Rocket Girl Ch. 02

~sigh~ OK, this might go a chapter or two beyond what I'd envisioned.

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Aurora did do it to him the very next Saturday. She caught a ride over with a few of her friends who were going shopping. She made the quick introductions and asked Will if she could use his room to change. He nodded and she went into the house to get her one-piece leathers on and then try out her bike.

He was alone with three gorgeous women while he was there on his knees in the bed of his truck trying to drag his engine back to the tailgate. He wondered what he'd done to deserve this.

He'd already forgotten their names.

Will felt like he was in a fun-house hall of mirrors - everywhere he seemed to see himself reflected in a pair of shining eyes. He didn't know where to look. The weather had turned hot over the last few days, and not knowing that he'd have visitors, he'd pulled off his T-shirt and was sweating buckets from the effort and the heat. It didn't help.

Aurora was pumped to check out her newly improved ride and almost bounced coming out of the house. She set the choke and hit the button. The four-cylinder lit off and growled. It began to run roughly after a few seconds, and she took off the choke to smooth it out. "Will she run any hotter now?" Aurora asked, as she stood there next to her beast, pulling on her helmet.

Will shook his head, "Check the temperature gauge now and then, but it shouldn't unless there's a problem. All we did was make it breathe easier. Your fuel consumption will go up some though." He cracked the throttle and the note rose instantly to a breathless-sounding shriek that dropped off as he took his hand away.

He noticed from her still-open zipper that she wore no top under her leathers. He couldn't blame her for that, he thought, he'd have done the same today. Only her breastbone was visible in the gap that her zipper left. He reached over and zipped her up as she did up the helmet straps. She looked at him and smiled. She was stoked to try it now. He held his finger against her throat, and pulled the Velcro tab of the suit's neck strap over it, removing his finger now that he was sure it wasn't tight. She lifted the visor.

"Nothing hard or stupid today, Rocket Girl. That will be like a new bike to you. You'll get the full benefit of the pipe now, plus the jetting - maybe as much as 15% more power. Just go easy and try to get the feel of the extra horses, ok?"

She nodded as she got on and lifted the side stand. Rolling it around, she waved at them, and waited at the bottom of the drive for the light traffic to clear.

"Hey Will," one of Aurora's friends said, "what does a girl have to do to get your attention?"

Will realized that he'd been unintentionally rude and turned, "Sorry. I've spent quite a bit of time on Aurora's bike. I want to make sure it's right." He glanced as he heard her raise the revs a bit and pull out. The engine surged in response to her right hand and she briefly stood on the pegs as the front wheel lifted. Then she was back down and gone in a howl. Will smiled.

"That." he said pointing over his shoulder with his thumb, "It's not a prerequisite, but if you can do that, you've got my undivided attention." He listened as he heard the exhaust note recede. He shook his head with a smile, "That's my Rocket Girl."

One of them cleared her throat, "You um, you do know that she's engaged, right?"

Will looked at them with a wistful smile, "Yeah, but I can dream, can't I? Hey, you guys want a beer?"

Over the next hour, they looked less predatory, he thought, and he was thankful that they could all just shoot the breeze and laugh. He'd apologized and made an effort to get their names straight. One was married and the others were dating somebody, but he appreciated their improvement to the scenery.

The atmosphere clouded over suddenly as a black Corvette pulled in behind Aurora and one of them mentioned that it was Cesar.

Will ambled over with a genuine smile and offered his hand. He found it refused and sighed to himself as Cesar made a big deal out of telling him to stay away from his girl. Aurora took her helmet off and he could see the storm clouds there. Will was a bit sad to see and hear how the guy was plainly going to be a dick, but he listened politely until he heard enough of a gap in the idiotic tirade to get a word in.

"Do I get to talk at all here or are you wearing ear plugs?' The statement at least bought him Cesar's attention, so Will leaned down and introduced himself, "I think you're a very lucky man, Cesar, and I'm happy to meet you. I'd just like to tell you that none of that shit was necessary. She's wearing your ring, and as long as that's there, I'm minding my business, pal. You haven't got a thing to worry about from me, unless you can't get over your possessive shit here in my driveway."

