“My house. You going to tell on me?”
I think about the cards at hand and after a beat, take the bottle of domestic beer. “Actually,” I say after taking a pull, “I was hoping we could keep all of this on the DL.”
“You mean Amara doesn’t know you’re here?” he asks with another grin.
“She’s my assistant. I don’t answer to her.”
“She’s my sister. Everyone answers to her.”
That earns a smirk from me.
“So. Tell me about the car.”
I spend the next ten minutes listening to Gianni as he explains how it was a naked gray shell when he got it, lifted on cinder blocks in the junk yard near the shop he works at. But he wanted it.
“I get that,” I tell him.
“You wanna sit in it?” he asks and I agree. Then he brags about the wrap around tail lights, the fourteen inch wheels and the Malibu trim. “I kept everything as original as I could. Though the engine is a bit souped, I’m not gonna lie.”
My hands grip the pristine wheel. I can’t help but wonder what she’d feel like on the road.
“You race?” he asks, and I snap out of it.
“No,” I answer shortly.
Gianni, like his sister, isn’t stupid. “But you have.”
“I have. And those days are behind me.”
“Too old?” he kids.
I get out of the car and finish off my beer. “Too smart. Racing is risky and reckless.”
“That’s half the fun,” he laughs.
“Until someone you care about gets hurt.”
After that, he studies me. Like he knows better than to dig too deep on that one.
“So why are you really here?” He reaches for his wrench again and leans back into the engine.
“I wanted to see what kind of place my assistant’s siblings are living in.”
“And what’s the verdict?”
“I don’t approve.”
Another throaty laugh comes out. “We live in a dump, I get it. But Amara takes care of us. Too much if you ask me. That’s why I want to race. There’s money on the streets.”
“Not honest money.”
Gianni turns to look at me again. This time he studies me a little longer. I can’t help but feel like he’s summing me up. And while I don’t typically take that from anyone, especially not cocky kids who don’t know any better, this kid has seen shit. So I let him make his assumption of who I am even if it is only scratching the surface.
“You know what, man? I don’t need to be honest. I just need to be fast.”
“Just don’t lose control of the car, kid,” I say before tossing the bottle in the waste bin next to the work bench and walking back to my car.
As I drive back to the office, I can’t help but think about the way the wheel felt in my hand. I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t a sweet car. To think that it used to be a heap of junk is impressive as well.
