REBEL, a New Adult Romance Novel (The Rebel Series) by Elle Casey Page B

opened my mouth and inserted my own foot.   Of course he doesn’t want to chat with me.   This man doesn’t chat.   He fixes cars and walks around being sexy all day without even trying.
    I take the key from him with a trembling hand.   I don’t know if my nerves are a result of having accused him of wanting to talk to me or from having him so physically close.   I step away quickly just to be sure.
    “I don’t bite either,” he says.
    “What?” I ask, brushing my hair out of my face.   I   heard him, but I don’t know what to say to that, so I’m stalling for time.   I’m so flustered, I feel like running out of the parking lot as far and as fast as my feet will take me.   I guess I’ll have to get them out of my mouth first, though.   God, why is it that I come up with witty things to say fifteen minutes after I’ve left the scene? Come on, Teagan, say something awesome!
    “I said, I don’t bite either.   See you tomorrow.”   He turns to leave and makes it halfway to the door.
    “Rebel!” I shout too loudly.
    “Yeah?”   He turns halfway so I can see the side of him.
    “Do you have any degreaser I can use?”
    He frowns as he turns the rest of the way towards me.   “What do you need it for?”
    “My shower.”   And my hair, but we’ll keep that part a little secret.
    “Your shower?”
    “Yeah.   It has black slimy stuff all over it.”
    “Wait here.”   He disappears into the office.
    I bite on a hangnail while I wait for him, wondering if I should offer to pay for the stuff he’s going to bring me. I hope he doesn’t think this is my lame attempt at making a move on him. That would go down in the books as the worst pick-up line of all time.   Do you have any degreaser I could use?   It’s almost perverted.   I’m picturing what kind of weirdos would do things with black grease when he comes back through the door carrying a spray bottle.
    I look at it when he hands it over and am instantly frustrated.   “This isn’t degreaser.”
    “No, it’s not.”   He leaves me standing there.
    “But I need degreaser!” I yell at the closing door.
    “No you don’t!” he yells back.
    A spark.
    A spark!
    That blonde girl might own his ass in that club, but in this moment at Rebel Wheels, I feel a genuine spark between us.   The kind of spark that didn’t just originate from my lonely-ass heart.   He was smiling when he answered, I know he was; I could hear it in his voice.   Maybe he still is.
    I leave the parking lot with a big shit-eating grin on my face.   It lasts all the way to my apartment, up until the second I see the broken locks and bashed-in doorframe of my new home.
    “Mother fucker,” I say under my breath, as I realize I’ve been robbed.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

    MY HAND HOVERS IN FRONT of my apartment door, but I don’t push it in like I want to.   What if someone’s still in there?   What if they have a knife?   Or a gun?   I know this makes me an asshole, but I leave my door and walk around to the one I saw Julio go into the other day.   I knock loudly, hoping someone inside will hear me over the loud music.
    A woman comes to the door.   She’s almost a foot shorter than me, but the wrinkles around her eyes tell me she’s an adult.
    “Hello.   Um, is Julio around?”   I try to look past her but see only a small foyer with vinyl floor covering that looks almost as bad as my walls, yellowed and torn in a couple spots.
    She answers me with a bunch of Spanish.
    “Julio?” I try again.   “Estoy Julio … here-o?”   I really should have taken Spanish in school.   French is so not spoken in LA anywhere.
    The woman turns her head and yells into the house something I can’t understand, but a minute later Julio is standing next to her without his hat.   He looks ten years old.
    “Oh, hey, Teagan, what’s up?”   He smiles and his blindingly white and gold teeth glow out from the gloomy apartment interior.
    Before I can answer, his