas still didn’t look happy.

  “Scout,” he growled when I walked up to him.

  “Cas.”

  “What were you doing talking to him?”

  “Uhm, I apologized for running into him?” I answered more as a question.

  “I just don’t like you talking to that guy,” he said watching Thayne leave the garage.

  “I’m not talking to him, I apologized.”

  He bobbed his head once then reached out grabbing my arm and led me out of the building—well guess he was ready to leave.

  Cas decided that he and I would go out to dinner. So when we got home I took a nap, then got up and got ready. I took a long, hot shower trying to get the smell of the cleaner I had been using off my skin, and even blow dried my hair for a change. I got dressed in my usual clothes but I left my hair down trailing down to the small of my back. Then I started to reconsider that, if we were riding it would get in my face. I ended up putting a hair tie around my wrist in case I needed it and went in search for Cas.

  I finally found him standing outside talking on his cell phone. I walked towards him and he glanced up, said something, then hung up his phone.

  “Ready to go?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  We ended up in a small diner that hadn’t changed much since the fifties and I instantly fell in love with it. We were seated quickly and looking over their menu, and Cas kept checking his phone looking nervous.

  “Everything okay?” I asked after the fourth time he looked at it.

  “Yeah, just expecting a call.”

  “From your CO?”

  “No, he’s still in the sandbox,” he replied. I was confused, if his CO was still overseas what was Cas doing back here with me?

  “Hmm,” I replied, “when does he come stateside?”

  “End of the month with the rest of the squad.”

  “So your commanding officer and the rest of your squad are all still overseas?”

  “What?” he asked looking up finally realizing what he had confessed.

  “Why are you back, Cas?” I asked getting worried that something happened to him he never told me about.

  “There were extenuating circumstances so I was sent home.”

  “What’s going on, Cas?” I asked hoping he would give me a straight answer.

  “Nothing for you to worry about.”

  I didn’t believe him though. He had been sent home before his team, was immediately able to fly here and he won’t tell me what was going on. It didn’t take much to figure out that something was going on, and it more than likely had to do with me. I knew enough though that he wouldn’t tell me—no one ever told me anything.

  Once the waitress came back, I ordered a burger, fries, and milkshake even though I wasn’t in the mood to eat any longer.

  “So how is the show going?”

  I shrugged. “Fine I guess, we won one of the mini challenges so far, and we were in the top three for the first challenge. Kale came in second on the mini challenge for this week, so who knows.”

  “I heard it was rebuilding an engine this week.”

  “Yeah, so I am cleaning parts, not my favorite work, but it has to be done.”

  “You could rebuild an engine with your eyes shut, Scout.”

  “No, not really. I can do it but it takes me forever and I don’t really like to.”

  “I’ve seen you, you can do it.”

  “I know I can, I just don’t like to,” I told him getting annoyed. He wasn’t listening to me, yet again.

  Luckily, dinner came at that point and I once again moved food around making it look like I had eaten. I forced myself to take a few bites of the burger. Cas devoured his food then went to snatching fries off my plate. I finally just pushed it towards him and let him finish it. I felt my eyes drooping and when the waitress came back by I ordered a cup of coffee.

  “How many is that today?”

  “Hmm?” I asked.

  “How many cups of coffee is that today?”

  “Not sure,” I told him honestly.

  “Maybe if you slowed down on the coffee you would be able to sleep better.”

  “Maybe,” I said accepting the coffee from the waitress and taking a sip.

  “Anything else you want to do after this?”

  “I need to run by the grocery store,” I told him I was in need of something a bit stronger than coffee at this point.

  “Sure, we can do that.” He took the check from the waitress and I gulped down my coffee then we headed out.

  When we got to the grocery store, Cas checked his phone once again.

  “Scout, just go in grab what you need, I need to return a call.”

  “Sure,” I mumbled and headed in by myself.

  I looked around the energy drinks finally choosing some different flavors, then picked up some more coffee, we were running low. I was happy that Cas hadn’t come in with me, that way I could get what I needed without trying to hide it from him, which I could never do successfully, or answer the questions he would ask. I quickly paid and headed out to where he was waiting in the parking lot. The tick in his jaw was back so I knew he was pissed, I just hoped it wasn’t at me this time.

  “Get what you needed?”

  “Yeah,” I told him watching, trying to figure out what was going on with him, what he was hiding.

  “K, let’s get home.”

