Salvaged. Jay Crownover

my better judgment I often found myself wondering how she was doing and if she had gotten a handle on all the things that seemed to be crushing her under their inescapable weight.

      I was wrong about seeing her again, just like I was wrong about doing everything in my life differently from how my mother had lived hers would ensure my happiness. I was wrong about hard work and sacrifice being enough. I was wrong about holding on when what I was holding on to desperately wanted me to let go. I was left with bleeding palms, rope burns around my heart, and scars on my soul.

      The next time I saw Poppy Cruz it was my loneliness that was filling up the space, suffocating me, choking me, making me forget to handle her with care. I was nothing more than a searing, open wound. One that was raw, aching, throbbing, and leaking my broken heart and shattered emotions out everywhere. I felt like I’d lost everything, like my entire life had been nothing but a waste of time, nothing more than building blocks knocked over with the swipe of a careless hand. The girl I loved didn’t love me back, my future was ultimately nothing more than a fuzzy, fractured blur. I couldn’t see anything clearly other than the waste and ruin of all my best laid plans.

      But I saw her. And I saw that I scared her.

      It was the last thing I wanted to do but my loneliness was just as big and just and consuming as hers was. It spread out, hungry and angry, looking to consume anyone that might try and challenge its reign.

      I tried to pull myself together, apologized because I knew our paths would cross again now that she lived next door to my best friend. I didn’t want to be another man that she was terrified of. I locked the loneliness down, wrestled it into submission, and tried to quiet down the wild inside of me that was howling, screaming at the loss of its mate. I wanted to be nothing more than gnashing teeth and tearing claws but I swallowed those instincts and allowed myself to act like a kicked puppy that just wanted to whimper and cry.

      Poppy had been through more than I could imagine. She was the one I couldn’t look away from, but even then, she managed to slip past me and disappear. She looked like honey but she moved like a ghost. I memorized everything about her even though she hardly let me see her face.

      I wasn’t supposed to be looking at anything other than how to salvage the mess my life was in, but she was all I could see.

      

       Poppy

      I couldn’t believe I was doing this.

      I was pretty sure sometime over the last week my body and brain had been taken over by an alien life force that was making me act the opposite of how I normally acted.

      Even before I was scared of my own shadow, I wasn’t the type that went out of my way to seek attention from the opposite sex. Making boys drool and collecting broken hearts was more up my older sister’s alley. I tended to be the girl that only spoke when spoken to. I was always shy and hesitant, especially when I was around someone I found attractive. I’d had more than one man tell me that it was endearing … little did I know my obvious uncertainty about my own appeal and allure clearly marked me as prey to those same men. I was an easy target. Something I swore to myself I would never be again. Which was why there was no logical explanation for why I found myself currently parked in front of a very industrial-looking building as I tried to work up the courage to go inside.

      The garage was on the outskirts of downtown Denver. Tucked away among factories and buildings that were now gentrified and redeveloped into upscale apartments and trendy eateries near Coors Field. The garage looked like it had escaped every dime of big money sunk into making LoDo prime real estate. It was a throwback to when this part of the city was still rough and unsafe for people to be out walking their little dogs on designer leashes after dark. The bricks on the outside had faded paint from when the garage was some kind of shipping warehouse. The old paint blended in with newer graffiti that the owner hadn’t bothered to power-wash away. There was also a mural, a beautiful depiction of the Rocky Mountains, that stood off in the distance; it covered all three of the massive metal doors that allowed the cars access in and out of the building. It was a statement piece. One that was impossible to miss. It softened the entire feel of the building and the tall metal fence with its wide gate that surrounded it.

      I knew that one of the guys who owned the tattoo shop where both my sister and her boyfriend worked had painted the mural in trade. Wheeler, the guy I was here to see, if I ever got up the nerve, worked on Nash Donovan’s muscle car and in turn Nash had turned the garage doors into something that even the most dedicated taggers and graffiti artists appreciated too much to deface. Salem, my sister, mentioned that Wheeler was never opposed to a solid trade. Which explained why the majority of the mechanic’s skin was inked in colorful images courtesy of Nash and the rest of the artists who worked at the Saints of Denver.

      I was used to being surrounded by heavily tattooed individuals—heck, my sister started marking her flawless golden skin before she was legally old enough to get a tattoo in order to annoy my father. However, Hudson Wheeler was by far the most decorated human I had ever come across. The designs swirled up each side of his neck and across his throat. They dropped down over his wrists and splayed wide across the back of his hands. He had artwork across his chest and it crawled from the base of his hairline all the way to the top of his jeans across his back and abdomen. He was a walking art installation. And while all that ink and color might have been overwhelming on someone else, with the graceful, thoughtful way he moved and the quiet, measured way he spoke, all the color and noise that covered his body worked for the man that was known as Wheeler. I figured out after the first time I met him that his skin was telling the world his story because he didn’t want to be bothered with repeating it over and over again.

      My father would be appalled by the way Hudson Wheeler looked. He would hate everything about him. That meant I allowed the trickle of attraction that had worked its way through the fear and doubt that suffocated me on a daily basis to take root and grow. Anything that my dad disapproved of was something that I was more than willing to embrace with open arms. I was late to defiance, but did it ever feel good.

      Taking a deep breath and tapping my fingers on the steering wheel, I looked over at the little box that was on the seat next to me. A small grin tugged at my mouth when my eyes landed on the contents. I had no idea if Wheeler was in the market for this particular kind of gift but I figured if he didn’t want it I would take it home until I figured something else out. It was a bold move, bringing a man I hardly knew this kind of gift, but as soon as I saw it I knew Wheeler had to have it.

      I scolded myself for being foolish and impulsive, silently telling myself that I was setting myself up for the kind of embarrassment and ridicule that would cripple me. It had taken me endless hours of therapy and unwavering amounts of tough love from my family and friends to get to the point where I could leave the house without having a full-on panic attack. Taking a step so far out of my comfort zone felt like I was jumping off a cliff without knowing if there was anything down below to cushion my fall. If Wheeler rejected the gift, if he made me feel stupid for trying to do something nice, it very well might undo all the hard work I’d put into getting back some semblance of a normal life. Trying to cheer up a man that I had no ties to or no investment in seemed like a foolish risk to take, but I still packed up the box and drove down here. I tried to talk myself out of going inside, my mind screaming that this was a mistake. It didn’t work. Even though I was a nervous wreck I still ended up grabbing the box, muttering under my breath at the contents like they could reassure me this wasn’t going to blow up in my face. I was shaking from head to toe as I exited the car.

      The box shifted in my hold, making me gasp and mutter a few choice words. My father would hate that I was swearing, so I made it a point to do so at least once a day. I had to shut the car door with my hip and I jumped when it slammed shut. I watched wide-eyed as one of the painted metal doors started to roll up. I squinted behind the dark lenses of my sunglasses as a lone figure walked to the edge of a bay and deftly jumped down, ignoring the ramp