by Emilia Finn
Gasp! Shock! That fucking scoundrel!
She spins to Ang. “I’d like to file a formal complaint. Your employee is rude, crass, and incompetent.”
“Oh, sure. Okay.”
He pushes away from the wall amid silly chuckling, and ducks inside his office, only to reemerge a moment later with a pen and piece of paper.
“Write your grievances here.” He offers the pen with laughter playing in his eyes. “You can sign it, or submit anonymously. Either is fine, I won’t tell him it was from you. I promise to take this into consideration before his next performance evaluation.”
“Next?” I swing to the right and face him. “You haven’t given me my first! In fact, I think we should do one this afternoon. We can discuss a pay raise while we’re at it.”
“Really?” Angelo waves his little sheet of paper. “You think I’m gonna give you a pay raise when I’ve got these complaints rolling in?”
Mac remains where he is by the wall, and giggles like a schoolgirl. “Maybe wait a week, Chuck. Let the boss-man forget.”
“I need a mechanic,” Nora huffs. “And not one of you are taking me seriously.”
“You don’t need a mechanic,” I shoot at her. “You need pall-bearers and a car graveyard. Then you need to go to church and ask for forgiveness, because this torture was inhumane and unnecessary.”
“Are you…” She looks from me to Mac. To Ang. Back to me. “Are you seriously saying I need a new car?”
Fuck, she’s pretty. It doesn’t even scare me that she has thirty mood swings an hour.
“You need a new engine, or a new car. Your choice.”
“How much is a new engine?”
I shrug and glance to Mac. “Me and my buddy could head on over to the wreckers and maybe get lucky. Find an engine, buy it for maybe three or four grand, install it, have it back to you within a few days.”
Her eyes widen with shock. “Three or four grand? Are you insane? My first car didn’t cost that much!”
“Plus labor.” I flash a teasing grin. “So that’s, like…” I make a show of tapping my bottom lip and thinking. “I dunno. I could probably spot you my employee discount, since we’re pals and all that shit. That’s two and a half percent off right there.”
Ang smothers a laugh and turns away when Nora’s eyes snap to him.
He knows two and a half percent is basically an insult when we’re talking discounts. He also knows there is no employee discount.
“Maybe cost you a grand for mine and Mac’s time,” I add. “You probably can’t get the discount on his time, since we all know he’s poor as fuck and needs all his pennies. But I’m willing to help you out, since we’re neighbors and all that. So that’s three or four grand for the engine, another grand for the labor.”
“Five. Grand?” she grits out. “Five grand because my engine clicks when I switch it on?”
“Uh, no.” I laugh. “Five grand because your engine doesn’t turn on at all. And don’t forget your two and a half percent discount.”
“Your car lost its erection too,” Mac says in a low, grieving tone. “It was feeling all perky and happy and shit, but then you ran it into the ground. No lube, no love.” He laughs. “Ha! That metaphor actually works. Shit, I’m on a roll.”
“I don’t wanna know about what you do in the bedroom,” Nora sneers. “And Bean will kick your ass if she hears you talking shit about lube.”
“Nah, she’s fine. I bought her a triple scoop of ice cream last night. I’m firmly on the nice-list for this year.”
“So?” I press a single fingertip to Nora’s shoulder and pull her around. “New engine, or new car?”
Pouting, she lets her bottom lip droop in a way that tempts me to take a bite. “If you find an engine and install it, how long will it last?”
“With or without routine servicing by your friendly, competent neighborhood mechanics?”
She narrows her eyes to slits. “With.”
“A secondhand engine installed by moi,” I roll my word just to piss her the fuck off, “and serviced by,” I jab two thumbs back at my own chest, “should grant you and your car many, many years of non-breakdown happiness. But also, I’m gonna need you to rescind that complaint with my boss.”
“What?”
“He’s an ass, and if you follow through on that, he’ll probably reduce my employee discount to one percent. And nobody wants that kind of negativity in their lives.”
