Speed Rail: A Single Dad Romance eBook

My life revolves around just one thing: my daughter.

I don’t have the time or energy for anything else—not my foolish dream of an acting career and definitely not the annoying woman who opened a gym in the warehouse behind my garage.

Piper’s a menace to society, between her loud music, hurling weights around like a shot putter, and her building that is definitely not up to code.

Unfortunately, my kid thinks she’s the best thing since unlimited screen-time. It’s getting harder to avoid Piper when my daughter keeps going over there to ask about hair braids and sports teams.

Maybe I took things too far when I called the building inspector on Piper, but she can’t keep bringing clients into that fire hazard of a gym. And I can’t have her behind my house all the time, clad in spandex and making me think about things I have no business wishing for.

I’m done with relationships. Whatever I feel for Piper is passing. If I drive her away, I can get back to raising my daughter in peace. Anything else is just a pipe dream…

I’m up, I’m up. Seriously, I’m up.

If I keep telling myself this lie it’ll eventually feel true, right? My five o’clock alarm feels cruel this time of year, when the days are getting shorter and the sun is rising a hell of a lot later. 

I drag my hands down my face and sit up, fumbling with my phone as I scramble to turn off the alarm before it wakes my daughter. The only thing worse than getting up this early to work on my side hustle would be to get up this early and not be able to work on my side hustle because Ruby needs my full attention.

I walk to the door gingerly, sending up silent praise that the floorboards don’t creak under my weight. I’m pretty religious about oiling the door hinges and checking the knobs for squeaks, but there never seems to be much I can do about 90-year-old pine boards groaning as I try to sneak out across the back yard to my garage, which I have converted to a makeshift studio. 

I grab myself a glass of water and a green apple as I slip out the back door. I figure the walk in the freezing air will stand in for any stretches I should probably do, and I recite tongue twisters as I hurry along, to warm up my voice. It sounds a lot like I’m imitating the neighbor’s cat, but it works.

I know voice acting is a dumb pipe dream for a guy like me, but I’ve been getting some steady work lately recording lectures for a local university and it’s nice money. I fell into the work accidentally when one of my clients heard me talking to myself as I installed her ceiling fan. Who knew she’d be looking for someone to record her research? Ask me anything about Appalachian literature. I’m practically an expert.

I leave the garage door unlocked in case Ruby has an emergency. She knows where to find me in the mornings. I usually get 45 minutes to record before she’s up and our day runs away from us. I fling open the curtain on my little booth—not much more than a hula hoop with blankets and a music stand with my monitor on it. It looks like a camping shower from the outside…and I guess I did use the same supplies to rig it up. I suspended my mic from the ceiling instead of a hose, and it feels a little bit like an echo of my former life. Back when I had access to real equipment and studio space. 

Before. 

I finish up gargling and shout a few times before I pull up my work from where I left off yesterday. I pop my lips a few times, take a deep breath, and…I jump because I hear a huge clatter from outside. 

I sigh, assuming it’s the neighborhood raccoon on a bender in the alley behind the garage. Ruby and I have an end townhouse near the park, so we get more critters than the folks at the other end of the street. 

I can edit out a few little bangs in the background if he drops another trashcan lid. But the clanging continues, rhythmically, and I’m suddenly gritting my teeth against pounding rock music. 

“What the actual…farts!” I have to stay strong when it comes to ‘red words’ or Ruby will start repeating them at school again. I can’t handle another conversation with her principal about profanity, but I’ll admit it’s been difficult curbing my instinct to cuss all the time. 

I yank open the curtain on my sound booth as the music swells even louder. Nobody on this street would be blasting music like this before dawn. It’s mostly retired people and a few families. Even if they’re up, they’re more likely to listen to the morning news or similar shit. “Shiz,” I correct myself out loud, flinging up my garage door. 

I squint in the bright light pouring from the warehouse across the alley. I don’t know who thought it was a good idea to build a residential neighborhood so close to an industrial warehouse, but here we are. I remind myself how inexpensive my house was back when the warehouse was vacant. 

Recently, the owner divided the building into little storage units and workshops for small businesses to rent, but it’s mostly people who make small batches of ice cream or robot vacuum prototypes. I barely noticed anyone was there. 

I hold a hand up to block the glare and, squinting through the foggy cacophony, I see a woman hurling barbells at the pavement in the alley. 

I take a step closer, wondering if I didn’t actually wake up with my alarm. Maybe this is a dream I’m having as Ruby pounds on my chest or something. But no. There’s a white woman with long brown hair, standing in the cold in a sports bra and leggings, thrusting a barbell over her head and then slamming it into the ground before she squats and picks it up all over again. 

A small crowd of other women stands around her, watching intently, all of them swaying to the music. Is this a class? 

I take another step closer, definitely not looking at the woman’s cleavage as she hoists the weights again. I also do not look at her stomach as she pauses for a breath with her arms over her head before letting the weight drop. 

“Woo,” she says in a high-pitched voice that carries above the music, dusting off her hands as the other women applaud. “See? You can work up to that. We can—“

She stops when I take another step forward. I stand in the halo of light pouring from the end unit of the building—a space that was up until this moment quiet storage for custom rain barrels. 

I cross my arms and raise my brows and wait for someone to turn down the music so we can discuss this situation like rational humans. 

The cult leader tosses her ponytail back over her shoulder and adjusts her shoulders. “Welcome to Pipe Fitters,” she shouts, smiling at me.

I recoil. I know the guys in the pipefitters union. They are not up before dawn trying to crack asphalt with metal barbells. They’re already out on the job cracking concrete with tools. I take a step toward her part of the warehouse and identify the source of the sound: a speaker flashing disco lights to the beat of the music blaring out of it. I bend over, jab at the power button and turn around to see the women have all followed me inside. 

The space is no longer filled with rain barrels. There are duct-taped weight benches and old tires and it looks like someone hung ropes from the ceiling. I tilt my head to look for the support joists and frown at the rusty light fixtures. 

“Can I help you?” The bra-woman seems affronted, as if I somehow ruined her morning and not the other way around. 

“You already ruined my day. Try to follow the noise ordinance from now on.” I spin on my heel and stomp back to my own garage, refusing to look at this nuisance as she bends over to adjust the music, turning it back on at a more reasonable volume. Too late to do me any good, because as I roll my own garage door shut, I hear Ruby patter into the room. 

“Can I have some of your coffee, Cash?”

She looks up at me hopefully as I shake my head. “We talked about this, Rubes. You’re supposed to call me Dad.” I pull her in for a side hug and kiss the top of her head. I don’t actually mind that she uses my first name. We are a team, after all.

“I’d remember that if I had some coffee.” She reaches for my hand and I squeeze her cold fingers as we walk back toward the house we’ve shared since she was a baby. 

I ruffle her hair with my other hand. “I’ll pour a splash of it in your milk. But no sugar.”

She squeaks, happy with this news. By the time we sit at the table with our morning drinks and I look out the back window, the door is shut across the alley and all the sound is gone. It’s possible I imagined the entire thing.