Will nodded to Aurora momentarily, "We're just friends, and if you can't get past that, it's your problem, 'cause it sure ain't mine. I'm just helping my friend with her bike, and believe me, I keep my hands to myself. You want to act rational, then come on and have a beer. If not, you can piss off. That's the rules. Looking at her, I'd say you're gonna get an earful, but after that, I've got nothing against you, and there's beer in the fridge."

Cesar looked as if he might explode for a second, but looked down and then back up with a rueful smile, "You're right, man. She's gonna pull out my chest hair here, and I probably deserve it. I might as well get this over with." He opened the door and got out as Will walked to the garage and opened a beer.

Aurora was reading Cesar the riot act. Will didn't pay that much attention but he noticed her friends watching intently.

"He's got an awful temper," Clara said. Helen laughed quietly, "And so does she. We might need paramedics, this has been coming for a while."

It was mostly in Spanish, Will noted, and wondered if that was a good thing, Clara said likely not, and it was worse now, she said, since they had suddenly gotten very quiet. The only time that they heard anything clearly was near the end when Cesar ordered her to sell her bike. Aurora's face showed no reaction as she looked at him and walked to the garage.

She took Will's beer out of his hand, "Sorry for all this, Will," was all she said. He'd barely had any of it, and she took a long pull from it making sure Cesar could see. Then she walked back to him. He had already gotten into his car and told her to do the same.

She leaned down, "I've been thinking a lot lately about who I am, what I am, and what I'm not. I'm not your property and I never will be."

"Look," he said apologetically, "I'm sorry for saying that, I-"

Aurora was shaking her head, "No you're not, Cesar. If you were, you'd at least try not to do it again, but you do it at least twice a week at minimum. And we're not even married yet. For damn sure this won't get one bit better for me afterward."

"I'm not stupid, and in case you've never taken the time to notice - and you haven't - I've gotten this far in life without you and your shit attitude. And I was a lot happier before you. With you around, I'm miserable. My life is gonna feel like one big party for me without you in it."

She took off her engagement ring, "Be sure to complain to my father for my behavior as you always do. I don't want to marry you, now or ever. I don't ever want to see you again." She dropped the ring in his lap.

As he looked down for it, she shook Will's beer and dropped that in his lap too before turning to walk into the house. Cesar began to get out, but Paco walked down the steps and stood beside Will. They both looked at Cesar with great interest.

Cesar tore off a lot of rubber as he left.

Will found Aurora in his room. She'd changed, but was sniffling. She looked at him and her tears began again. "I'm sorry I embarrassed you and myself. I wish that hadn't happened here. He saw me at the bottom of the road that you and I ride and began to yell at me right there in the middle of the road. When he got ready to get loud again here, I'd had enough of it - and him."

She looked at his eyes, and thought he looked so sad himself. She came closer and asked. Will just said that he was sad for her if she'd been embarrassed and if he had cost her a chance at happiness in any way.

She shook her head, "What happiness? I get told what to do at home, and what I will do when I'm with him. I must have missed the happy part." She put her hands on his shoulders, "I'm happy when I'm not near any of them but my cousin, his wife, and you, and not in that order either. THEN I'm happy."

She kissed his cheek, "I've never had anyone like you in my life before. Thanks for being my friend. And in spite of Cesar, I'm really happy with my bike now. Thank you so much for that too."

Aurora talked with her friends a while before they left, and then she helped her cousin's wife with dinner. "What are you going to do?" Leona asked, "You know the phone will ring here any minute and it'll be your dad or mom. And by the way, Aurora, I'm in your corner here."

"Thanks, Leona," she sighed, "I don't really know," Aurora said, "but I know I'm not going home for a few days if Will can let me use his couch. Then I'm going to move out as soon as I can. I wasn't put here to be told all the time. Will hates that when I bitch about it - I can see it in his eyes. And I know it's not my bitching that bugs him, it's that I'm unhappy."

She stopped and looked down at the salad that she was making, "He thinks people should be able to do what they want to."

She found Leona smiling at her. "What's so funny?"

Leona shook her head, but the smile remained, "Nothing's funny. Go on, I'm waiting for you to get to the end."

