I whipped my head around to see Devin running towards me from the nearest garage. He must have come out the side door otherwise I would've noticed him. 

Standing there like I'd been stunned, I watched as he ran up, pulled the wrench loose like it was nothing, grabbed the tools, and slammed the hood shut. 

He placed his free hand on my arm. "Come on!" he yelled above the noise of the storm and ran with me back to the garage.  

Once we got inside, he flung the door shut and set the tools on the ground. "Are you alright?"

I tried to take no notice to his concerned and concentrated stare as I said, "Yeah, I'm fine." 

"What about your wrist?" he asked, motioning to my gash that was still bleeding a little. 

"It's fine," I chattered.

"You need to get out of those clothes." 

It took me five nanoseconds of scandalized horror before I realized he was referring to my soaking wet clothes that were clinging to my body. 

"You're going to get a cold if you stay in those," he went on further. 

"I didn't exactly bring a change of clothes," I replied sarcastically. 

He went over to the workbench and took a blue jumpsuit out of the bottom cabinet. "This will have to work. Just get out of your t-shirt and jeans."

"That's a men's jumpsuit," I dumbly pointed out. 

"I know, but if you saw yourself I don't think you'd be fighting back," he said with a hint of amusement.

I looked down to find my sports bra visibly showing through the white shirt I had on. Crossing my arms over my chest, I gave him an expectant look. "Are you going to give it to me?"

He started walking towards me but I put my hand up. "Don't come any closer. Just... toss it." 

Throwing the jumpsuit, he promptly turned around on his heel, revealing the beginning of a smirk as he did so.

As I stripped my wet clothes, I kept an eye on Devin. He was still standing with his back to me, and his arms crossed in front of him. 

I soon found that taking off wet skinny jeans leaves much to be desired. Since it was the first day I didn't have to wear my boot, I was trying to be extra careful with my newly healed ankle. 

After a few minutes, Devin called back, "You really are slow at everything, huh?" He murmured another word under his breath which I barley made out to be "turtle." 

"You try taking off wet jeans," I told him, omitting the fact that I was afraid to take the clinging jean off my ankle. 

"I will... if you want me to help you."

It took me a moment to see what he did there. "You deserve such a slap in the face, you know that?"

"Oh, I know, and I'm sure you'll give it to me when you're done. I'm just trying to speed you up."

"Well in that case, I might be a while," I said with a whole lot of sass. 

He chuckled. "In that case, I'll turn around then."

"No you won't!" I countered forcefully with a strange twinge of frustration.

"Lissa, what's the matter?" he said in a non-playful tone. 

I sighed with a huff. "It's my ankle. This is the first day going without my boot and I'm afraid I'm going to hurt it trying to take off these jeans."

Without saying a word, he took off his soaked shirt and tied it over his eyes. 

"What're you doing?" I asked tentatively. 

"Helping you," he said simply as he turned around and sat on the floor, holding his hand out. "Grab my hand and put it on your ankle."

"What?" I incredulously exclaimed. 

He calmly repeated, "Grab my hand and put it on your ankle."

Finally understanding where he was getting at, I walked over, took his hand, and touched it to my ankle. He lifted up my foot and I wavered off balance. 

"You can hold my shoulder," he offered. 

I nodded and promptly held on to his shoulder to steady myself, later realizing with a facepalm that he couldn't see my nod.

He carefully began to fold and refold the leg of the jean over my ankle until the rest of it slipped off. 

I awkwardly avoided staring at his muscular bare chest and looked around the garage. Well this is a new one. 

"Have you already gotten the other ankle off?" he asked. 

"Huh? Oh, yeah." 

He hesitated. "Do you need help getting the jumpsuit on?"

"Hm? No, I'm good."

"Okay," he said slowly.

With a mental kick in the shin, I retreated my hand from holding his shoulder and walked back to grab the jumpsuit. He sat on the ground and waited blindfolded until I zipped the jumpsuit all the way up and said, "I'm done now."

He untied his shirt and hung it over the workbench along with my jeans and shirt. Bringing over a clean rag, he said, "Here, I'll wrap this around your wrist. It should stop the bleeding."

I let him take my wrist and tie the rag tightly around it. 

"Thanks," I said offhandedly. 

