Even though Igot my own place, I ain’t been there since last week. Not for more than a couple of minutes, grabbing clothes and checking the mail.
At our age, we’ve had time to ourselves. We’ve had the slow-paced ‘let’s see where it goes’ relationships. Now we’re ready to quit wastin’ time since we’ve found each other.
That’s how I see it, at least.
“It’s not the first time. Hell, Goldie’s been talking to my Mom on the phone a few days a week for a while now,” I tell Beau, who is trying to ruffle me up over the fact that Goldie and I are having dinner with my folks tonight–first time as an official couple.
Doesn’t matter to me. My Mom knew Goldie was mine before we put a label on anything, so I don’t feel weird at all. Plus, that’s how it rolls with Goldie. Nothing’s weird. She’s in the middle of her journey to being the most open and genuine version of herself, and no matter how her quest is going that day, I get the real her, always.
So do my parents. That’s why I’m not worried about dinner. After a lunch with Constance Berry that felt more like absorbing shots from a firing squad than a “meet your mom” meal, I feel like I could tackle anything.
“That sounds fun. Dinner with your family and the person you love,” Miller shakes his head all sad and shit. I know he’s happy for me, but I know he ain’t even talkin’ about me right now. He’s talking ‘bout him.
Years back, when Miller came here looking to apprentice, he was completely lost and on his own. He’d come from a religious compound, so he called it, and had been taught to work on trucks there. When he turned eighteen, there weren’t enough female companions in the cult, ahem, I mean, the compound, so they booted him.
Gave him a couple hundred bucks, a map of California, and a bus ticket to leave the Pacific Northwest. Now I don’t know if he keeps in touch with anyone or not because I ain’t his personal diary, but I do know that the first few years he worked with me at Wrench Kings, he was quiet.
Not shy quiet, either. But the kind of quiet where you’re fightin’ demons and shit.
In the time he’s been here, I ain’t heard him reference family much. For the last two years, he’s had Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner with Beau. Before that, I’m not sure. And now that I got Goldie and I’m coming to terms with my own shit, I realize I oughta know.
Miller may be a guy I work with, but the truth is, he’s a friend too. Maybe now’s the time I start bein’ a better friend.
I slap him between the shoulder blades. “One day, man, one day you’ll meet a down chick with a great family, and you’ll be complaining to me about how many family parties you gotta hit up during the holidays.”
He laughs a little, but it’s not real. “Yeah, maybe.”
“Not maybe, dude. You will.”
He shrugs, picking invisible lint off the front of his Wrench Kings button-up before shoving a hand through his sun-kissed strawberry hair. “It will be what it will be,” he says quietly.
I’m not lookin’ to pick a fight, but I know he’s all fucked up over the girl that dumped him a month or so ago. Not to revisit bad feelings, but I gotta make sure he knows that chick was bullshit.
She dumped him because he was “just a mechanic,” and he knew that he would never be able to give her the lifestyle she wanted.
Money-hungry bitch is what I called her.
“You need confidence, my man,” I tell him, leaning over the Plexi-topped counter to force him to look at me. Darkness bands under his eyes, and I wonder how long he’s been like this. “You have to believe in everythingyou.”
Delane, who I thought had her EarPods in, turns from her position behind the computer. “Believe in everything you?”
Though sarcasm usually drips from my tone the way it does hers, I get serious because I rarely do, and that oughta tell Miller I mean it.
“I said what I said,” I say, glaring at Delane, who’s more focused on Miller now that I really am paying attention.
“You have to know you’re a fuckin’ bomb mechanic, and that is a stellar, stand-up career. Can’t make you believe that if you don’t. And just because some chick who likes fancy purses and designer shoes thinks it’s below her station doesn’t mean it is. It means her priorities are all outta fuckin’ whack, man. And anyway,” I say, discovering I’m more passionate about this rant than I realized, “you don’t wanna be with someone who makes you feel bad. You wanna be with someone who brings out all the good shit in you that doesn’t get a chance to surface normally. You wanna be with someone who looks at you like the world ain’t a place to be if you ain’t in it. And no one who tells you that you ain’t good enough is that person. So yeah, believe in yourself. Any chick would be lucky to have you.”
Delane’s lips curl down in surprise. “Wow, that was… actually really accurate and very nice.”
I bow. “Thank you. I am a human under the grease.”
Yes, I know I’m greasy. I just don’t fuckin’ care. And I don’t have to. Because the most beautiful fuckin’ woman in the world loves me, grease and all. Miller needs to get himself a Goldie.
I look at my watch. “Well… later.”
Delane snorts. “A huge speech and then ‘later.’ The old Atti’s in there.”
“I’m not a new Atticus,” I argue. “I’m just… abetterAtticus.”