Chapter 8
8
FORD
A s spring makes way into summer, the air is thick. The heat presses like it’s weighing down everything.
When I pull up the freshly paved drive, the Porsche’s exhaust growls as I pull to a stop. The garage looked brand-new compared to the historic town. Trent’s garage is upscale. It is a big white building converted into a warehouse with a vintage neon sign reading AMERICAN MUSCLE under it. Trent, Chris, and I would hit the track on the backroad and race to see whose car was the fastest. I was into imports, and Chris and Trent were into American muscle. Chris is more modern, and Trent loves the classics. Barracudas, ’69 Chevys, and his prized possession—an SS Camaro.
A couple of guys give me stupefied looks like I’m a little lost or stupid for bringing a German car into an American shop.
As I get out, though, the guys’ mouths drop open. They clearly recognize me.
“I’m looking for Trent.”
A blond kid with overalls and grease under his fingernails stares at me like I’m an enigma. “I didn’t think they were telling the truth in this town. You’re really from here.”
“I sure am. Is Trent here?” I ask.
The kid with the dark hair, mechanic’s shirt, and jeans that haven’t been washed since he bought them pops up and says, “Sure, I’ll get him.” He walks inside through the main entrance and shouts, “Yo, Trent! You have a visitor.”
“If it isn’t a girl with big tits and a nice ass, tell them to fuck off,” he shouts back.
Trent was always a sarcastic son of a bitch.
“This is better,” the kid shouts. “I bet he can beat you in a race.”
“Alright, alright. I’m coming.”
Trent walks out, squinting against the blazing sun. “Son of a bitch. You made it.”
“I promised I would.”
The last thing I said to Trent before leaving that night was that I would return, and we would open a garage together despite what our parents thought. We didn’t want to be part of the country club or be a CEO at one of their companies, trapped in a high-rise in the city fucking the secretary during lunch like our fathers did. We had dreams. Goals. His was a garage and, hopefully, pit crew at NASCAR. Mine was to drive professionally, and Chris’s was to go to college and figure shit out.
Trent has scruff on his face like he hasn’t shaved in days. “You look like you popped out of the set of a commercial,” he says with a smile.
“Is that your way of telling me I look good?”
“Shit, better than I do.” He looks down at his mechanic’s shirt and low-ripped jeans with grease smeared near the pockets. He has tattoos on his forearms and neck—I bet his parents loved that one.
He motions me to follow him.
“I bet you’re driving the ladies crazy,” he says with a chuckle.
I walk in and wait a bit for my eyes to adjust to the fluorescent lights gleaming on the garage floor. The garage is immaculate, filled with the nostalgic smell of rubber, oil, and gasoline. He has eight lifts in the center. All classic muscle cars with gleaming paint jobs like works of art. The back walls are fitted with tool cabinets and vintage road signs. Rolling toolboxes are neatly placed on the other two walls. I’m sure they have every tool needed to build a car.
“Hey, some girls dig the mechanic look,” he says, then looks over his shoulder as I follow him to his office. “I bet you’ve had more pussy than an all-you-can-eat buffet.”
He isn’t wrong. The first two years were wild. I bought more boxes of condoms than I did toothpaste.
“Trust me, it gets old after a while. Different cities?—”
He interrupts. “A variety of pussy.”
“They get attached,” I reply, the words coming out on a dull monotone.
He walks into a modern office with the latest Apple studio desktop and takes a seat in his racing desk chair. I take a seat on the shiny red vinyl couch, letting the air-conditioning vent cool my heated skin.
“They all get attached. Famous or not,” he says, leaning back in his chair.
“Sounds like you speak from experience.”
“You should talk.”
He means Summer. I didn’t care if he slept with her. Despite what she thought, it’s not like she was my real girlfriend, and Trent knew I didn’t love her. He knew why I was with her. Chris, too, but I stopped talking to Chris when I told him I wanted to leave. He hated it. He was a good friend in the beginning. He was adopted when he was thirteen. It was always Trent and me at first, but then Chris showed up, and we hit it off until I left.
