Chapter 17
Rory
Morgan’s driveway is crowded with his truck, the Bronco, and my bike. As soon as I pull my helmet off, he runs his hand through his hair and stares at the Bronco. “Care to explain to me why I just drove this clunker home?”
I run my hand over hood and pat it. “Ignore him. He knows not what he speaks of.”
“Are you talking to it?” He’s amused now. Inside the house, Princess barks at us, and her head pops up in the den window, tail wagging behind her and a dopey doggy grin on her face.
I turn and rest my hip on the hood. Riding with Morgan behind me was distracting.
But he was warm and hard and I liked the way his arms felt around my waist. When we drove away from his brother’s place, him in the Bronco, me on the bike, I had to shake off the disappointment and the cold on my back. “Do you know what kind of car this is?”
He walks over to the back. “A Ford.”
“Right, but what model?”
He squints. “I don’t know. It looks like maybe there used to be something here but it popped off.” He points at a spot on the paint front of the passenger door.
“Yeah. It’s suspicious as hell, but also, your brother’s a fucking idiot.”
Morgan glances at me. “No argument there, but I’m feeling like a bit of an idiot here too.”
“Well, here’s a lesson that I’m pretty sure I don’t have to teach you because you aren’t that dumb: know what you have before you sell it. And in the spirit of that, I’ll tell you what exactly you have here before you sell it to me.”
His eyebrows rise.
I look down at the shitty paint job in an ugly color that someone’s going to hell for inflicting upon this beautiful machine.
“This is a first-generation Ford Bronco. They built about two hundred thousand of them in the sixties and seventies, but this one is a Roadster body style. There were only about five thousand of them made from ’66 to ’68.
This is the one collectors look for.” I look up at Morgan, who’s standing stock still with wide eyes.
“I’ll buy half of it from you for eleven grand plus twenty-five percent of whatever profit I make from it.
” I take a deep breath. “I haven’t looked closely at the interior and I have no idea if I’ll be able to get the parts I need to fix it up properly.
Yes, it’s barely worth anything now. But we could get sixty grand or so when I’m done with it. ”
He stares at me. “Holy shit.” He spins around, stalking off and tugging at his hair. “Holy shit,” he says again. “Do you think my brother knew what he had? He had to have, right?”
“There’s no way anyone who’s even remotely into cars would sell this thing.”
“Yeah, but it needs work. I wouldn’t know the first thing about how to fix it up. Maybe it wouldn’t sell for that much in this condition.”
“You’re right, it wouldn’t. Do you think your brother cares about that?”
Morgan runs his hand down his face. “Fuck. Okay. Fuck.”
I laugh, giddy with the idea of owning this beast. Also, catching Morgan off guard is hilarious.
He’s usually so confident and in control, but now he’s flustered, which means the tables have turned.
I think about how I felt when he was half naked and dancing up against me, and this kind of revenge is pretty sweet.
“Stop it,” Morgan chides, and that throws a bucket of cold water over me.
I press my lips tight.
He continues, “Okay, look, I’ll gladly sell it to you for whatever you want. How are you going to get it home?”
Oh, right. I consider this problem. “Can I leave it here for a few days?”
“Yeah sure.” He pauses and eyes the Bronco cautiously. “My brother might figure all this out.”
“Do you think he might try to steal it back?”
Morgan shakes his head. “I don’t know.” His head falls back to look up at the sky. The daylight is just starting to fade. “Why don’t we put it in my garage for now?”
First, Morgan lets Princess out into the backyard, and I reach over the chain-link fence to give her a head pat. Then Morgan opens the garage door manually. It isn’t hoarding-level full, but there are boxes and lawn equipment and things for Princess.
“I guess I’ll put cleaning this place on my project list,” Morgan says. “For now, let’s just see how much of it we can move to the side.”
I start moving boxes, and Morgan picks up loose things and piles them on a table in the back. I hear a faint buzzing sound, and Morgan pats his pocket. He pulls out his phone, checks the screen, and then ignores the call.
“So, how did you know about the Bronco, uh . . .”
“Roadster.”
“Yeah, that one.”
“I’ve always been into cars. And bikes, too.”
Morgan looks out the garage door at my motorcycle. “I’ve always wondered if you had another ride.”
“I do. A Honda Civic.”
He stops, a pair of pliers in his hand. “A souped-up Civic?”
