* * *
It took morethan a few minutes, but eventually the humidity in the car got to them both. Laughing, he reached past her and opened the door a crack. The light came on, and he handed her his shirt first, then her own. “We can look at the stars again while the car cools down.”
“While we cool down, too,” she murmured.
He caught her face in his hands and kissed her softly. “I like you all steamed up.”
She pulled on her panties, then her jeans and her shoes, and finally her top, forgoing her bra. Then she climbed out, giving him space to right his own clothes.
When he joined her at the front of the car, she was staring up at the sky.
“The Big Dipper moved.” She twisted her head. “A lot.”
“We’ve been here a while.”
“I don’t want to go home.”
He tugged her close. “Then we won’t. We’ll stay as long as you want.”
“Tell me more about the garage you want.”
He described his vision. A large shop with multiple garages and a warehouse space. An online presence, a YouTube channel, and a business focus on growth over time.
It all sounded remarkably well thought out. And expensive. “What is your initial investment plan?”
“If I can raise half a million dollars, I think I could get a business loan for the rest.” He told her about his own savings, which would put up twenty per cent of what he needed, and the comparable businesses he’d been watching doing similar but different things. “I want to stand out in the market. Meet the needs of customers looking for something other than what’s on offer currently.”
“Where are you thinking of doing it?”
“This is the tricky thing. I can’t just start a business here. I’d need a green card.” Which led to a long conversation about immigration stuff.
He was open to moving the business to Canada, especially right across the border from Detroit, where he’d lived for a while.
“So that part remains up in the air.” He kissed her forehead. “And now I’ve talked your ear off about a total hypothetical.”
“I like it, though.”
“Tell me something about you. Balance this sharing shit out.”
That made her laugh. “What do you want to know?”
“What was boarding school inSwitzerlandlike?”
“Kind of bossy. A lot of fun. Probably weird, out of context.”
“How often did you see your parents?”
“Holidays. The Swiss have a lot of two-week breaks, and my parents basically alternated who would be in Europe for that. My dad liked to take me to Monaco, my mom to France or Italy. It was three years of nonstop travel.”
“Did you learn other languages?”
“Technically, yes. I took French and German classes. I can use them in context, and it comes back when I’m surrounded by native speakers, but I’m not really multilingual. I didn’t use them at all once I moved to New York.”
“Is that where your mom is?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you close?”