“You’re so stupid.” She looks down at the pen in her hand. The piece of paper. And she hides her grin like she just couldn’t tolerate my smugness if I saw. “Please find me an engine, install it, make sure it’s all perky and lubed up,” she looks to Mac, and pulls a teasing face. “Give me my car back, and I’ll rescind my complaint.”
“Rescind first, car second.”
“You’re impossible.”
“Rescind first, or come to the wreckers with me. If you find the engine first, you get it for free.”
“Dude,” Mac’s joking tone is gone. His smile. His giggling laughter and bouncing chest. “Stop.”
“You want me to come to the wreckers with you?”
The pretty, pink tinge that was warming her cheeks while she argued is gone. The hidden smile. The challenge in her eyes. Vanished, like it was never there.
“I… I…” She shakes her head. “I can’t.”
“Why not?” If she won’t challenge me, then I’ll challenge her. “It’s Saturday, you’ve got nothing else to do.”
“How do you know I have nothing else to do?” Welcome back, rage. “I’m a busy person, Tucker.”
“Anybody else think it’s weird when they hear ‘Tucker’?” Ang murmurs. “Tucker. Tucker. Tucker.” He frowns. “Who the fuck is Tucker?”
Ignoring Ang, I study the specks of gold in Nora’s beautiful eyes. “So busy that you can’t spend two hours trying to fix what you broke?” I lift a daring brow. “Really?”
“I have to go to Evie’s house,” she argues. “I have to… I… work.”
That’s another thing right there. What the fuck does she do for work?
“You can work after. Come to the wreckers, find your engine, touch the ground outside for a minute and get some fresh air after your date with that idiot from last night.”
“You mean you?” She purses her lips. “Pizza, a movie.”
“Burn!” Mac hollers.
“Wait, you guys dated last night?” Ang exclaims. “The fuck? How did I miss that?”
“We didn’t date,” I answer in a calm, casual tone. “I was witness to some other dude taking her out on a date, then I was in the hallway when she came home an hour later. I felt bad for her, so I shared my pizza and turned the TV up a little louder so she could hear.”
“You felt bad for me? You… you…” She’s like a bottle rocket. Ready to explode. “You’re still a prick!”
“If you killed me at the wreckers, no one would ever know. No one would ever find the body.”
“Best offer I’ve had this year!”
“So you’ll come? Awesome.” I pat my thigh. “Come, Galileo.”
“Wait, what?” She spins when her dog and I move across the garage. “No, I… Tucker…”
“Live a little! Fuck, Nora.” I turn back. “It’s not gonna kill you to step outside your carefully planned routine for two hours, is it?”
“Chuck,” Ang growls. “That’s enough.”
“Well?” I throw my hands up. “Will it?”
“It might.” Her lips quiver. “You have no clue what could happen.”
“And neither do you! Maybe there’s an asteroid coming for the garage right now. Maybe me taking you to the wreckers will save your life.”
“Shitty friend,” Mac drawls. “He’s just gonna leave us here for the asteroid to get us.”
“Let’s go already,” I snap. “Mac, you’re out. You stay here and die from the space rock. Nora, you come with me. Galileo’s coming, so…”
I stride out of the gara
ge, only to stop with a skid when I get to my bike.
I look to Galileo, his goofy smile as he tilts his head from side to side. Then I look back to Nora and grit my teeth. “Bike?”
“Absolutely not.”
Eating crow, tucking tail, admitting fault, something about humble pie; all synonyms for the look on my face when I duck back into the garage and snatch Mac’s car keys when he offers them.
“Thanks. I won’t crash it,” I promise.
“Don’t fuck this up,” he growls.
“I’ve got it. Boss.” I tip my chin to Ang as I pass. “Back in a bit. I’m still on the clock, so don’t be adding this to my performance evaluation.”
“I’m gonna give you a pay cut, just so you know. And after this job, you lose all employee discounts.”
“Motherfucker, you know I just steal from you anyway.”
I snag Nora’s clammy hand, and drag her out of the garage without giving her a second to object. Into the sunlight, past the hot-red vintage Charger, to the dented and faded purple Barracuda.
