The ETA From You to Me (3 page)

He turned off the computer monitor, muttering, “So…yeah…totally my bad, I’m sorry.”

Clayton’s chair creaked as he rocked forward from his reclined position, chewing on the crust of his pizza, eyes following Grant's every movement like a wolf stalking his prey.

“You’re a twitchy little guy, aren’t you?“ Grant nearly jumped out of his skin when Clayton stood, fumbling with the paperwork in his hand that he was organizing. He frowned, dragging in a deep breath and reminding himself that he wasn’t in high school and he couldn’t get upset over every little thing that people said to him.

Instead, Grant shuffled the papers into place and shrugged. “You’re a judgmental kinda guy, aren’t you?”

With a loud and surprised laugh, Clayton grabbed another slice of the pizza, the corners of his mouth pulled into a tiny smirk.

“Goodnight, Grant.”

Clayton turned, walking out of the office without another word. Grant didn’t move for a good second, and then exhaled heavily and finished cleaning up his paperwork. He clocked out, grabbing his things and switching off the air conditioner.

With the trash in his free hand, Grant slipped out of the office and locked the door behind himself before heading to the dumpster, nearly tripping over himself on the way back towards his car (a beautiful mottled green Jeep Cherokee that was slowly making it’s descent into the throes of death) when he caught a glimpse inside of the garage. The first and only thing his eyes zeroed in on was Clayton’s sculpted-from-gods ass shifting around while the rest of him was hidden inside the engine of an old blue Firebird.

Grant forced himself to toss the trash out, hightailing it back to his jeep before he gave in to the desire to make a failed attempt at flirting. He shut the door with a loud clang, sitting inside and thudding his head on the steering wheel.

His job just got ridiculously harder.

On the bright side, when Clayton’s voice came in over the radio at a quarter to noon the next day to inform Grant that he was going to step out of his truck to eat, Grant could barely keep the smile out of his voice when he paged back to acknowledge it.

              Chapter 2

Grant should have known all good things never lasted. The only good thing that actually lasted was sugar, and that was only true if the sugar was stored in a cool, dry area and away from the grubby hands of children.

Anyway,
most
good things never lasted, which was why he was roasting inside of his jeep on the side of the highway not twenty minutes after getting out of his Friday classes. His beloved clunker of a car had overheated and completely stalled out on his drive home, leaving him stranded. He felt kind of like the characters from Lost, except he’d never actually watched Lost, so he wasn’t quite sure how applicable his situation was to the comparison itself.

What he also felt like was a pasty night blogger forced to cook under the last dredges of the late afternoon sun.

The upside to all of this was that perks to working for a tow company included reduced tow prices, and that the drivers were often willing to do pro-bono work on his jeep in their free time. However, that also meant that he would probably be waiting for a few hours until one of the trucks had free time to pick him up.

A quick call to Alyse, who worked weekday evenings at the office, let him know that David would be the first driver available to swing by and pick Grant up when he was on his way back from a run that had taken him out of the city. Grant, doomed to another hour of waiting, was hunched in the driver’s seat with all of his windows open and the battery on his phone going lower and lower with every minute that he continued to play Centipede.

He texted his best friend, Adam, for maybe five minutes, but then a prolonged lack of response made it easy for Grant's to assume that he had gone to visit Jessica and there was now a round of hanky panky being executed in the Smith household. Grant once contemplated buying Adam a bulletproof vest, given how many times Jessica’s father had tried to shoot him, but Adam had a habit of never learning things until he was put through a grievous amount of pain beforehand.

Fifteen minutes passed before Grant glanced up for a half second and nearly dropped his phone when he saw one of the company wreckers pulling over. David, Grant knew, drove a flatbed. Even then, his flatbed was white, and the wrecker that was pulling up was black. There was only two black wreckers in the company, and even knowing that, Grant nearly had an aneurysm when Clayton climbed out of the truck and started walking towards his jeep.

