“God, don’t remind me how long it’s been,” he moans with a grin. “But yeah. She’s coming along.”
“I’ll say.” I run my fingers along the shiny hood and peek in the windows.
“I’d take you for a ride but the engine’s not quite running yet.” He opens the driver door. “You can sit in her if you want though.”
I smile and climb in, taking note of every perfect detail. “Gosh, Gianni.” I shake my head. “This is art, you know that?”
My brother actually blushes, his caramel skin turning slightly rosy in the cheeks. “I don’t know about that.”
“I do. And I’m your older sister, so what I say goes,” I tell him. Then I find my mind backtracking to something he said a few minutes ago. “Who’s been sneaking up on you? No one’s giving you trouble at school, have they?”
“Nah. School is fine. I’m almost done. At this point I just keep my head down and plow through to the finish line. I may just be a mechanic, but I will at least have that on him. Pops never graduated.”
“Is it those guys down the street? In the Monroes’ old place? I swear whoever lives there now is just a bunch of squatters.”
“No, they rarely come out. No one ever comes by here. Well, except your boss.”
“My boss?”
Suddenly, my brother is refusing eye contact. “Yep.”
I get out of the car, shut the door, and walk over to Gianni. “My boss came here?” I ask again.
Gianni fumbles around on the tool bench. He doesn’t seem intimidated; it’s more like he doesn’t see what the big deal is. “Yeah. Some Ransome guy.”
With that, I am seeing red. Redder than the car itself.
“Wait,” Gianni goes. “He didn’t tell you?”
That hits a nerve. Because I obviously had no idea.
“No, he didn’t.”
“Weird,” he sniffs and heads back to the engine.
“When was that?”
“Recently.”
Recently? He was here recently?
“What did he want?” I press.
“He didn’t really say.”
“Did he talk to dad?”
Gianni snorts out a laugh. “Yeah, no. He just came over and introduced himself. He showed up in this fancy ass car and a shiny suit. Bro looked like he was straight out of the mob but too pasty for that shit.” He chuckles. “He asked about the car and told me who he was so I didn’t knock him over the head with the wrench I was holding. I had a beer with him.”
My mouth drops. “You had abeerwith Ransome? With myboss?”
“Yeah. And we talked about cars. You know… I get the feeling he used to race.”
“Really.” At this point, I’m fighting the urge to grab a beer myself.
“Yeah. He knows cars, I could tell that much.”
I nod. “Yeah. Yeah, he does.”
