Jerk It by Lani Lynn Vale

CHAPTER 9

I’m sorry for what I said during burpees.

-Fran to Taos

MURPHY

2 months later

“I’m sorry, but what?”

The two women had made me stupid.

That’s what I’d decided.

“We need you to teach us how to take out a driveshaft.” Mavis, the biggest pain in my ass that I’d ever met, repeated her earlier request.

I shook my head again, hoping to clear it of the thoughts that always plagued me when Mavis was around, and said, “I…why?”

“Because I want to take someone’s driveshaft out, duh.” Mavis rolled her eyes.

“Whose?” I finally asked.

“None of your business.” She glared.

I looked over at Mavis’s sister and saw her eyes sparkling with mirth.

She was holding Vlad, Mavis’s son, and trying really hard not to crack up.

Her son, Vlad, was leaning practically all the way out of Fran’s arms, holding his own out to me, and pleading at me with his big blue jean-colored eyes to hold him.

I would’ve if I wasn’t covered in grease and dirt from an engine that I’d just pulled apart.

The last time I’d taken him out of someone’s arms and held him while covered in grease, Mavis had literally gotten pissed as hell for ‘ruining the clothes that she just bought him.’

Now, I made sure to pay attention when I held him.

Despite every cell in my body wanting to reach for him, I kept my arms where they were.

But Vlad wouldn’t be deterred.

He leaned even farther over, practically stretched out superman style in his aunt’s arms.

“Oh, just take him,” Mavis ordered.

I grinned and reached for Vlad, who came so willingly one would think that we spent more time together.

We didn’t.

Because Mavis and I hated each other.

At least, I hoped I had her convinced that I hated her.

Because if she got even one inkling that I didn’t hate her, I wouldn’t be able to keep her nosey little ass out of my business.

And my business was failing fast.

Vlad, the little boy that had a hold on my heart on one side, while his mother had a hold on the other side, leaned into me and placed his head atop of my failing heart.

“I need you to show me how to do this driveshaft thing,” she ordered me.

I couldn’t stop myself from showing her.

A couple hours after they left, I wasn’t the least bit surprised to find her getting arrested, either.

I couldn’t stop myself from racing to her rescue, even though I knew it was the worst idea ever.

Thirty minutes after arriving at the police station to Mavis going at it with Heather Trudell, a reporter, I all but dragged Mavis to the car.

“The nerve of that woman,” Mavis fumed. “Publishing my sister’s information. Putting her in the path of a madman. And then having the nerve to blame it all on us!”

Mavis’s sister, Fran, had an article published about her in the newspaper about being an eyewitness to a string of murders that’d been going on in Paris over the last few months—a serial killer was in our midst.

And Heather having published that article had put Fran in danger.

Mavis, being Fran’s protector, hadn’t liked that.

Not at all.

I understood, of course, the need to protect those that you loved.

But Mavis had to have a cooler head than she was exhibiting. She had a kid after all.

“You need to learn to prioritize,” I found myself saying. “You have a kid at home. You need to be thinking about Vlad. And what would’ve happened had you actually been arrested? The hospital would have grounds to fire you.”

Mavis stayed stubbornly silent.

But it was my last words to her that had her seeing red.

“You need to grow up, Mavis. Grandmother isn’t here to bail you out anymore,” I continued, not realizing how volatile the situation was until I got a good look at Mavis’s face when I pulled into her driveway and put the truck in park. “You need to start considering what’s best…”

I turned to look just as Mavis got out of the truck.

She walked to the back, reached inside after opening the door, and extracted her son’s car seat from the seatbelts that I’d hooked it into the car with.

Closing the door quietly, she never once looked back, and I realized that I’d probably just accomplished what I’d been trying to make happen for a very long time now.

Kick Mavis out of my life for good.