A connection snapped into place. Lai stilled. The Challenger didn’t pull away. For a moment, neither of them spoke.
But I could see it.
Lai needed something like him. Something strong, grounded, something unafraid of pushing back against a threat.
And the Challenger, he needed someone who wouldn’t treat him like something fragile. Someone who would push him right back to the edge, and enjoy it the whole time.
I watched as the Challenger’s presence shifted. His lights flickered faintly, brighter than before, as Lai’s fingers traced along the edge of his mirror with awe.
“There will be an auction,” I said, drawing your attention back to me. “I don’t know when or where. But I know they won’t send me to scrap. I want you to buy me,” I continued, voice softer now, but no less certain. “Properly. No running. No hiding. And I want you to buy him, too.”
The words hung there for a second. It was a heavy price to ask. Ridiculous, maybe. But it was the right thing to do, and you had told me to be good.
You looked down at my keys in your hand, then back at me. Without a word, you loosened your grip, letting them fall back into my palm.
Trusting me to be good.
“I’ll visit,” you vowed. “Until then.”
I smiled, aching and hopeful at the same time.
“You better,” I said.
Chapter Fifteen
Al
“So.” Lai finally broke the silence as we stood on the curb, his hands buried in his pockets. “How exactly do you fuck a car?”
I turned my head slowly and gave him a look that felt deeply, spiritually tired. I was still processing everything: Fox’s surprising wisdom, my leaving him behind, and how it felt to walk away from him. I couldn’t believe a V8 with jealousy issues was more reasonable than I was. I still wanted to break the gates open and race my car back to the academy, but Fox was right. He would be forever on the radar, never able to stretch his legs.
So we had to play it safe.
“I’m not having a crack at you; it’s a valid question,” Lai continued, entirely unbothered by my unfathomable levels of exhaustion. “There are mechanics involved. Angles. Accessibility. I’m thinking long-term here.”
“I hate you,” I muttered, opening the driver’s door of the Lexus and slidingin.
“Liar.”
I sighed; as exhausting as Lai was, I did owe him for today. He’d stuck with me through nine different car yards, which was more energy than he’d typically waste on me; he’d cared about this, in his own strange way. “It depends,” I said after a beat, because apparently I had lost all sense of self-preservation. “On how alive your car is.”
That shut him up for about three seconds. I leaned back in my seat, considering how I wanted to word my thoughts.
Cars didn’t feel the same since meeting Fox. Before, a car was just a vehicle, a way to get from point A to point B. A soulless hunk of metal, no matter how much personality I attached to it. But now, I saw sparks of personality in all of them. I squeezed the wheel of the Lexus; she was alive too, cool and calm and level-headed, ignoring me pushing down too sharply on the accelerator, instead climbing steadily up to speed at her own pace. I could feel her parental disapproval, and I felt compelled to apologize, easing off the gas.
Lai shifted beside me, and I knew that he felt it too. He was looking at the interior of the Lexus for the very first time, careful with how he clipped in his seatbelt and relaxing as she gave a pleased little purr in response.
“Still thinking about that Dodge?” I asked quietly.
Lai didn’t answer immediately, and then he nodded.
“It’s weird,” he admitted. “When I touched him, I felt…” He trailed off, searching for words that could make any of this make sense. “Do you remember that day we broke up? When you told me it was over?”
I stilled.
“You told me that you had to do the right thing,” Lai continued, his voice soft. “That kids were involved now. You said we couldn’t keep doing what we were doing, because it wasn’t fair to them.”
I did remember. Too well. Lai and I had both known we would never have a healthy relationship, no matter howhard we tried. We were just too toxic. The breakup had been hellish, but it needed to happen. Without me holding him back, Lai had finally found someone who loved him unconditionally. Finch had healed him; they were good together.
