22
Have you ever had one of those nights where you sleep really, really well? Like, you wake up and all of the aches and pains
you didn’t even really notice were bothering you are totally gone, and all your limbs feel loose and liquidy and warm?
Well, that’s how I feel waking up the next morning. Like all of my insides have turned into warm, shimmery goo.
I stretch my arms out and roll over in bed to face John. He’s sleeping on his side, with one hand resting loosely near his
pillow. My gaze moves over his fingers, remembering the strength in them, remembering the way they felt moving over my skin.
The night comes back to me in flashes—the slide of his mouth over my neck, the feel of the hard planes of his chest, the sound
of our laughter. It was easy and intimate and wonderful , and I can’t remember if I’ve ever felt so relaxed waking up next to someone before.
“Morning,” he says, stirring.
“Morning.”
He scrubs a hand over his face, blinking blearily. “Have you just been lying there staring at me?”
“Yep.”
“That’s super creepy.”
I grin. “Yep.”
He laughs and pulls me toward him, one strong arm wrapping around my waist. I slide my leg between his and run my hands up
his chest, and it’s some time before we make it out of bed.
Later, we sit down on the couch to tackle the day’s Wordle, balancing our breakfast plates on our knees.
“What word are you starting with?” I ask.
“TOAST,” he says, taking a bite of it as he speaks.
I laugh. “I’ll do BACON.”
I type it in, and—
No.
No way.
It’s right !
I’ve never gotten it on the first guess before, not once!
I try to hide my reaction so I don’t ruin the answer for John, but he notices anyway.
“Was that right? BACON?”
I grin and show him my phone. “Yep.”
“Awesome,” he says, then he puts his phone away without typing the answer in. I smile at him fondly. What a weirdo.
He heads to the shop early to align the tuning on his race car’s differential (okay, fine, I wasn’t actually listening when
he said what he was going to do) and I get ready for work in a fizzy, sparkly state, like a glass of champagne in human form.
I’m a teensy bit nervous about how things will be at work—what if it’s super awkward now that we’ve slept together? What if
Fred somehow finds out and fires us for being unprofessional?—but to my relief, not much changes. John and Dave work on cars,
I check people in and out. Only now, when John comes out to the front desk to write out receipts, he grins at me in this warm,
easy way that makes me want to spin around in my chair.
Dave heads home around five, and shortly after, I close up the front part of the shop and head back to the garage to say goodbye to John, who’s still working. The garage is so packed full of cars right now, I can’t even see where he’s at.
“I’m heading out,” I call, in the direction of the clanging.
His head pops up from behind a dark blue car in the corner. “Oh yeah?”
“I’ve got a hot date with a ninety-six-year-old,” I say. “Try to not be too jealous.”
He laughs. “I’ll try.”
I hesitate. “I’d come kiss you goodbye, but there are about five million cars in the way.”
“It’s good, right?” he says, looking around at them. “I told all the local racers they could bring their cars here for stuff
instead of going into the city. Fred is pissed.”
“Why would he be pissed? Isn’t this a lot more business?”
John rolls his eyes. “He’s worried I’m bringing in a ‘bad crowd.’ I think everything he knows about racing comes from watching
ten minutes of one of the Fast and the Furious movies on a plane.”
I step carefully over some huge car part on the floor and start to pick my way toward him. “You like this sort of stuff more,
yeah? Race car... stuff?”
He laughs. “Yeah. I’d like to do some dyno tuning and bolt-ons and stuff like that, but you know.” He shrugs. “Fred.”
“Which car is yours?”
“This one.” He thumps the side of the dark blue car he’s working on, then reaches out to help me balance as I shimmy around
a hulking piece of machinery.
“It’s... nice,” I say uncertainly, peering at it. He raises an amused eyebrow. “Well, the color is nice,” I amend. “Is
it fast?”
He chuckles. “Not right now. The whole engine’s shot. Overheated at the last race.”
“Bummer.”
“Eh, it happens. I’m kind of looking forward to fixing it.”
“Er... why? No, I’m serious,” I add, laughing, as he gives me a dry look. “I want to understand.”
He shrugs. “I don’t know, it’s just fun. Like, you found it really satisfying watching all those annoying kids having fun
with your exhibit at the museum, right?” I nod. “Well, it’s the same thing. This engine is totally shot, but I’m going to
figure out why, fix it, and get it up and running again.”
I lean forward to look under the hood. I suppose it is kind of interesting, thinking about how all those pieces work together.
“How are you going to sort out what’s wrong?”
I listen as he describes something called a compression test, pointing to different bits of the engine, and walking me through
what each of them does. It’s strange, because I’ve heard him talk about cars a million times before, but for the first time,
I can hear the quiet passion in his words. He really does love this work—and it seems like he’s really good at it.