It was like watching a Greek god (clothed in a baggy, oil stained service uniform) descend from the heavens. Actually, Grant wasn’t really sure where that kind of comparison came from, unless Clayton had the intention of pretending to be a swan or goose or whatever and shagging Grant until he was popping with little demigod babies.

Not that Grant could get pregnant; that was not the point.

He shut his phone off, scrambling out of the jeep just as Clayton reached the door.

Clayton stared at him, and Grant stared back until Clayton gestured to his truck, “Well? Get in the truck; I need to fuel up after this.”

“I thought David was picking me up?” Grant blurted, following after Clayton like a duckling trying to keep up with its mother. Clayton headed for his truck where the wheel lift end was pulled up to the back of Grant's jeep.

“I’m closer.“

“Yeah, but…” Grant trailed off and Clayton glanced over his shoulder, doing the same eyebrow wiggle and hand wave he always did when he expected Grant to elaborate. Grant decided that too many people expected things from him, and shrugged helplessly, “it’s four wheel drive.”

“I have dollies.”

“Very true,“ Grant agreed, hesitant to add any further comment on it. All trucks had dollies, but most of the time drivers avoided using them because they didn’t like the extra work. It was the main reason Grant tried to send flatbed trucks to pick up anything that didn’t use two wheel drive.

However, if Clayton wasn’t going to complain, Grant wasn’t going to even bother commenting. Hell, Grant was totally game for there being absolutely no complaints at all, because that meant that Clayton was mostly disinclined to violently murdering Grant on a deserted stretch of road and then leaving his body for mountain lions to devour.

Climbing into the passenger side of Clayton’s truck, Grant watched him start the task of hooking up to his jeep. Curiosity to see how dollies were used struck him hard, and Grant clambered right back out to edge his way over and watch Clayton work.

Clayton, one hand on the lever for the dollies, glanced up and gave Grant a thoughtful stare. “Have you ever even touched a truck?”

Grant, sheepish, dug his hands into the pockets of his jeans and gave Clayton an apologetic grin. “No, not really. I just dispatch, dude.”

Seriously, he sat in an office all day. Unless he suddenly gained the ability to create optional clones, he couldn’t actually leave the office to go and ask for a demonstration from the drivers on how things worked.

“Typical blond,“ Clayton muttered under his breath, shooting Grant a smirk when he got a glower for his word. “C’mere.” Clayton gestured with his free hand, crouching to check and see if the metal bars of the dollies were lining up with the jeep’s back wheels.

Grant crossed his arms, gesturing to his head. “Hey, if you want to be technical, I am a
zebra.
Do you see the black? No? What about the brown?” he tugged at the black and red streaks in his hair, because Grant was very proud of them and his hair needed more compliments for all the hell he’d gone through to get it done. Well, most of the hell had been because they had taken a lot of effort and two hours of letting Adam crack jokes about Grant looking like he belonged in a little old lady salon with all the foil in his hair.

Clayton stared, so Grant fluffed his hair with purpose. That action earned him a snort and another, more impatient gesture for Grant to come over. “Come on, Rainbow Brite, before I change my mind.”

Oh, now Clayton was making old pop culture references. If Grant wasn’t falling in love before, he sure was now.

“Do you know how dollies work?” Clayton asked when Grant reached his side.

“Little bit?“ Grant made a pinching motion to signify how little that bit was. Clayton huffed, biting back a grin and rolling his eyes.

“Dollies are what you put under the wheels so you can pull it along. You lift one end of the car and attach the dollies. Don’t ever listen to Jeff when he says he can’t tow a four wheel drive. He’s a whiner and he doesn’t want to do the extra work. Every truck has them, and this what they’re for. Put your hand here and ease up on it.” Clayton gestured to the lever he’d been fiddling with, as if he actually wanted Grant to touch it. Grant didn’t move, because hell no he wasn’t going to touch a giant lever that could mean life or death for his sweet, darling baby.

Clayton sighed, loudly.

