6. Dylan
Chapter 6
Dylan
H is last text message tells me I fucked up. I took it too far. Old habits die hard, but that isn’t what this is. There’s no way he can know his list of finer things sounds like my perfect day and I was caught so off guard by his answer, I deflected with a terrible joke.
After him shielding me with his body, seeing him bleed, and getting a glimpse of his broad shoulders and shockingly muscular forearms, I don’t need to start confusing lust with interest.
What I need, is to get laid.
But that’s not Jake’s problem.
I hit the call button and wait for him to answer. After three rings, I assume he isn’t going to, but as I begin to pull the phone away from my ear, I hear his voice.
“Figure it was faster to insult me verbally instead of typing it out?”
He’s pissed.
The fact that I hurt his feelings gives me mixed emotions. Obviously, I feel bad, but also, knowing that my opinion matters to him, throws other feelings into the mix. Complicated ones.
“I’m really sorry, Jake. I didn’t mean what I said. I was trying to make a joke and it was a bad one.” I hope he can hear the sincerity through the gravel in my tired voice.
“The conversation with my father earlier wasn’t enough for you to realize I don’t consider myself like the rest of them regardless of my bank account balance?” he fires at me.
I sit up in bed, and rub a hand across my bare chest. I know better than to judge a book by its cover.
“Yeah, man. I’m sorry. Look, I don’t have a lot of friends and I work so much that I’m out of the habit of how to make new ones. I swear I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“It’s fine,” he grumbles a second later.
“You always say that even when it isn’t fine,” I tell him, thinking back to the day I hit his car. “ Don’t say it’s fine . Say what you’re thinking, ” I command.
“I can’t.” The reply comes so quickly it sounds like the words left his mouth before he could catch them.
“Why not?” I ask, hating that my voice is growing as deep as this conversation.
“Because some things are better left unsaid,” he replies sadly before he quickly changes the subject, bringing us back to neutral ground. “So, about my clutch, should I just call the office in the morning?”
“I’m swamped next week, but I can take it the following Saturday.” It’s not like I had plans outside of work anyway.
“I don’t want you working on a weekend because of me.”
“I’ll be there anyway. Might as well be working on a car that’s worth my time.” That logic must resonate because he finally agrees.
“Okay, next Saturday it is. I’ll be by around nine, but I might need to take you up on that lift service you guys offer.”
“No problem. See you then.”
The silence hangs heavy between us. I want to keep talking, but it doesn’t seem right. He must agree because he says, “Yeah, see you then,” and hangs up the phone.
I lie in bed with my hand down the front of my boxers, remembering the way Jake rolled up his shirtsleeves, the way he patted my arm after his dad was a douche, and the way he drove that car at a hundred and twenty miles per hour like it wasn’t his first rodeo.
Yeah, I definitely need to get laid.
I might be willing to call an ex, but I moved back into my dad’s house when my last lease was up. I didn’t like the thought of he and Cassie here by themselves in case the vandalism shit followed them home from work.
My dad and Cass wouldn’t care if I had someone over, but I don’t have a single ex they like and it just doesn’t seem worth the hassle for one night. So, once again, I’m left with nothing to satisfy myself except my hand.
“Fuck. Not again.”
I pull my Challenger into the shop’s lot and sigh when I see the orange paint on the doors I just scrubbed clean. I open the camera system’s app, but all I see is a silver sedan with blacked out windows. It never even comes to a complete stop as it lobs a paint grenade out the window and speeds away.
I take pictures of the mess — although I don’t know why since we stopped filing police reports when they failed to do anything after the third attack —and text my dad to let him know. He starts work two hours after I do, but I could use his help scrubbing this shit off before customers arrive.
He pulls into the lot thirty minutes later and once the doors are clean, I wash up and grab my keys.
“I’m going to visit some of the other shops on the street and see if anyone else is having similar problems.”
“Just be careful, son.”
“Always am.”
After the first attack, we’d checked with some other businesses to see if they’d suffered any damage too. Three of us were hit that night, but since then, we’ve all been so busy trying to keep our businesses from going under that we haven’t followed up with each other.
Our shop probably has the most business in the area, but even with working twelve-to-fifteen-hour days, seven days a week, my dad and I can only move so fast. Diagnosing car problems, ordering parts, and of course actually fixing them, is a process. A slow one made even slower when insurance claims get denied for repairs or won’t accept what products we use, etc…
We used to have more employees, but everyone left when the vandalism became a regular thing and because we can’t accept as many jobs, we’ve lost a decent amount of our income as well. Some days it feels like we’re beating our heads against a brick wall with no end in sight.
