Chapter 3High schoolers have gone further than I have. #2
“I don’t. I don’t know why you always say that. Delane’s just, like, the coolest chick I’ve ever met. I just don’t wanna creep her out or assume the wrong thing, you know?”
Beau takes over, nodding. “We got you. Definitely, we got you. Well, she’s never asked me out with the promise of offers I can’t refuse, so it’s safe to assume, I think, that she wants to talk about something personal.
It may have nothing to do with you, or maybe it does.
I know that’s not much help, but it’s all I got with what you’ve said. ”
Atticus strokes his hand down his beard thoughtfully. “I concur.”
I nod. “Okay, so it’s probably nothing.” Disappointment swells inside me. “That makes more sense than it being… anything .”
“Whatever the case, we’ll take off for lunch,” Beau adds with a smile. His insinuations leave me feeling a little depressed because now I’m convinced it’s likely nothing. But I don’t give off sad vibes, that’s not what I’m about. Smiling, I nod. “Thanks.”
Coming up from the under garage bay, the first thing I see is Delane. She’s got her EarPods in, her hair is now up in a wad on her head with loose tendrils bouncing around her face, and she’s spinning on the workbench stool, feet out like a child. I smile and feel it between my ribs.
I drop my hand on her shoulder when she’s facing the wall, and she jumps off the stool at my touch.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” I say quickly. It’s the truth; I didn’t. But the other truth is that I wanted to touch her, and with her facing away from me with her ears full of books, this was a perfect opportunity.
“Dumb of me to be startled. We’re the only two here; who did I think it was gonna be?” she says with a smile.
“Beau and Atti took off?” I ask, tugging off my cap and running my fingers through my sweaty, matted-down hair.
I’ve eaten with Delane a ton of times. Hundreds, probably.
She’s told me I have pepper between my front teeth, watched my nose run when I ate peppers too hot for me, laughed at me for spilling soda on my shirt, and I’ve watched ketchup go down her top. Lunch with her isn’t a first.
Lunch alone with her is, though, and I’m feeling a lot like I do when it comes to firsts with a girl.
Woman. I have to stop calling women girls.
They don’t like that–Delane has told me as much.
“There’s only one time we want to be called a girl, and that’s if a good comes before,” she told us all over burritos one day when Atti mouthed off to her and called her “little girl.”
She shrugs, and it brings me a moment of relief.
For a second, I wondered if they’d tease her about asking me to have lunch with her privately, even though I asked them not to.
But they didn’t, and I know it’s got more to do with them accusing me of liking Delane than them staying true to their word.
They think they’re matchmaking. They should just go buy a lotto ticket. I mean, if anything’s possible, right?
She walks us to the front desk, where two stools wait, and the whole meal is ready, too.
She uses a fork to grab an eggroll from a glass container with a snap-to-lock lid.
She lowers it to the paper plate in front of me, and repeats this a few more times until both plates contain egg rolls, cabbage salad, dipping sauce, and two cookies.
“Looks great,” I admit, my stomach rumbling loud enough to make me a little embarrassed. But when I take a seat and glance at her, there are traces of a pleased smile on her face. “I’ve always liked your cooking,” I admit, still stealing a glance at her, waiting for a full grin.
She gives me one, and my torso gets warm and tingly at the sight. “You know you’re a good cook,” I tell her, forcing myself to look away this time. I’m sure she could feel my eyes on her, and just staring at her smiling while we’re this close is… weird.
I can’t be weird. I’m sensitive to being weird. After all, being a twenty-six-year-old virgin is hard enough. I refuse to be a weird virgin.
“So are you!” she laughs, knocking her fork into mine. The tines slide together momentarily, and my eyes follow the fork as she drives it into her mouth. My fork touched hers, and now she’s putting it in her mouth.
Blood slowly drains from my head, so I face forward and eat an eggroll in two bites, chewing almost aggressively to get it down.
“Well,” I say around a mouthful, which is rude and gross and not how she should be treated, but I feel so…
flustered. My eyes water through an overly ambitious swallow. Why am I so lit up right now ?