Aurora shook her head, "What end? What do you mean?"

Paco's wife threw back her head and laughed, "Listen, Will and I were in love once - puppy love you could say since we were only 13. The love of my life is your cousin - my heart and soul, you know it's true. But I've always loved Will as a friend all along. There's nobody in this whole world who's more interested in him being happy than me. So he thinks people should be able to do what they want to - you said that. What do you think that he'd want for you?"

"To be happy and do what I want to." Aurora said, not following.

"Right," Leona said, "He'll understand about you not wanting to go home, and he wants for you to be happy, most of all. So, if you're not too broken up about telling Cesar where to go, maybe think about being happy yourself for a moment and answer this question since it's just us here."

"Without any of the upset or the distractions, or any other thing in the way, just pure feeling, where would you be happy - on Will's couch?"

Leona looked at Aurora's face as the penny dropped, and Aurora studied the salad intently.

Leona waited for the tiny smile and put her arm on Aurora's shoulder when it appeared, "You said you'd be here for a couple of days. Maybe not tonight but within the week, you might want to think about it. The time is important, no more than a week or the chance is gone, and even that's pushing it from what I see. It's the upset that's what you both need for this. If you need to be told plainly, Will already loves you. He has for a while now."

Aurora looked over suddenly, "Really? I thought he just liked me as a friend."

"He does," Leona laughed, "he really does. But in his book, the sun shines out of your ass, Aurora, and to him you walk on air. I see him having coffee in the morning, way too early yet for any of us who have to get up that early to do much more than grunt at each other. He sits right there and looks out of the window at nothing and sips his coffee. But I can see the thought bubble over his head. He loves you, trust me. If there's anybody who'd know it, it's me. Hey, if you doubt my word, just ask your friends. They saw how he looked at you while you were fiddling with that bike."

Aurora stopped thinking about her troubles for a moment and allowed herself a smile. She didn't notice when Leona took the salad bowl away to put it into the refrigerator.

"Yeah, honey," Leona said, "you think about that, but there's just one small hitch."

Aurora looked over. "Huh?"

"You just have to make him see that he's worth you, that's all. He can't imagine that you'd ever want him."

Aurora stared, "That's stupid."

Leona smiled as she shrugged, "Stupid or not, that's Will. The last person on the planet that he thinks about is himself as far as love goes. Haven't you noticed that about him? The happy loner," she smirked, "as if there could be such a thing. "

Aurora thought back and nodded, "Yeah, now that you mention it. At first I thought that he was joking around. Later as I drove home one time, I got the feeling that he's not even looking around, like he's going through life looking at the sidewalk a little bit too much."

Leona's smile disappeared as she nodded, "He plays at being an idiot with that 'aw, shucks' grin that he wears and he thinks nobody sees, but I know he's not happy. I know him better than his mother does, not that she ever gave a shit. When we were kids, it was all about his brothers, since nobody kisses ass better and he never learned how. He hasn't seen his own family in years, so we're his family, Jimmy, Steph, Paco and me."

Leona shook her head, "He won't even try anymore. He was miserable the last time he was in anything that you could call serious. The only thing serious about her was how she tore pieces off him every chance she got, from how he combed his hair to how he wore his socks. When he'd had enough, she showed up here to try to get her hooks back into him, I guess. He just turned and walked away. He was done with her but I saw his face as he walked off."

"He looked like he was walking straight into a blizzard, right back to where he thinks he belongs. I've become like his sister. I can see how he sees things. I saw that his choice was either the bitch queen or his ice fortress. He chose the ice fortress. She took one step to go after him. That was more than enough for me."

Aurora looked at her quizzically. "What happened then?"

"Oh, she was about to follow him and start on him all over. " Leona snorted with a smirk, "I kicked her ass across the street for her, and told her not to come back."

She looked at Aurora, "I don't know if you can understand this, but yeah, we were just kids when Will and I were in love. We didn't even know what we were doing, but to us it was everything. It was the most wonderful thing in the world, but then I met Paco, and everything changed for me. The last thing I ever wanted to do was break that boy's fine heart, but it happened anyway."

