Chapter 3
Cade
“How’s she coming along?”
I was bent over Devlin’s SUV when he asked. Rather than answer, I held out a palm, then snapped my fingers and pointed at the toolbox.
“Socket?”
I nodded. He slapped the metal into my hand and I ducked back under the hood.
“She looks about the same is why I was asking,” he said.
Like his car would look any different on the outside after I fixed it? I was proof that the outside could look the same whether or not the insides were in working order.
I finished up, came out from under the hood, and dropped it with a bang. Then my eyes went to where Devlin’s rested. On my girl. My 1969 powder blue Chevrolet Camaro. She was not my new Blue; no car could replace Blue. But she was a classic. And by “classic” I mean she was full of rust holes and needed a new alternator and a whole lot of love and money.
Don’t we all.
“Do you have her running yet?” Dev asked, hands in his pockets as he strolled over to the Camaro.
“Yeah.” I liked that word. It came out clean most of the time. No tricky consonant at the end or the beginning.
“You work tonight?”
I nodded as I cleaned my hands with an orange rag.
“See you there.” He rounded his car and climbed behind the wheel. Through the open window he said, “Thanks for the assist. I’ll buy your dinner tonight.”
I tipped my chin in the affirmative and watched him leave. My eyes went back to my new-slash-old car Paul bought for my birthday a few months back. (It was a peace offering. He’d been attending Gamblers Anonymous since my accident, and we were trying to get back to the point where I didn’t hate him for stealing money out of my bank account and he didn’t feel guilty for doing it.) She ran. Didn’t sound pretty, but she ran. I’d have to think of a name for her.
I decided since I didn’t have to work for a few more hours, and there was no Tasha coming over to bother and/or sexually frustrate me, I might as well work on my nameless car. I cranked up the radio in the garage to drown out the neighbor’s lawn mower buzzing across the street. Then I got to work underneath the Chevy, my mind on that night on Alley Road.
Street racing wasn’t legal. So I guess my giving my dad crap for doing something illegal was a bit of the pot/kettle routine. But street racing was what I was good at, plus, it gave me some extra spending cash. I liked everything about it. The rush as I revved the engine, the squeal of the tires as I peeled out, the adventure and risk. Cars were a big part of what made me who I was. Before I met Brooke, I was planning to become a mechanic, but she decided she didn’t want to marry a blue-collar guy and I decided to appease her.
Girls.
Anyway. A bookie, Sonny Lawrence, took my bet that night. I bet on myself to lose. The guy who’d challenged me had nitro, so throwing the race was a no-brainer. Blue could’ve taken him, but not everyone knew that. I had it all under control.
Until the black ice.
When I popped the wheel to the right, I lost control, wheels sliding, lights outside spinning. My precious Audi slid sideways into a fire hydrant and sent me on one fucked-up ride. One that took me out of college, landed me back at home living with my dad, and killed my backup plan of becoming a rap artist.
I pushed out from under the Camaro now, lungs seizing and mind spinning. I was suddenly claustrophobic. I didn’t remember much about the accident. The ambulance came, I was taken to the hospital. They performed surgery and bandaged me up.
The things I remembered most were the pain and Tasha. She’d been at the hospital when I opened my eyes the next morning. Second person I saw, after my father. Her blond head hovering there in front of me reminded me of an angel. And the way she was looking at me…blue eyes filled with sympathy and concern stole my breath.
Or maybe my breath had been stolen by two cracked ribs. Hard to say.
I turned the wrench over in my hand a few times, considering that Tasha had shown up for me when all my other “friends” had run for the hills. That might be a bit of the pot/kettle routine as well, considering I would’ve bolted from the scene of the accident too. Maybe. I narrowed my eyes as if seeing the picture from outside of myself. No. I wouldn’t have bolted. If I’d seen a guy slumped over the steering wheel, I’d have made sure he was okay. Tasha and I had that in common.
She’d hung out in my hospital room with my dad before I was conscious. Dad said she’d been able to explain things in a way he understood. Which made me like her more than I should. Life was simpler when she hated me. When I knew there was no chance of getting her by my side or in my bed. Now I figured I had a chance, but it was because she saw me as a bird with a broken wing. Never one to harbor a fantasy of being taken care of, I was still trying to act like I didn’t care about her at all.
The problem was, I had begun to admire things about her beyond the physical. Her bright blue eyes held pain and secrets I wanted to unearth.
Which was dangerous to the nth degree. What could I possibly offer a rich girl? Like Tasha Montgomery would dare to be seen dating a mechanic…admittedly a step up from my regal employment as busboy at Oak & Sage. Hell, I cleaned up after people like her.
I’d run off my three other therapists, basically by being my own charming self. After the large, middle-aged German woman stomped out our front door, guess who showed?