I roll my eyes. “No, I’m more into classics. My Civic is factory standard.”
“Do you work with cars? Like for your job? Since I don’t know what you do,” he teases.
I still haven’t told Morgan what I do. It used to be because I didn’t want to bother making a friend just to lose them when Grandma moves again. And then it was just fun to see the kind of guesses he could come up with.
In general, I don’t often tell guys what I do. I get a variety of responses that usually all boil down to men not being able to handle a woman in a “man’s job.” Same with rebuilding cars.
But now . . .
“I work in robotics.”
He straightens. “No shit, really?”
“Yeah. I work as a service technician for a firm in Boston. I handle most of the lower New England area, fixing things when shit breaks or helping set up new systems.”
Morgan whistles. “A smart technician and a car aficionado.” His gaze is warm, looking at me like I can take on the world, and my heart kicks hard. A man who likes a woman’s competence is hot. “How’s your grandma like all that?”
I smile down at the box in my arms as I move it to the back.
“She bought me my first car when I was fourteen.” I set the box on top of another one and pause, thinking about that car.
“A Jaguar E-Type. Even worse off than this one.” I lift my chin to the Bronco.
“Took me eight years to rebuild it. When I sold it I tried to give her the money and she told me to ‘accept the damn gift.’ I’ve been looking for another project ever since. ”
My eyes meet Morgan’s across the garage. “I already knew you were a badass,” he says, and the warmth and affection in it makes me realize that Morgan being my friend isn’t a lie anymore.
It takes an hour for us to clear space for the Roadster. Morgan’s phone rings twice more, and he ignores the call, despite me telling him I’ve got this. “How did my brother come to own this car anyway, without knowing what it was?” Morgan asks once I pull it into the garage.
I cringe, hearing the engine echo in the small space.
I quickly turn it off and hop out. “It’s rare, but it happens.
People, especially in rural areas, tend to keep cars just lying around, and then the owners die or forget about them.
There was a story a few years ago about a woman who passed away, and her kids discovered a Ferrari and a Lamborghini in the garage.
Two supercars. I can’t imagine buying this beauty and then forgetting about it. ”
“Well, I’m glad it’s ours now.”
I glance at him, wondering if it feels weird to him too to say that something belongs to the both of us. His arms are crossed, and there’s dust in his hair. The sunlight outside is dying, and the harsh lights of the garage make his face look more angular.
I shake the attraction away. “There’s a couple more things I want to do,” I say. “Then I better head out so I can get home in a reasonable time.”
“Yeah, sure. Need any help?”
“Nah, go inside. I’ll be there in a few.”
Morgan leaves, and this next bit gets messy. I take one of the tires off and hide it behind boxes. I pull the spark plugs and drain the engine oil.
Just in case.
We had to shuffle the vehicles around to get the Bronco in the garage, so my motorcycle is out on the street. I put one of the keys in the rear storage space under my seat, just in case.
I head back into the house to say goodbye. I can hear Morgan talking, so I toe off my boots by the front door and follow the sound of his voice.
He’s in the den, the room right off the back door. He’s talking to someone on the phone, and Princess’s head rests on his knee while he absentmindedly pets her. The dog’s eyes rise to look at me in the doorway, but Morgan’s not paying attention.
“Yeah, Mom, I know.”
I freeze. Morgan’s voice is tinged with sadness and frustration. His shoulders are up around his ears.
“He owed me—”
I can’t tell what his mom is saying, but she’s loud and upset, not letting Morgan finish his sentence.
“Mom—”
The more the woman yells, the more hunched over Morgan gets. His hand leaves Princess’s head only to pinch the bridge of his nose.
I slowly back away and retreat to the living room.
I don’t have many memories of my parents. I’m sure there were tough moments, but the memories I do have are all good ones.
Not like this.
No wonder Morgan is so close to his friends. No wonder he’s so friendly with everyone in town. All the Herevians he’s known his whole life, they’re his real family.
“Hey,” Morgan says as he enters the room, Princess at his heels. “You headed out?”
He’s smiling, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes now.
I hate it. I hate it so much that an excuse to leave isn’t what comes out when I open my mouth.
“Wanna order a pizza?”
His whole face lights up.
“We could watch a movie too,” I add.
“Oh Rory,” he teases, grabbing his phone out of his back pocket and the remote from the coffee table. “I would love to Netflix and chill with you.”