“What’s up with Chris? What’s he up to?” I ask, my voice carrying a light probing quality.
Trent looks up from his phone. I can tell it’s not good. “He left for college and was kicked out three months in.”
“How come?” I probe.
He shakes his head. “Don’t know. He wouldn’t talk about it, and his parents wouldn’t say. You know how reputation is around here.”
“Where is he?”
“He bought a house with the rest of his college fund when he moved back. His parents flipped the fuck out. They wanted him to take over the real estate company in town, but he told them to go fuck themselves. He isn’t the Chris you know when you left, Ford. He’s changed. Spends his time having wild parties. Races on the backroads with the high school seniors and whoever wants to race. Fucks around. Smokes weed. Drinks. It’s like he’s running a frat house.”
“What’s his deal with you?” I ask, wondering why he went off the rails all of a sudden. Trent stayed and is doing what he planned to do after high school. Why did Chris change? Chris was the nicest one out of all of us. The most liked and easy to talk to.
Trent looks away, but I know there is more he won’t tell me. “I don’t know. We don’t talk anymore.”
I look around his office. I notice he doesn’t have any pictures—just him and his classic cars. “Are you seeing anyone? Are you married? Do you have a girlfriend?” I ask, wanting to know more.
“Nah. A couple of girls come and go, but nothing serious. I don’t have time since I opened. Mine is the only one in town now. Old Theodore closed his shop before we graduated. He was too old to work on cars anymore.”
I smile. “So you saw an opportunity and took it.”
“Damn right, I did. My parents hate me right now, but I don’t care.”
I see the way he taps nervously on the desk. He looks at me and then looks away.
“I was planning to open the first exotic sports garage in Airy,” I confess.
His eyes light up. “What about driving?”
I shrug. “I need a break. I’ll go back to it. I have contracts and sponsors, but I’m tired of living out of a suitcase.”
He nods, scratching the scruff on his chin, and asks, “What do you need?”
“Nothing right now,” I tell him, looking around. “I came to see what you have been up to. I need to buy land to start everything up.”
“Do your parents know you’re back?”
“They should. It’s already all over social media.”
He chuckles and asks like he doesn’t already know. “Where did you head to first?”
“Sugar Coated Sweets,” I confess.
He clears his throat, but his eyes are unfocused and distant. “You saw her?”
My eyes cut to his. “I did.”
“Told you to fuck off?”
I nod slowly but don’t like the way the hair on the back of my neck stands.
“Pretty much.”
He lets out a shaky chuckle. “Let that go, man.”
I sit up and lean my forearms on my thighs. “I can’t,” I admit truthfully.
He snorts. “You can have any woman on the planet. You’re Ford fucking Keller, and you’re telling me you still want the poor bullied girl from high school?”
“You know why, and I’ve never stopped wanting her.”
“Is that why you gave her a ride that day on her birthday?”
My stomach plummets. “What?”
He furrows his brow and tilts his head. “You didn’t know? That was why Vicki was talking shit about her parents dying when she was ten. They were killed in a car accident on her tenth birthday. You know how people talk gossip in this town. I thought you were giving her a pity ride home because she was walking in the rain on her birthday. I told you I was sorry for going along with them. You know why the girls hated her.”
It was her birthday?
Trent always went along with it because he was always a hard-ass. The one who would bully the dorks at school. He always got in trouble with his slick mouth. Girls loved him. He was funny, and at times, you’d think he gave a shit, but his empathy is as deep as a puddle.
“Has anyone bothered her since then?”
“You’re going to kick their ass or hire someone to do it?”
I scoff. “Answer the fucking question asshole.”
He rubs his eyes with the pads of his thumbs. “Not that I know of. I’m not into cakes and pastries. I’m more of a beer and burger type of guy.”
“Is she seeing anyone?”
He takes a deep breath and sighs. “How the fuck should I know? It’s not like I talk to her like we are good friends. Do you think she would want to talk to me after high school? If I ordered a cake from her, she would probably poison it, but I did hear a cop likes her.”
