His eyes scanned the interior of my vehicle before traveling back to me. “You good?”
I sighed heavily. “My car won’t start.”
He just nodded to my steering wheel. “Show me what happens when you crank it.”
I sighed again as I slid my keys into the ignition and tried turning it over.
Clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick—
“All right,” he said, causing me to stop trying to turn over the engine, “pop the hood. I’ll take a look.”
Guilt filled me to the brim. “You really don’t have t?—”
But he already got off his bike and headed toward the hood of my vehicle.
I watched him as he stood there, staring at me through the windshield, waiting for me to pop it open. He rapped his knuckles against it, and I was painfully aware of the crack in my windshield that ran along the top portion of it. I looked backover at his bike. All blacked out. All leather and steel and little bits of chrome that flashed in the sun.
It looked like he took good care of his vehicle.
I could only imagine what he thought of mine.
“Jasmine,” he said.
It pulled my attention back to him. “Sorry, yeah. Hold on.”
I reached down and pulled the lever to pop the hood before he lifted it, concealing himself from my vision.
I heard him fiddling around with a few things. I heard some tinkering. Some humming. Some soft cursing. I didn’t know anything about cars. All I knew was that I had to be easy with them, I had to get the oil changed every three months no matter what, I had to make sure I stayed up to date on the upkeep.
But I also knew I was running the life down on this hunk of junk that I rolled around in.
“Yeah,” Ghost said as he walked back over to my cracked window, “most likely, it’s a dead battery. I checked a couple of other things, the alternator and such, but there are no signs of any undue wear and tear.”
I peered around him at his bike. “Do motorcycles jumpstart vehicles?”
He quirked an eyebrow. “Ever been on one?”
I shook my head vigorously. “No. They’re too noisy.”
He studied me for a second before nodding. “I’ve got a portable jump with its own battery. Just give me a minute to get it set up and I’ll let you know when to crank.”
I wasn’t sure whether to be mortified or relieved, so I settled for a soft ‘thank you’ before he went to grab what he needed. I watched him rifle around in a leather holster that draped over the back of his humongous bike. He pulled out something that looked like a box with buttons and fidgets on it, and then he disappeared behind the propped-up hood of my vehicle.
“All right,” he said after a couple of minutes, “give ‘er a good crank and we’ll let ‘er sit for a bit.”
I drew in a silent breath and sent up a prayer to a God that had long since abandoned me, then I slid my keys into the ignition. I pushed the keys forward, twisting them in the ignition before I heard the car trying.
And trying.
And trying.
Before it finally struck up.
“Oh, yes! Haha!” I exclaimed as I clapped my hands.
Ghost called to me over the sound of my vehicle. “We’ll stay like this for a bit so your battery gets a charge, but you’ll need to get a new one. I can take you to the AutoZone up the road. They’ll get you taken care of.”
Before I knew it, he followed behind me as we pulled into the parking lot of the AutoZone three miles up the road. The two of us walked in, and almost immediately, he conversed with the man behind the counter, using words I didn’t recognize. Terminals. Plates. Corrosion build-up. Electrolyte.
