608 Alpha Ave - Adriana Locke Page 0,5

and, despite knowing this was an issue, I didn’t know it was this level of an issue—not a “let Tristan go” problem. This guy is like a brother to us. He needs us as much as we need him. Fuck.

I pace around the truck and back again.

“This is where we are,” Garret tells me. “Numbers don’t lie. I don’t like it either, but we have to face it.”

“But fire Tristan?” I run my hand down the side of my face and stop moving. “We can’t do that. He’s the best motorcycle mechanic that I’ve ever seen, and he needs this job, Garret. It’s everything to him. Letting him go is not an option.”

“I don’t want it to be an option, but it’s what we might be looking at if we can’t bring in more revenue. Now, there’s a pool of potential new clientele waiting on us. We just have to hook ’em and reel ’em in.”

I scowl at his mixing of fishing and work phrases.

“You can’t expect some miracle out of Haley,” I point out. “Maybe she gussies up your website and makes some fliers or whatever. But that’s no guarantee. We have to think of something else.”

“I have been thinking. It’s all I do.”

“Glad to know you do something all day.”

We exchange a grin because we both know I’m kidding. Garret works as hard as Grant and me—just differently. But, hey, we all can’t be brains and brawn.

Garret slaps me on the back as he walks by. “I gotta get home. But you need to walk in there and take Haley up on that offer, or it’s gonna be your ass who fires Tristan if it comes to it.”

“Bull-fucking-shit.”

“Then don’t let it come to that.”

I turn back to my truck and yank open the driver’s side door. The seat squeaks as I climb in.

I start the engine, revving it just enough to feel the vibration in my blood. But instead of pulling out, I pause.

My sight roams around the mostly empty parking lot until it lands on Haley’s little maroon Mazda.

The corners of my lips twitch.

My lord, that woman just does something to me. Anytime I’m in hollering distance of her, I feel myself being pulled her way. Just being near her causes a shock to my system; it makes me feel alive. It’s a high I can’t get from anything else—not fixing an impossible job, finishing a dangerous hike, or sleeping with a woman I met a few minutes prior.

I should know. I’ve tried all three.

None of it compares to breathing the same air as Haley Morgan.

And that’s all kinds of fucked up.

I don’t get it. I don’t understand how it works. I only know that staying away from her doesn’t help—it only worsens the itch. An itch that she has no fucking idea about. Nor ever will.

I rest my forearms on top of the steering wheel and sigh.

If I were a relationship guy, I’d snatch Haley Morgan up quicker than you could say mine. And if I were a complete heathen, I’d have her beneath me even faster.

But I’m not either—a forever kind of dude, nor am I an utter hedonist.

So, I’m fucked. Plain and simple.

I see her every day except the days she doesn’t work at Fireside. Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday evenings—the days she’s not on the calendar—I hike in the Wild Ridge Mountains to keep myself busy. The other nights, I pretend to love hockey or baseball or what-the fuck-ever is on the television at the bar and sit for as long as I can pull it off without looking like a creep. And she has no clue that I’m only there to be near her.

She’s forbidden, but as long as I don’t touch …

“I can’t play this little question-and-answer game with you, Haley,” I say, taking in every detail of her car as if it was her. “I can’t trust me not to grab you and fuck the shit right out of you.”

As if on cue, I hear her mischievous giggle echo through my ears.

I grin. “You’d like it, though. I just can’t do that to you.”

A handful of patrons trickle out of the bar. They pause on the sidewalk as a matte-black Harley roars into the parking lot. Tristan parks near the front door and climbs off his bike.

My heart sinks.

He slips off his helmet and runs a free hand through his hair, catching sight of me in the process. His face lights up as he smiles and motions for me to join