Exotic

~ what you will ~

Caleb was standing by the open hood of his car when Reece pulled the pickup truck in at Whitley Park. The shirt he'd been wearing the night before had been buttoned up, but his hair was mussed from a restless sleep. His face was pale, and his spring water eyes dragged down by black bags, shoulders were hunched by his ears.

I slammed the pickup truck door, crossing the road with my hands stuffed in my pockets. Caleb's shoulders dropped into a dejected slump, and he circled his car to meet me.

I stopped about a foot from him. "Sleep well?"

He laughed severely, eyes drifting closed. "Think I threw out my back. Trout is going to kill me."

"Well, no one would have faulted you for sleeping at home," I reminded him. I felt Reece approach before I heard him, just stopping short of barging into me with towing cables hanging over both shoulders.

"Hey, mate," he said brusquely, sticking a hand-out to Caleb. Caleb took it tentatively, meeting my gaze as he gave it two short pumps. Seeing their skin meet made my skin crawl. "Car troubles?"

"... yeah," Caleb looked visibly uncomfortable. "I'm clueless. Thanks for coming out."

Reece nodded brusquely and passed me to get the car, taking a quick look under the open hood. Caleb automatically moved away from him, like pepper skirting around a droplet of detergent. Greasy detergent. He ended up much closer to me than I would have expected him to be comfortable with. He smelt overwhelmingly like last night. It took all the ill-formed logic in me not to stick my face into his neck and inhale.

"By the way," I muttered to him. "He thinks I'm dating your sister."

Caleb's lids peeled back as he gawked at me. "He what?"

I hushed him urgently. "I needed an excuse for your makeup slathered clothes."

"How are you blaming me right now?" he demanded, skirting his eyes over to Reece. "You still have those?"

Foot, meet mouth. "Not anymore. Look, he saw you both when you dropped me off last Tuesday. I didn't think you two would ever meet. I can't exactly break up with her while your car is at his mercy. It's probably the only reason he's helping right now."

Caleb's eyes drifted closed once again.

"He thinks her name is Steph," I added. Caleb sighed loudly through his nose, barely maintaining composure as Reece approached, itching his chin.

"Your distributor cap's cracked, that's your issue," he told Caleb, who stared blankly. "You probably want to get your timing belt checked on a car this old, too. How many miles?"

"Haven't checked lately," Caleb replied. "It's a handed-down hand-me-down. I was kind of anticipating for it to die on me."

"Well, let's get it to the shop before we diagnose," Reece suggested, and tugged the cables from around his neck to shove into my arms. "Come on."

I balanced the weighty tow ropes in my arms, screwing up my face in distaste. "I don't know what I'm doing."

"You can learn," Reece countered, and patted my shoulder as he passed in a mockery of affection, turning to Caleb. "How old are you, mate?"

"Eighteen," Caleb said automatically, and I could hear the unspoken sir beneath it. I could have puked in my mouth.

"Then you should learn, too," Reece grunted, and jerked his thumb back at the car. "You boys hook up that cables. Find the mounting point and thread it through. I'll bring the pickup around."

He shuffled back to the truck as Caleb and I exchanged bewildered glances. Reece was completely playing into his 'stand-up-guy' routine, a blokey act that generally worked wonders on the wider population and made him so easy to hate. Only I was privy to the Reece who took up space and breathed down my neck, controlling as he was slobby. It was nice to see someone else wasn't buying it, as indicated by Caleb's un-minced words once he was out of hearing range.