I drive down the street to the little mom and pop antique store. The owners, Carl and Betty Rogers, knew my mom and loved her sopaipilla cheesecake bars.
Didn’t we all.
I smile at the familiar tinkling bell that sounds when I enter the old two-story building. Built around the same time our shop was, theirs has a rustic, yet industrial, feel to it. Carl and Betty have owned it since the beginning and it’s been everything from a barbershop to a bakery. Now they sell antiques with help from their kids.
“Why hello, Dylan! What brings you by today?” Betty chirps, coming toward me with outstretched arms.
“Hey, Mrs. Betty.” I give her a hug and notice how frail she seems. I don’t like it. “I was wondering if you guys have had any other property damage recently? We got hit last week and again last night.”
“Oh my, are your dad and sister okay?”
“They are, just angry and a little shaken up.”
“Thankfully, we only got hit the once a few months back.” As soon as she finishes her sentence, the front bell chimes again, causing me to turn around. Carl walks through the doorway with a lamp in each hand. “Well, aren’t those gorgeous!” Betty claps her hands together. “Those would look good in our living room.”
Carl scowls, but I can tell it’s to cover his smile. “Hell no, woman. We’re supposed to sell the stuff we find so that other people buy it so we can afford to turn on the lights we already have.”
She playfully bats his shoulder and takes the lamps from him before scurrying to the back of the store. I have a sneaking suspicion Carl will be seeing those lamps again when he gets home tonight.
“Did I hear you talking about the vandalism attacks?”
“Yeah. We got hit again.”
“You may want to talk to Terrell and Glynda Waters. It wasn’t last night, but I know they’ve had some trouble recently.”
Terrell and Glynda would add a tally in the racial profiling column. He’s black, she’s white, and maybe whoever is behind this isn’t keen on mixing races.
It would’ve potentially helped nail down the perpetrator if that theory were true, however, two days after that conversation, Betty and Carl showed up to their store to find a giant cock and balls painted on their door and the F-bomb on their windows.
When my sister comes out to relay the news to my father and I, I slide out from the Porsche’s undercarriage, wrench still in my hand.
“Whatcha thinking, Dyl?” My dad asks, taking a swig of Sprite.
“That I wish I knew what was going on. Cass said two customers have called to cancel their service with us because they’re concerned about leaving their cars in our lot.”
“Yeah, it certainly isn’t going to help business, that’s for sure.” He still sounds so calm. Just like always. I get a lot of that from him, but this is really starting to piss me off and I’m also getting pissed that he’s so nonchalant about it. He’s sitting in the driver’s seat of an old Camaro with the door open and I don’t like the look in his eyes when he stills his movements. “Look, I was thinking—”
“Don’t start with that maybe it’s time we move and start somewhere new bullshit, Pops. And definitely don’t start with the maybe you should take over shit. It isn’t gonna happen. This shop needs you.”
I need you I think to myself, taking a long look at my dad.
Classic mechanic.
Holes in his jeans, backwards hat over a gray ponytail, silver goatee, tattoos on his pale arms. He’s a bit thin, but overall, he’s a good-looking guy and he’ll go stir crazy and die faster if he sits at home by himself all day.
Besides, I’ve been saving my ass off, but I’m not at a point where I can buy him out of his third of our shop. At least not if I give him what it’s worth.
“Dylan, I appreciate everything you and your sister do for me, but at some point, you both need to go on and live your own lives.”
“And what, Dad? Move away and spend every night worrying about you?”
“Dylan Mendoza Ryder, I am a grown ass man. Your mother and I didn’t have you and your sister so we could burden you as we aged.”
“Yeah, well, Mom didn’t plan on…” I trail off, getting choked up almost immediately — like usual — when talking about my mom, “…leaving you to age alone so, shit’s changed.”
This conversation always makes me so fucking angry. I’m angry at my mom’s body for failing her. I’m angry that my sister stayed behind with me instead of going to college, and I’m angry that my dad thinks us leaving him is an option.
Family is a huge component of Mexican culture and although our relatives aren’t close, all of my dad’s closest friends are Mexican and they’ve kept him in their fold even though my mom’s gone. That part of my heritage is strong and my mother would spring from her grave to beat me senseless if I ever considered leaving my dad on his own.
“You need to let it go, son. Get back out there, find a nice young man this time, and give life a real chance. You can’t be a bachelor living in your childhood bedroom your whole life. I won’t allow it.”
I throw my wrench in the toolbox next to me and angrily dig out a different one. “This conversation is over,” I huff, pulling myself along the frame of the car from the flat, wheeled dolly so my dad can’t see my clenched jaw.