I unlock the door, and race around to the passenger side. Opening it wide and ignoring the groaning squeak of the hinges, I let Galileo in first so he bullies his way to the back seat – he can smell Deck – then I hold the door for Nora, and swallow at the terror in her eyes.
“You’re gonna be fine, I promise.”
“Twenty minutes.”
I scoff. “It takes us ten minutes to get there.”
“Alright, thirty minutes,” she counters. “Then I have to get to work.”
“Okay. If you find the exact right engine, negotiate with the owner of the wreckers, and seal the deal for a thousand dollars or less in ten minutes, then we can be back here by…” I look at my watch. “Noon. Oh, we should get lunch. You hungry?”
Like she’s exhausted, she shakes her head and slides into the car. She carries no fancy purse, no bag full of random shit that so many women carry. She merely clutches her phone, and tosses the keys to her SUV into the glovebox as I come around and she realizes her car isn’t going anywhere.
“No lunch?” I slam the driver’s side door and ignore the two men who stand at the garage entrance with grease-stained pants, folded arms, and beady eyes. “I’m starving already. I only had cereal for breakfast, and that was hours ago.”
“You should eat protein for breakfast,” she replies in monotone. “Cheerios aren’t enough, especially not for a guy with a physical job.”
I switch Mac’s ‘Cuda on, grin at the deep purr of the engine, then turn to Nora and study her pretty face. Her soulful eyes, the slight shadowing beneath them that indicates a fitful sleep. “How’d you know I ate Cheerios this morning?”
She reacts exactly how I expect.
Wide eyes, tight lips, terrified squeak. “What? Um… I…”
“I heard you come to the door this morning.” I glance into the rearview mirror to release her from my torment, and instead focus on pulling away from the garage. “I saw your shadow beneath the door. I know your routine as well as you know mine. You wanted your newspaper. So why’d you hide from me?”
“I don’t… I didn’t…” She swallows. “Um…”
“You don’t have to hide from me, ya know?”
“I wasn’t hiding,” she whispers and drops her eyes. “I was just…”
“What?” I turn to her when we slow at the intersection. “What were you just?”
“Not able to interact with other humans yet,” she rasps out. “Sometimes I just… I can’t. I can’t function yet, and people always want words, answers, reactions. Humans demand to be acknowledged, and sometimes I can’t do that. So it’s easier to just stay inside.”
“Well…” I brush a hand over my jaw as we amble through the intersection. “You’re right. People do want to be acknowledged, and had you come out this morning and ignored me, I probably would have gotten my feelings hurt.”
“Exactly—”
“But, now I know sometimes you’re not ready to chat yet. And that’s okay. So tomorrow, maybe you won’t be ready to gossip, and I’ll know that, so I won’t get hurt. But you could still come out. Let me see you. Let me get my hit, even if it’s in silence.”
“Your hit?” She frowns. “What?”
“You’re real pretty, you know that? My Cheerios would’ve tasted a hell of a lot sweeter if I got to see you.”
“This isn’t…” She inches away from me, closer to the door. “I can’t… Nope.”
“Nope what? You went out on a date with the hockey player—”
“He was a fighter.”
“He was a pussy,” I declare. “He got you to dress up, put heels on, do your hair and makeup. You looked so fuckin’ beautiful. So it’s not like you’re opposed to dating and getting romantic with men. So nope what?”
“You’re my neighbor!”
“Convenient location.”
“You’re friends with my friends.”
“God forbid we have mutual friends on the internet.”
“You’re mean to me.”
“I challenge you. I allow you to be grown the fuck up, and not rely on the kiddie gloves. There’s a difference.”
“You’re my mechanic.”
“Don’t spread that lie around. I have a reputation to maintain, and I assure you, any car that I work on does not putter around town with a fucking click in the engine.”
I pull around a corner, cross over the train tracks, and head toward the wreckers just outside town.