“How’d you learn all of this?” I ask.
He chuckles. “Some of it at school, but most of it from just messing around. When Kiara and I were in high school, our dad
bought us an old 2003 Jag to drive to school. He doesn’t know much about cars,” he adds ruefully. “I think he just thought
it looked flashy. Anyway, Mom was pissed. She always said we were never going to get a car, because she didn’t want us to
become pretentious brats.”
I laugh. “Your mom’s awesome.”
“Yeah. She’s also an evil genius, because when she saw Dad roll up with one of the world’s most unreliable cars, she said that we could keep it, so long as Kiara and I took care of any issues by ourselves. She made us learn how to change the oil and the tires and everything, and then just waited patiently for it to break down—which it did, like, a week after we got it.” He grins. “It took me a year to get it running again. I basically had to rebuild the whole engine.”
“And you were hooked,” I say.
“Something like that.”
“Do you still have the car?”
John snorts. “Hell, no. I sold it the day after I got it running again. Kiara and I split the money. I bought a cheaper, less
shitty car, and she got a tattoo.”
“Man.” I shake my head. “She’s so cool.”
“She definitely isn’t.”
“Well, I think she is. I’d hang out with her in a heartbeat,” I add wistfully.
He raises an eyebrow. “So, why don’t you?”
“What?”
“I can give you her number. Just text her and see if she wants to grab coffee or whatever.”
I shift uncertainly. “You think she’d want to?”
“I don’t know, probably.” He shrugs. “Can’t hurt to ask, can it?”
“I guess not.” I take my phone out. “Hit me.”
I type her number in as John dictates it and then open a new text. “?‘Hey, Kiara—’?”
“You’re doing it now?” John asks, amused.
“Before I lose my nerve,” I say. “Now hush. ‘Hey, Kiara,’?” I read aloud as I type, “?‘this is Emily—we met the other night.’?”
“She knows who you are.”
“?‘I hope it’s okay John gave me your number—’?”
“Why would she care?”
“?‘—but I wanted to text and see if you maybe wanted to grab coffee sometime this week, or whenever works. No pressure if
you’re busy! And sorry if this is super random!’?”
“Good lord.”
“It’s polite!” I argue, as I click send.
“It’s deranged. You know you don’t have to apologize for politely asking someone to coffee, right?”
“I know I don’t have to. But she probably has tons of cool friends to hang out with. Plus, I don’t want her to feel, like, obligated to hang out
with me just because you and I are—” I clear my throat hastily. “You know, just because we went out once.”
He snorts. “She won’t feel like that. And she doesn’t have that many friends. Why do you assume everyone’s life is so much
cooler than yours?”
“Because it probably is.”
“Your life is cool. Not your barrel obsession, I mean. That’s still super lame. But Trey and Rose are pretty cool, and I can
see why you like that Jim guy.”
“He’s great, isn’t he?”
“Mm.” John nods. “You shouldn’t stress so much about stuff.”
My lips twist into a reluctant smile. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Oh, I’m definitely right.”
“Yeah, yeah.” We grin at each other for a few seconds, then I rise on my toes to kiss him goodbye. It’s nothing more than a quick brush of my lips against his, but the warm scrape of stubble does shivery things to my insides. His hands settle on my lower back and his thumbs slide under the hem of my shirt, and before long we’re full-on making out against the front door of his car. He pulls me hard against him, and I slide my hands under his shirt, digging my fingers into the warm, strong muscles of his back.
I never really saw the appeal of having sex in public places—do people not realize how many germs there are everywhere?—but
a thought is stirring in the back of my mind. I break apart from John and reach behind me for the door handle. “Ever done
it in your race car?” I ask with a grin.
Then I pull open the door and go still.
Um...
Huh.
There’s only one seat in this car. The rest of it is literally just a hollowed-out piece of metal. And the driver’s seat is
insanely tiny. Seriously, how does John even fit in there?
“I don’t think anyone’s ever done it in a race car,” he says, looking amused. “At least not without removing the roll cage.”
I peer at the thick black bars that crisscross through the whole car, halving the already limited space. “Any chance that
can be done in, like, five minutes?”
“Nope.”
“Hmm.” I look around a little helplessly. “Maybe... on the hood?”
“You do know this whole place has security cameras,” John says.
“I... did not. Does anyone actually look at them?”
“Fred can. I don’t know if he actually does , but...”
I grimace. Yeah, I seriously do not want Fred having access to a sex tape of me.
“Maybe this isn’t the best idea,” I admit.
“Maybe you should come by my place later,” John says. “After your hot date, I mean.”
I laugh and lean up to give him another kiss. “That sounds good.”