3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Trying to flee Pinky's through the window when I spotted Rocco was not a shining moment. I wanted to wipe that smirk, the smirkiest smirk that ever smirked, right off his face.

Instead, I run the chamois over the chrome of the Honda Superhawk after fixing the vacuum valve, stand back, and admire my work.

Yes, my second place of work.

After my shift at Pinky's, I pull a few hours—sometimes well into the night, depending on the project—at PS Chopper Repair and Customs.

I stew while I think about Rocco and his cappuccino eyes, his crooked mouth, and how he's happily married with kids while I'm still living the D-side life.

I can picture Mrs. Ferrara now, tall, worldly, the perfect wife and mother. She's probably a great cook and has never gotten stuck in a window.

They have a happy life filled with laughter and date nights—not a criminal family that makes me ashamed to have the last name Fisk .

She's probably everything that I'm not. Everything that Rocco ever wanted.

The tough truth is that was never me. I was merely his distraction. A play thing. A fun time. An opportunity to "slum it" on Calle del Trueno when he came from a nice family with a picket fence and meatballs for Sunday family dinner.

While Shelly might adore small-town life where everyone knows your business, it has its drawbacks, like when your dad is the business everyone talks about.

The stories I've heard paint a young Ike Fisk as a wild man with a penchant for speed...until I came along.

He tried to get his life together, do things the right way, and opened a motorcycle shop. Meanwhile, my mother was trying to keep up with the Joneses and was arrested several times for shoplifting before landing in jail on that and several other charges.

She never made it home. Last I heard, she lives in Las Vegas.

As for my old man, despite his attempt to clean up his act, his high-speed habit got him pulled over one too many times. Turns out it was merely an excuse for the police to haul him in because they had his number. Then, while I was trying to survive middle school, he was illegally selling motorcycle parts.

He took that as license to speed away from the law and got deeply embroiled in illicit motorcycle gang activity, landing him in more trouble by the time I got to high school. To keep afloat, I learned how to do oil changes, adjust drive chains, and then moved on to brake jobs and tire replacements. I learned from Rocco, who helped my father in the shop during his parole. Ike said he was the best apprentice he ever had, with a mind for motors and mechanics.

More like flirting and forgetting.

Despite my father's involvement with a motorcycle gang crime ring and a few years ago receiving a life sentence, fixing motorcycles with Ike was the only time his mind settled and he wasn't racing through life like he was being chased by the cops, which he often was.

He was an honest mechanic and was honest about being dishonest in every other aspect of his life. So I keep the shop open to honor the honesty...and to fund my surf habit.

I visit him on my birthday every year just so we both remember that I exist.

However, instead of focusing on my broken family and motorcycle repairs, I cannot get Rocco's intense gaze out of my head. It's like he's standing over my shoulder, watching to make sure I route the clutch cable properly past the carburetor.

I can practically hear his deep and steady voice in my ear and feel his breath on my neck... I shiver.

But these are echoes of the past before Rocco showed his true colors, proving he's just like everyone else in my life. It's easy enough to throw me away.

Well, everyone except for Tootsie, my grandma.

Wiping my hands on a rag, I quit for the day because if I drop a bike, someone will call the police, concerned there's a domestic disturbance when I'm just hollering at myself for being too tired to focus. Thankfully, my hand doesn't still sting from when I spilled coffee on it—let's just say Rocco has me all shook up. But I am exhausted from surfing at dawn, working at Pinky's for six hours, then six more here.

I lock up and walk across the street to my bungalow and check on my flowers. The florabundas need dead-heading soon and my tea roses look hungry for some fish emulsion. I pull out my water wand and give them a quick bath.

Despite my family legacy, I'm trying to keep both sides of Calle del Trueno clean.

For years, the old house across the street from the bike shop sat behind a falling-down fence and was overgrown with weeds and banana palms, thistles and pampas grass. Every day, I'd scowl at the house like it was the eyesore on the street. In reality, the superlative of the ugliest kid on the block was PS Choppers. I watched a lot of DIY videos and got to work, sanding, painting, and repairing the exterior, including replacing the sign.

Pleased with my progress, I bought the bungalow across the street and spruced it up. It was a labor of love, really.

I also learned to garden and bake and not fixate on how ashamed I am to be a Fisk, along with everything I didn't generally have: namely healthy relationships with other humans. This is through no fault of my own. It's just that Fisk has certain connotations. The only reason I got a job at Pinky's is because she and Tootsie were extras in the movie Grease back in the 1970s and were on the same bowling team. Yes, it was called the Pink Ladies.

Tootsie's arthritis doesn't let her hold a bowling ball or so much as bake, but I have all her old recipes, so I whip up a batch of coconut banana bread and shower while it's in the oven.

I expect the water to cool me off, but thoughts of Rocco swirl in my mind, tossing me around like a beach ball. His brown eyes that I always longed to see me—not just look at me like the idiot in the Move Over sports car—follow my every thought

Eventually, after long nights in the shop and more than a few teenage shenanigans, Rocco's lips secretly became mine. We'd sneak around, smooching and getting into trouble.