“I’m genuinely curious about your reasons for arguing here,” I press. “Maybe if you said no to all men, you’d have a leg to stand on, but that red dress last night says you’re available.”
“I don’t… I’m not…”
I laugh. “You’re so full of shit.”
She snaps her mouth closed and glares.
“You don’t even know what you want,” I accuse. “You have no fucking clue who you are or what you want from day to day.”
“I know I don’t want you,” she replies. “I know I don’t want to date my ill-mannered neighbor who treats his apartment like a revolving door outside a department store. One woman walks in, another walks out.”
“Bullshit.”
Just one word. One single declaration.
Her eyes whip to me. “What?”
“Have you ever played that card game?” I grin for her and celebrate when her gaze drops to my lips. “Also known as ‘Bluff,’ also known as the card game where folks try to lie their way to a win.”
“Of course I know the game,” she huffs. “It’s for children.”
“Yeah, so it shouldn’t be so hard for you to understand I’m sayin’ bullshit.”
“Bullshit what?” she explodes. “What? What are you calling bullshit on?”
Galileo wakes from his sleep and peeks between us.
“You want me. You want to be free from whatever it is that scares you. You want to walk through my apartment door just like those other women have. And you wanna do it without fear of rejection.”
“No.” She folds her arms and sits back. “You’re wrong.”
“You’re lying.” I flash a grin and pull the ‘Cuda off the tar road and onto dirt. We move through a gate, and past the rotting corpses of victims that came before Nora’s SUV. “So I’m saying bullshit. And just so you know, I would never reject you. Because, shit, I never said I didn’t want you. In fact…” I pull up at the front of a shed-like business, and pull up the handbrake. “Evie’s over there setting you up with every douchebag in town, but she didn’t ask me. The fuck is up with that?”
“Probably because she knows you’re an ass with no manners or taste. She knows I need someone with more class.”
“You act all snobby and shit when you’re overwhelmed.” Laughing, I pull the keys from the ignition and push out of the car.
Slamming the door closed and making her jump, I lean down and speak through the window. “Took us eleven minutes to get here. Which means you have nine min
utes to find an engine. You ready to run?”
Nora
Run!
Why did I come here with him?
Why did I get in the car?
Why, oh why, do I think he’s cute when he’s being a dick?
Galileo sticks close to me by the car as a man exits the steel building and meets Tucker twenty feet from where I stand. The men talk business, I suppose. One of them is tall, built, athletic, and annoying even at the best of times, while the other has two inches of belly showing beneath his tank, and a week of graying growth poking from his chin.
I didn’t even know there was a car wreckers’ business out here, and I have no clue how to find the kind of engine I need, so though I know I kind of need Tucker right in this moment, I stand back and pretend to be mad that he kind of, sort of, in a really messed-up, dysfunctional way, asked me out on a date.
Butterflies batter inside my belly, nerves flitter through my blood. I study Tucker’s broad back, his tanned muscles, his slim neck, and the straight line of his haircut at the base of his head. He has a rag still hanging from one back pocket, and a pair of gloves dangling from the other.
I don’t know why. I don’t understand their use. But there they hang, and cup his ass like a woman’s caress.
“Jesus.” I run a hand over my face and groan. I’m such a mess.
Turning at the noise, Tucker studies me; dark eyes beneath dark brows, and thick lips that are more cherry than they are pink.
It’s not a surprise that women waltz in and out of his apartment so freely; he has lips that any woman would be tempted to kiss. Just one time, one taste to make sure they’re really that color.
“You okay?” he asks.
Galileo’s hackles lift when the strange man takes a step in our direction. My protector’s lips pull back to expose his sharp teeth. And the man with stains on his shirt where his belly pushes over his jeans, stops walking the moment Tucker presses a hand to the front of his shoulder.
Stay back, they’re saying. Galileo, my trusted friend. And Tucker, my… well… friend, I guess.
“You need an engine, miss?” The man smiles for me, but it doesn’t feel nice. It doesn’t make my anxiety dissipate. “You got the lead foot, and broke your other one?”