That has my attention. “What about him?”
“He’s a dick,” he replies, looking at me straight in the eye. “He gives Chris a hard time for racing on the backroads even though it’s on private land.”
I frown. “Who owns it?”
“Chris. He bought that, too. Pissed the fucking cop off when he did.”
“He gives you shit?”
He snorts. “All the time.”
“Why?”
He shrugs and looks away. “I don’t know, but I heard he loves going to the bakery.” I scowl. He laughs. “I went to the supermarket where old lady Persie still works. Overheard her complaining that the Dickhead cop turned her down after she tried to set him up with her daughter. Said he would be fifty by the time Dulce Webster gives him the time of day.”
“What do you think?”
“Me?”
“Yeah?”
He has been here the whole time since I have been gone. He hears shit, obviously.
“You want to know what I think?” he says when I look at him straight in the eyes. “If Dulce Webster would give me the time of day, I would show you our wedding pictures, and you would meet my kid while the other one was on the way.”
“Touch her?—”
“And you’ll kill me. I understood the day you socked me in the eye for checking out her ass.”
He could have any girl. Any of my friends growing up could, but not her. Trent did me a favor by sleeping with Summer. Summer thought I punched Trent because of her, but all the guys knew the truth. The way I looked at Dulce when she wasn’t looking. It was gut-wrenching every time I had to ignore her. I protected her from what they would do if they knew I wanted her. But something in his eyes doesn’t sit well with me. He’s holding back for whatever reason.
“How’s therapy?”
I narrow my eyes. “Good. Why?”
He shrugs. “Just asking. Now that you’re back and all.”
“You know what? I need an empty warehouse,” I tell him, changing the subject. “My cars are being delivered next week.”
He tosses me the keys. “It’s yours for as long as you want it.” He pulls out a carefully rolled blunt. “Where are you staying?”
“Ramada.”
“Far cry from the Ritz.”
“I didn’t want to be spotted.”
He chuffs a laugh. “You rode in a Porsche dressed like…that.”
He isn’t wrong. I wanted to impress her, but not with the car, of course. That’s business. Dulce doesn’t give a shit about that. I wanted to see if she would look at me like she used to in class, but she wouldn’t.
“It’s business.”
“Sponsor?”
“Yep.”
He lights up the end of the blunt. The cherry end glows like a red eye in the dark sky and he says before he takes a drag, “Shit, must be nice. Why don’t you stay with me until you figure out if you’re staying or want to be my silent partner.”
“Where are you staying?”
“Here,” he says and blows smoke toward the ceiling. The smell of marijuana floats in a cloud of smoke. “I have a loft on the second floor.”
“That works.”
He grins, holding out the blunt. “It’ll be like old times.”
“I’m good. I’ll be back.” I motion for him to follow me outside. Sliding my glasses on, I open the door to the Porsche, reach in, and hand him half of the macarons I bought from Dulce.
“Are those macarons from?—”
“Yeah, give them to your staff. I’m sure the guys will appreciate it. Also, order breakfast from the bakery every morning and send one of the guys to pick it up. Make sure you order cakes, pastries, and whatever else she sells from her and not the supermarket. They get plenty of business from everyone else.”
“Playing the hero again,” he mocks.
“Someone ought to be,” I shoot back.
His eyes narrow slightly. His shoulders tense. He takes a drag and blows smoke before he looks away. It’s the second time he’s looked at me that way when I mention her.
“You should forget her. She would never go for it, and it’s not a good idea.”
My guard goes up. It’s the second time someone has warned me away from her. “Why is that?”
“Too much damage. Keep in mind you stood by and did nothing,” he says, reminding me like rubbing salt in a wound. “No one did. And your therapist said so. It’s why you left, no?”
I don’t give a fuck what the therapist thinks or what anyone thinks. That’s the problem.
And I’m not leaving until I find out what he means because something doesn’t add up.