  We climbed on the bikes and headed home. With the help of the energy drinks and coffee, I had yet another sleepless night.

  Chapter 18

  When we were going to leave for the morning the skies
opened up and sheets of rain began to fall, I ran back to my room, and grabbed the covers I had for my babies. I quickly ran back outside ignoring the rain, lightning, and thunder and covered my babies, looking for a place to shelter them. The carport for our house had Cam’s car under it, I yelled at Simon to move it. He ran back inside and was back just as quickly jumping in and pulling it back. Liam, Kale, and I immediately began pushing bikes under the carport. After I got Stella in, I ran back out to get Angel. Once both my bikes were under protection, I leaned back letting the rain fall onto my face, enjoying the feeling of the warm tears pelting my skin.

  “Scout, what the hell are you doing?” yelled Cas but I chose to ignore him, enjoying the feeling of Mother Nature washing away the bad, replacing it with the good.

  All too quickly though that feeling of peace was demolished when someone grabbed my arm yanking me back under the carport. I looked up and found a drenched and pissed off Cas staring at me. I looked down his body found out he was wearing nothing but a pair of boxer briefs.

  “What the fuck were you doing?” he yelled.

  “Enjoying the rain,” I answered confused.

  “Scout, did you not notice the lightning? What the hell is the matter with you?”

  I shrugged and looked back out at the rain, wishing I was standing under it again, enjoying the peace, the feeling of cleansing the past, but no amount of rain would ever cleanse me.

  I looked over at Simon, “Ready to go?”

  “Sure,” he mumbled looking back and forth between Cas and me. “We’re going to take Cam’s car.”

  “Well that’s good since my babies are not going out in this,” I told him and walked back out in the rain and quickly climbed in. I was scrunched up between the base of Zadok’s car seat and Liam.

  “You okay, Scout?” Liam whispered.

  “Fine,” I replied pulling out my MP3 player turning it up loudly and ignoring everyone until it was time for Eddie’s directions for the day.

  I went back to work cleaning parts using a toothbrush and a steel brush, cleaning all the grease, gunk, and dirt out of the nooks and crannies. I cranked my MP3 player up as loud as I could tolerate it, blocking everything and everyone else out. My clothes were slowly drying, and I missed the feel of the world’s tears against my skin. I missed the feeling of connection that standing in the rain can bring. I liked to think of the other people who stood under the same storm cloud while it released its life source cleaning our world, feeding our plants. If you really thought about it, it was a connection to another person in the world, you had never met or envisioned, but a connection all the same.

  I sighed and shook myself out of my thoughts, focusing on what I had on hand, instead of visualizing metaphysical links to people. No one ever seemed to understand my obsession with a good storm, and I had long ago quit trying to explain it.

  Time passed quickly and before I knew it, the bell sounded and we were cleaning up for the day. I did everything robotically, answering when asked a question, smiling when expected, just doing as expected. We headed home and I continued this way, no one really noticing, taking my saying ‘fine’ as affirmation that everything was normal, but inside nothing was normal.

  I took my meds with a can of energy drink and fought to stay awake through the night. I caught myself more than once almost falling asleep, but I wouldn’t allow it. I knew if I let it take me over, if I fell asleep, it would be bad, so instead I fought. When the sun broke, I let out a relieved breath and began my morning routine. I knew I wouldn’t be able to put it off forever, but I also didn’t know if I could face my nightmares any longer.

  Everyone was giving me strange looks but I didn’t pay any attention to them. I listened to music and followed everyone out the door. We drove the car again; I didn’t say a word, just climbed in back and turned the music up louder.

  Once we got to the garage I went through the motions, I pretended to listen to Eddie, I listened to what my job would be. When we opened the bay doors though what we found didn’t make sense. All the work he had done was destroyed, the parts were destroyed, all of it. I looked down and found one of our sledgehammers lying on the floor, I knew it wasn’t there yesterday—we never left anything lying around.

  I turned and went in search of coffee, I had a feeling I would need it. I also grabbed coffee for my other teammates. When I walked back, I found the producer, judges, and other staff standing around looking at the carnage, one of the assistant producers was on the phone, hopefully with the police. I handed out the coffee and stood to the side watching what was happening.

  I saw Thayne out of the corner of my eye but ignored him, just watching, I knew there wasn’t anything I could do at this point. I saw Thayne walk towards me, watching me, but I continued to act as though I didn’t see him. I really didn’t feel like being yelled at by Cas on top of this today, so I focused on what was in front of me.

