Free Full Coverage: Boys of Fall by Erin Nicholas

if you don’t really like to do it,” he commented after they’d both swallowed.
    “Thanks. I got better at it, but I still don’t like to spend a lot of time on it. And there have been multiple times I’ve put something in the oven and gone out to the garage and two hours later come back to a smoke-filled kitchen and a ruined casserole.”
    Nolan smiled. “You love being in the garage.”
    She nodded, but her eyes were on her plate. “I get caught up. I’d much rather have dirt under my fingernails than bread dough.”
    “Why do you love the motors and stuff so much?” he asked. “Did your dad teach you?”
    She looked up and Nolan wondered if she was embarrassed by how much she loved the garage and working on cars.
    “My dad was always tinkering with stuff and he taught me a few things in the beginning, but he wasn’t around much. I learned a lot of it by hanging out down at the shop when I was younger. I’d go by after school and take cookies in, and the mechanics thought it was cute and funny, so they’d teach me about the parts of the cars and how they all worked together. Then, when I got older, I’d hang out with the high school guys I knew that worked on cars.”
    Randi had always had a reputation for liking the older guys at school. Like the juniors and seniors when she was still only in junior high.
    She took another bite, watching Nolan, and he wondered if she was waiting for him to ask about those rumors.
    “Did you take those guys cookies too?” he asked, unable to help himself.
    She’d dated Matt, a guy four years older than her, for almost a year.
    She shook her head. “Those guys taught me about cars in exchange for other things.”
    Nolan chewed casually. Even as anger and jealousy began to simmer. What the hell had those guys been doing messing around with a girl so much younger? Hell, for some of them, it would have been a crime.
    “Beer and cigarettes.”
    Nolan swallowed and looked over at her, aware that he was gripping his fork as if it was a weapon rather than an eating utensil. “What?”
    “My parents weren’t around much and with Dad out on the road, he never remembered how many beers he had left in the fridge or cartons of cigarettes he had in the cabinet. So I was easily able to take the boys stuff in exchange for them letting me help rebuild cars.”
    Nolan wiped his mouth and turned to drape his arm over the back of the chair. “That’s all Matt wanted?” he asked pointedly.
    “Oh, Matt.” She nodded. “No, I gave Matt more than that. But not in exchange for working on cars.”
    “In exchange for what then?”
    “You mean what did I get in exchange for letting him round the bases with me?” she asked.
    There was a glint of mischief in her eyes that made Nolan certain she didn’t feel like a victim in any way. “Yeah, what did you get?”
    “I learned all about French kissing and how great having a guy’s hands on me felt and how to put a condom on the right way and that sex could be really fun and great.”
    Nolan sat blinking at her.
    Randi smiled. “I know now that I’m really lucky. Matt actually loved me, and he was really gentle and sweet and…good at it. All of my sexual firsts were with him, and they were great. I know now that’s unusual and not all girls can say that.” She took a long drink of her tea, watching Nolan over the edge of the glass. “By the way, I’ve since thanked Matt for that.”
    Matt still lived in Quinn. He was married to a girl who graduated in the class above Randi and Nolan and they had four kids.
    Nolan felt a strange emotion go through him, thinking about Matt and Randi.
    Gratitude.
    Not jealousy, not judgement, not indignation. Gratitude that it had been Matt to be Randi’s first everything. Which was crazy, of course. He was grateful that Matt had treated Randi right all those years ago? Long before she was his …what? Randi wasn’t his anything—then or now.
    Still, it was definitely gratitude. He couldn’t