"You're welcome." His deep voice settled into a kind tone that I'd never noticed before. 

He walked back over to the workbench and went rummaging through the other cabinets while I stood there, not knowing what to do next. 

He had his red Thunderbird parked in one part of the garage area, and his race car in the other. I observed a spray wax bottle sitting on the hood of the Thunderbird with a microfiber rag  next to it. Wonder why he'd be spray waxing his car here on a Sunday night.

"Want to sit? We might be here for a little bit," Devin said. He laid an oversize towel on the ground against the wall. 

"Sure, might as well," I replied, sitting down on the far edge of the towel. 

He slid down the wall and sat on the other side. "So, what were you doing here?"

"Dropping some Twizzlers off," I said with a deadpan face. 

"Important stuff," he laughed. 

I scrunched my nose. "Yeah, too bad they're in my dad's garage and not here. I'm starving." 

"They're in your dad's garage?" 

I nodded.

"Then why don't we get them?" he asked. 

"Because there's a thunderstorm outside?"

He hopped up. "Follow me."

I raised my eyebrows. "I'm not going out there and neither are you."

"Exactly." He walked over to the back door and punched in a code. 

"You know that door just leads to a locked door with another locked door to another locked door, right?" I asked, not moving an inch. All of the garages were connected in some way, but with different codes on each door. 

He stood there giving me an amused smile. "I do know. And I also know all the codes to those locked doors." 

My mouth opened into an unbelieving jaw-drop. "You do not."

"The beauty of technology," he said, holding up his phone.

Getting up, I scurried to look at his phone where a directory of door numbers and their keypad codes were all listed. "You hacked the whole system?"

"Just the security," he shrugged. 

"Not bad, Mister Marsh," I said, genuinely impressed. 

He opened the door for me and one by one, typed in the codes to the doors until we were well around the complex. 

"We should be getting close to your dad's garage," he said. 

"His back door is 128, I think." 

"Yeah, it's the next one through this corridor."

"Wait," I grabbed his arm and stopped him. "This is Brandon Oake's garage."

He waited with a questioning look for me to continue. 

A sly smile swept across my face. "I have some business to take care of."

He raised his eyebrows and opened Brandon's door for me, leaving me there while he went and found the Twizzlers. 

By the time he came back I had a thin layer of grease spread across the seat of Brandon's race car. Just a nice little surprise for tomorrow. 

Devin shook his head. "I never took you as the type for revenge." 

"You obviously don't know Brandon Oakes very well."

"No," he admitted, "is he worse than me?" 

Even though he said it in a joking manner, it caught me off guard. I remember thinking Brandon was an angel compared to Devin. The thought of that made me feel so guilty as I glanced towards Devin's good-natured smile. 

At once I snapped out of my trance. "Believe it or not, he is," I quipped, matching his lighthearted demeanor. 

Once we got back to Devin's garage, I ripped opened the family-size pack of Twizzlers, and taking out three, handed over the pack for him to take some. 

"No thanks," he said, "they're all yours."

I gave him a disapproving look. "Letting somebody eat junk food by themselves is a serious offense." 

"I doubt the legitimacy of that crime, but okay." He grabbed the pack from me and took out a  Twizzler. 

Smiling, I said, "You're kind of funny when you're not making me want to punch you." Did I say that?

He laughed. "Oh, I only make fun of you because you like it." 

I sat up straight and turned to him. "No, I do not!"

"Yeah, you do. It fuels your witty comebacks."

Taken back by the indirect compliment, I was silenced for a moment. 

"There's a spider," I blurted out upon seeing a spider on the floor beside him, grateful to try and change the subject.  

Surprisingly, my attempt worked better than I'd expected. He jumped to his feet and stomped on it like he was eliminating Stalin or something. 

"I hate spiders," he said solemnly.

"You're a real Indiana Jones," I laughed. 

Sitting back down, he pursed his lips together and blushed. I repeat, Devin blushed. 

A moment later he smirked. "Well Indiana Jones was a stud, so I'll take that as a compliment."

~~~

I'm finally posting this lol. I was so excited for this chapter that I may or may not have revised it a million times before I decided it was good enough to post. Hope you enjoyed! Remember to vote if you liked it! xoxo, Elle Grace