“Here,” he grabbed Grant's hand, setting it on one of the levers. “You hook up the wheel lift to one end, pull that.” Clayton gave Grant's hand a coaxing push, his palm cool from being in an air-conditioned truck, nearly engulfing Grant's fingers. Flustered, Grant wrenched on the lever and shrieked when his jeep went flying up and almost knocked off of the track.

“
Jesus Christina
!” Grant shrieked, jumping a good half foot in the air. Clayton’s hand, over his own, firmly gave the lever a quick tug that had the lift freezing and the jeep rattling precariously in place. Grant's heart was thundering in his chest like some sort of Mars Volta bongo solo, breath coming in short gasps as he tried to comprehend the fact that he had nearly destroyed his precious, and only, mode of transportation.

Clayton’s laugh was soft and restrained, prying Grant's fingers away from the lever. It took more effort than possible, because Grant had totally crab-fingered the thing like one of those horror films where the body died clutching to something. “I guess this is why they have you behind a desk,” he teased quietly. Mortified, Grant threw his hands up in the air and tried to blame the burning in his face on the heat of the early summer evening.

“Well, I’m totally an awesome dispatcher and nobody ever bothered to like, tell me any of this stuff. Any time I ask anything about any of the trucks, I get this long and detailed explanation that totally makes
no sense
whatsoever because there’s no diagrams and I’m totally not a dude who can learn by ear. I have to, like, do it in person or have some kind of heavily depicted diagram that’s loaded with a ridiculous amount of detail!” Grant went silent when Clayton’s hand landed heavily on his shoulder, giving it a firm squeeze.

“Calm down, princess,“ Clayton gave his arm an exaggerated rub, grinning when Grant shot him a dirty look. “I’ll finish the hookup; go ahead back in the truck and let Alyse know I picked you up. There’s a bottle of water in the arm rest.”

Grant didn’t need a better excuse to scramble his skinny ass all the way back into the truck. He buckled in, grabbing the water bottle Clayton had mentioned and chugging half of it until he felt hydrated enough to grab the radio mic from the cradle.

Seriously, was there even a tutorial book on how to be incompetent and sexy at the same time? Grant was pretty sure the only way he could have made any more of an ass of himself were if Clayton had come up to the truck to find Grant crying about Leonardo DiCaprio taking an acting hiatus.

He paged the radio instead.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen and lady. Fear not, Grant is safe inside of 49 and no longer in mortal peril on the side of the highway.” Grant chirped, leaning back into his seat and watching in the side mirror as Clayton bent over to look underneath the jeep to make sure that the dollies were secured. Now
that
was a nice view.

“Already?” David crackled in over the radio, “I didn’t know someone could change a tire that fast.”

Confused, Grant brought the mic back up, pressing down on the button. “I didn’t have a flat, we’re hooking my jeep back to take it to the shop. Engine overheated.”

“Clayton was just on a tire change about fifteen minutes ago,” David elaborated.

“Oh…” Grant said to the inside of the truck, absently sticking the mic back onto the cradle while Clayton returned to the side of the truck, pulling a lever that dragged the jeep back onto the dollies. David’s words struck him as odd, to a point where Grant couldn't help but wonder about the implications of Clayton rushing to his rescue.

Oblivious to Grant's inner turmoil, Clayton finished hooking the jeep up and headed back for the truck, climbing in with a grunt of exertion. He reached for the mic, not even giving Grant a second glance as he paged the office. “49 is in tow to the shop to drop off and fuel up.”

Clayton shifted out of park, glancing out the window to pull onto the highway again when Alyse’s voice came from the radio. “What were your miles for that tire change? You got out of the truck before I could ask you.”

Expressionless, Clayton turned to grab the mic. “7 miles.”

Grant couldn’t help but to stare just a tiny bit. Not once when working with Clayton had he ever known the man to forget to give his times or miles, especially not so long after the run itself. Grant had a feeling Clayton knew that Grant was aware of this, because he refused to even look away from the road when he began driving.