“How would you feel if I helped you work on your car?” he asks casually. I look up at him this time, my brows scrunching in confusion.
“But there’s nothing wrong with my car?”
“I need to fix your tire properly, remember? Plus, you should know how to do basic maintenance, checking your oil, knowing how to refill your windshield wiper fluid, how to jump a carbattery,” he says, listing a few things that I wouldn’t know how to do even if you made me read the car’s manual or watch a KoVi tutorial.
I stare at him for a minute. “Why?” I ask.
“You want to be independent, and this is how you do it. Now go get changed into something that you don’t mind getting dirty, and drive your car around back to the shop.”
He finishes his coffee, grabs a beer out of the fridge, and leaves through the back door.I watch him leave, staring at the door for a few minutes before closing my laptop and going upstairs to change.
I pull my hair up into a ponytail and check myself out in the mirror. I take a quick selfie, uploading it to my story, before pulling on some old Converse and going outside to get my car.
I get in and pull it around the side of the house, following the gravel path into the backyard and pulling it into the shop.
“Beckett, what’s under here?” I ask, pointing to a tarp in the back corner. I’ve been out in the shop a few times, but I’ve never really explored what is out here.
He comes over to me, an almost nostalgic look in his eyes as he slowly pulls back the plastic to reveal a sleek black car. It’s older, more muscle-y, kinda like the one that Vin Diesel drives in theFast and Furiousmovies.
“It’s beautiful,” I whisper. I’m not sure why I whisper, but I do.
“It’s a 1969 Camaro, a project car that I got from my dad,” he says, and I can hear the sad note in his voice.
I was probably ten when Grandpa Hayes died. He wasn’t my actual grandpa, but I spent lots of time over there since he lived right next door to Monica and Briar. My parents fought a lot. He was a nice old man who seemed to have millions of stories, and lots of old, nice cars like this one parked in his shop.
“Does it drive?” I ask, looking up at him. He looks down at the car like it holds some kind of secret, or something much deeper than I could ever understand.
I know that he and Grandpa were close; Grandpa basically raised my dad. I remember it being really weird at home after he died. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have your parents pass away.
I never met his mom; she passed away when Beckett was a teenager, Briar said once. I feel sad for him all of a sudden. Having no parents must be hard.
I mean, I don’t really like my parents most of the time, but I can’t imagine what it would be like if they just weren’t there.
“No, it doesn’t. I have to replace the transmission and fix a few other minor things,” he says, and I nod.
“Do you think it will ever drive?” I ask tentatively.
“I hope so,” he says, his voice so quiet that I barely hear it.
He stares at the car for a long time. I wonder if I should give him a moment to be alone with it.
In a poor attempt to lighten the mood, I say something that I probably should’ve kept to myself.“You’d look good behind the wheel. It’s so…you. Muscle-y, kinda brooding in an almost intimidating way, but also pretty…uh, masculine.” I can’t look at him because I can feel my cheeks turning pink at the use of the wordpretty.
Stupid man and his ability to make me blush. And he didn’t even say anything this time.
We stand here in a weird silence before he awkwardly clears his throat and recovers the car with the tarp.
“Come on, let’s go work on your car,” he mumbles. I nod, still unable to look at him as we go back over to where my car is.
He turns it off and pops the hood. There’s a ladder set up that I drag over so that I can see what we’re doing.
“Alright, so, first things first: we’ll check the oil.”
8
BECKETT
It’s been eight days since she rubbed out the knots in my shoulders and neck. Five days since she made that comment about me in the shop when I helped her work on my car.