  Eventually the police showed up and we were all pulled in separate directions, telling them what happened, what we saw, and any other information we may have had. I didn’t have anything to really tell them, other than I walked in and saw all our hard work destroyed. Soon Cas showed up, but he wasn’t allowed to come inside, so I went out to see him. He started asking me questions I couldn’t answer. I didn’t know who did it, I didn’t see anything, no, and the cops hadn’t said anything to me.

  I went back in leaving an even more frustrated Cas and waited to find out what would happen now.

  After the police had everything they needed, we were pulled into the staging area and waited for them to tell us what we were going to do now. The producer came to the front and told us that they would be giving us a new engine to rebuild. We would have six hours today and eight hours tomorrow to get it repaired, they would put off the judging a day so we would have time to complete it with the same amount of time as everyone else. Then we were sent off with the other teams having the original four-hour time frame. The guys instantly went to stripping everything down quickly.

  I cataloged all the parts, sorting everything, making sure we didn’t lose anything in the rush. Once that was finished, I started once again cleaning all the parts we were salvaging, and the ones we weren’t. Liam went off to machine, Simon went to scavenge from the parts storage, and Kale diagnosing any problems that he hadn’t seen before. The time passed quickly for the other teams, when the bell rang they all put their tools up, cleaning up their areas. We continued our work, but slowly as the other teams finished cleaning up, they trickled into our bay, asking what they could do to help.

  I was surprised by the amount of people who were willing to stay and help us, but then again I shouldn’t have been, this was after all the way of our life. When you saw a fellow biker on the side of the road, you stopped to help. The producer of the show though didn’t appreciate the code we lived by, stating that they weren’t allowed to help. That is until Matt asked to show him where in the rules that was written, when the producer couldn’t come up with anything, everyone ignored him. I had four people sit down with me helping to get everything cleaned and handed off to the next person to inspect, it became a chain, with Kale at the end making all the decisions.

  When the bell rang ending our six hours, we had everything cleaned, new parts found, and almost half of what we needed machined finished. It left us in a good place for tomorrow. I knew we would be able to get it finished in time. I stood stretching my hands over my head and I noticed Thayne watching me—no, staring at my stomach. I glanced down and saw that my tank top had ridden up, I quickly snatched my hands down and pulled my shirt down covering the marks there. He looked up at me and I couldn’t meet his eyes, I didn’t want to see the disgust there, the pity.

  I went to work cleaning everything up, getting our bay put back in order then quickly went in search of the guys. They were standing around thanking everyone who had helped, I waved at the ones I knew, and smiled at the ones I didn’t. Finally, we were able to head out, and I was ready to get home, take a
shower, and a nap.

  When I got home though, instead of a hot shower and a nap, I had to deal with a pissed off Cas. I didn’t know what I supposedly had done this time, but I did know that I was not in the mood to deal with him or his anger. I stepped around him and headed towards the bathroom locking the door after me, I turned the water on as hot as it could go. I looked in the mirror waiting for the water to heat. The face looking back at me was exhausted, dark rings under her now glassy green eyes and a pale face. I sighed and quickly stripped out of my clothes ignoring the banging on the door and climbed into the scalding water. I let the water pound on my muscles, slowly releasing the tension that had built over the day.

  After I was as clean as I was going to get, I climbed out and quickly dried off. Realizing I hadn’t grabbed clean clothes, I opened the door to find a red-faced Cas. I stepped around him and headed to the bedroom where my stuff was at, pulled out comfy clothes and quickly dressed. I reached back locking the door and face planted into the mattress, then quickly scrambled up and set the alarm clock for an hour, then fell back down and let sleep come.

  When the alarm clock rang, I jolted up and rubbed my eyes. I rolled my legs off the bed and went in search of an energy drink; I needed help waking up. I unlocked the door and headed to the kitchen, searched in the back of the fridge where I had hid them and pulled one out, swallowing its contents quickly. I bypassed the dinner sitting on the stove and headed to the living room, grabbed my Kindle from the coffee table, ignoring Cas’s glares and curled up on the floor and began to read.

  Once everyone had headed off to bed, leaving me alone with Cas. I finally looked up to find him staring at the ceiling rubbing his hand through his nonexistent hair.

  “Scout, what’s going on with you?”

  “Nothing,” I muttered powering down my Kindle.