Then he discarded me. Like a volleyball player, I spike these memories over the net and out of my mind, at least while I'm visiting my grandmother. At the whiff of the baking bread, Tugger, my brother's dog, begs to come to Tootsie's, too.

When we arrive at her third-floor apartment with a view of the ocean, Tootsie calls, "There's my favorite granddaughter and granddog." She makes a fuss over Tugger, who laps up the attention and affection.

"That's what you say to all of your grandchildren."

"Why go through life having only one favorite when you can have multiple? As many as you please."

"That doesn't make sense, but I brought you some coconut banana bread." I set it on the counter in her apartment and slice us each a piece.

"You are my favorite, always visiting and looking after me, and this is my favorite!" she exclaims even though lately every thing is her favorite.

"No, your favorite is Funfetti cake with vanilla frosting and confetti sprinkles."

She gives me a look that says she's earned eighty-nine favorites for surviving each of her years on this planet. "Speaking of cake, my ninetieth birthday is coming up."

"Yes, and I will be baking your favorite cake. Also, you already know we planned a surprise party," I say because my brother ruined the surprise by telling her.

"And I will be surprised." She flares her fingers near her face and widens her eyes.

I can't help but smile. How the ruin of Palisade Shores came from this woman is beyond me. However, my grandfather died young. I never knew him. The loss messed up my dad and the rest of my uncles and aunts. They weren't the same. Then Tootsie moved to Ohio to take care of her ailing mother. Without her watching over everyone like a warden, it all came apart.

I know what Tootsie is going to ask before the question is out of her mouth because it's part of the routine every time I stop by, which is about every other day.

Her lips quirk. "So, who're you bringing as your date to the party?"

Thinking fast, I say, "It's a surprise."

She helps herself to a second slice of the bread. "Watch out for those pink flags. Don't settle for someone with rizz. "

I tilt my head in question. "Tootsie, do you know what that means? Have you been lurking in online chat rooms?"

"Pink flags aren't as obvious as red flags and I'm talking about a big boaster. A guy with a boatload of charisma. Swagger. You want something real with someone who's more than a sneaky link."

"Tootsie!" I gasp.

She wears a mischievous smile. "An alpha or sigma will do. I hear a certain military hero is back in town. He'd be a great candidate."

I choke on a crumb. Eyes watering, I slug down a cup of water. Tootsie may have earned every one of those white wisdom hairs on her head, but that's a bananas idea. Totally coconutty.

"Tootsie, he's a married man with kids." I will turn my home wrecker family heritage around and refuse to let myself think about him for another second.

She shakes her head. "Not so. He's playing nanny to his niece and nephew for the summer. George is deployed, Geena is swamped with work, and maybe he has a soft spot in his heart."

I squawk a laugh. "A heart? Rocco doesn't have one of those, Tootsie."

"I find that heart to believe."

I want to dodge the family disappointment drama saga. My grandmother has two solutions to every problem in life. Cake, sweet bread, and muffins or marriage—the end game with her constant questions about my dating life.

I'm about to say No way when a sordid idea pops into my mind. I could find a fake boyfriend just to appease Tootsie. What she said about Rocco being unattached taps me on the shoulder like in a game of tag. I freeze as an intrusive thought blasts into my mind. I try to dodge it, but it's too late. The wayward notion flares so there's no ignoring it.

Rocco could be my fake boyfriend.

No way. Uh uh. Now, I'm the one with the banana brain after getting bopped with a coconut. I instantly want my father's industrial-sized jug of Gojo to scour my body inside and out. I blame my criminally minded family for my ability to concoct such a preposterous concept.

"I hear he's still single." My grandmother's lips ripple with a smile as if she can read my heart. The warmth in her eyes suggests she knows all about our little fling back in high school.

What I'll never reveal is how much he hurt me because giving people that kind of currency in my life is a lesson I learned to avoid long ago.

Proven fact: I can't have nice things. My cell phone screen is cracked. Tugger scratched my refinished hardwood floors They're hard woof floors now. A mole or gopher or some other critter has been digging in my garden. As soon as something is repaired, something else needs fixing. It's like I'm always redoing something. At least I'm good with a wrench. But I can't fix my family. There's no way to DIY my love life either and even if I rigged something together, it would still be piecemeal, temporary, a bandage. So why bother?

I do my utmost to forget about Tootsie's question and my solution. Instead of trying to piece my heart together, the plan is to lie low, work hard, surf at daybreak. I'll avoid Rocco at all costs, even in this small town. It'll be like I'm not even here.

I'm successful for exactly five days, which involves heretofore unparalleled levels of sneakiness. Thankfully, I don't get stuck in any windows, but I am temporarily trapped in a revolving door, spend three hours in the library during children's story hour, and pretend to be a sunning starlet on the beach. I gave back the big floppy hat and oversized sunglasses.

However, after I get in a surf session, I spot Rocco on the beach with the kids playing with a dog. A massive American Bulldog. There's no mistaking that Rocco has my dog, well, my brother's dog, Tugger.