Leona's beautiful eyes looked so sad as she continued, "Since then, I've worn that guilt and never showed it to Will because though he's never said a word, I've watched all of this happen - I was somebody else who he thought he wasn't good enough for. So he's made himself into a guy who is good enough for anybody, a buddy to everybody and a true friend who would give you his last dime. But that's as far as it goes, Aurora. It's all one way and that's outward. He'd do anything for anyone. He just won't ever do anything for himself."

"He thinks that he's learned that something like love isn't for him, it's for everybody else. He might see a woman and appreciate her more in one glance than she'd ever know or imagine because that's the way he is. And believe me, that's how he really is. He sees more about a woman in an instant than anyone I've ever known."

"We used to make a game of it. The guys would sit at a café or someplace and make a very quiet comment about a girl walking past. Nothing she could hear, and nothing rude or stupid – remember that Steph and I were there too, and even so, none of the three are like that. The game was that they had to mention some quality about the woman that they could see clearly with just a look. Mostly, our husbands would mention obvious shit that took no heart to pick out. But Will would blow Steph and I away with his observations every damn time. He might not have been bang on – who's to say? He could glance once, close his eyes and tell us about half a page about her, and we could see – as women – that he was very likely right."

"So he looks and he sees more than most. But if he likes her, it's like she's something that he might wish to have in his wildest dreams, like the world's best handmade motorcycle, as a really lousy example."

Leona shook her head sadly. "But he knows that after a few seconds, it'll be time to step away from the showroom window and walk away with his hands in his empty pockets. He doesn't have whatever the price is. To him, it's like - if you have to ask how much, you can't afford it, so he never asks," Leona shrugged, "he just walks away."

"Believe me, I consider him my blood, and I take care of my own. Lucky for me that Ashley bitch didn't press charges, but she got the point. Enough was enough."

She caught Aurora's sideways glance and laughed, "Don't worry, I'd say you'd be about the best thing that could ever happen to that boy. It might remind him how it feels to be alive."

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The dreaded phone call didn't come, though Cesar called to apologize. She took the call in front of everyone in the kitchen and Aurora wasn't having any of it this time.

"The ring's off, Cesar, and it's never going back on. I noticed something right away. It was amazing how the diamond on that ring felt like a stone around my neck... No, we're done... No. You need to find yourself a girl with less backbone – and maybe a blow up doll or something while you look. Better still, just find one of those really good ones and get that one a ring. Then you could take her places that you want to go and she'll never give you an argument. No, I've made my final decision. You're gone and best of all, the bike stays."

Will found her as she was getting ready to bed down on his couch. There wasn't an argument, but he managed to talk her into sleeping in his bed and he slept on the couch. He didn't mind and it was what he wanted.

The only thing that really bothered him was the quiet sounds that came to him through the closed door as she cried over the whole mess.

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The next day, Will and Jimmy had gotten Will's engine off the truck and onto some wood blocks near his bike on Jimmy's way to help Steph with their laundry. The garage extension rang and Aurora watched Will with new eyes as he took the call.

Will was a supervisor in a small factory. To him it seemed that his hat changed every day there. They'd hired a young kid who wouldn't have been worth a look to Will, but he'd turned out just fine and was one of Will's best workers.

Bobby had approached him one day asking if there was a chance that they'd need more help. Will had nodded and said maybe, so the kid told him about his friend who was waiting out back to meet him. Will spoke to the friend, but was against hiring him. Frankly, he looked like he was 6 miles high, and there were plenty of ways to get hurt or killed there. Will had wanted no part of it, but the Bobby had told him that Steve just looked like that, and Steve almost pleaded with him for a chance. Will shrugged and invited the guy in to fill out the forms.

Together, they were just awesome workers and were happy to be working for Will. Will himself was amazed and it was a lesson to him about reading people. One day Steve came to him almost in tears, saying that the owner's son had reamed him out for sweeping the floor. Will went to see the owner, and told him that the running of the workforce was his job, not his son's. Steve had been sweeping the floor because Will had told him to do it if there was no work for him. Steve's uneven workflow only happened because of the lousy job that the owner's son did at scheduling. Will was furious, and said that if the guy ever ragged on his workers again, Will would walk. The owner agreed, and things had been fine ever since.