“Well, I cook a lot. That’s part of being alone.” I feel her look my way, so I adjust my words. “Single, I mean. Part of being single.” With a wide smile, I go to town on the cabbage salad and look up when I feel her unmoving next to me.
Her smile slopes to one side, soft like her wide, dark eyes, as she watches me in silence.
My heart seems to weigh so much more than usual as it beats now. “What?” I ask, forcing huskiness into my tone.
“I have a plan.” She swallows, and I wonder if she’s nervous. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Delane nervous before. If she ever has been, she’s hidden it well. And I don’t like the idea of her hiding anything around me. Whatever she thinks and feels, I want to see it, hear it, and know it.
I’m a very good co-worker. Clearly.
“Plan for what?” I ask, taking a drink from the paper cup of iced tea she’s poured me.
We both like tea. Beau and Miller don’t like it without tons of sugar.
The fact that the shop is divided over drinks and Delane and I share a side is nothing.
Trivial, really, when it comes to what’s really important in life.
Still, it makes me happy that we’re unified in something.
Together on something. Even if it is just unsweetened tea.
“Your confidence,” she says, bringing the cup to her mouth. A dusting of red is smeared against the cup wall, left from her lips after each drink. I take a drink of my tea as she drinks hers, trying to focus on anything but that smear of color left from her lips.
“Okay,” I agree because anything to distract me from my hyper fixation on her lips. I move my legs, wiggling them like an impatient kid in class waiting for recess. Anything to keep everything between my thighs moving, so he can’t stop and focus on her .
“Wow,” she says, using the tip of her tongue to collect a stray drop of tea from the corner of her mouth. “I thought I was going to have to convince you.”
My focus snaps to her offer. “How are you going to help me with my confidence?” And then, trying to stay friendly, I add, “and what’s in it for you?”
At one of those questions, her skin grows pink. It’s not often that Delane gets flushed, and I don’t know if she’s embarrassed or upset, but I don’t enjoy the idea of either. I drop my hand on the table between us, and her eyes go to it.
“I don’t mean that in any way other than curiosity, Delane,” I say softly as the pink drains from her cheeks. Her eyes trace the length of my fingers, circling the tips before coming to my eyes. I don’t miss the way her tongue slides along her bottom lip before she says, “I want to be a mechanic.”
My spine snaps me into a straight-backed position on the stool. “What?” I scratch at the messy hair on my head as I study her. She’s fidgeting with the edge of her plate, then refilling our tea from a thermos, and after that, she takes a bite. She chews fast, too.
“Delane, I–” Thankfully, she intercepts the conversation because I had no clue where I was going with that. She wants to be a mechanic? I had no idea.
“I know I’ve never mentioned it before. Mostly because I wasn’t sure I could do it, and I thought if I failed, I’d rather no one know.
” Finally, she brings her eyes to mine and gives a humble, shy smile.
My chest lights up with an energy so powerful, one that burns so bright; it physically hurts not to reach out and hug her.
“You can do it,” I say quickly, with ease, because Delane is the type of woman who can do anything if she sets her mind to it.
She smiles, pink coming back to her cheeks as she focuses on her hand, slowly turning her cup of tea over and over. “I think you’re right.” She takes a drink, and I’m so intoxicated by everything on her side of the desk that if someone offered me a million bucks to look away, I don’t think I could.
“I started working on my mom’s car with my stepdad.
It’s a real piece of shit, but she can’t afford a new one.
My stepdad isn’t a mechanic,” she looks at me shyly in a way that makes me bounce my knee a few times to divert blood flow.
“Not the way you guys are. But he’s self-taught and knows the minor repairs. ”
“Basics,” I add with a nod. I scratch at my hairline again as I watch her because, at this point in this lunch, I think that Atticus may be right.
Maybe I do have a little crush on Delane, because I cannot quit fidgeting. I dig into my hair again, scratching a non-existent itch.
“Yeah,” she says, replacing her own nervous movement from the cup of iced tea to her fork.
She pushes cabbage and carrot around her plate, the dressing leaving smears of dark oil behind.
“And I’ve been working with him for two years.
And I’m getting a lot better. Decent enough to have some real training, I think. ”
“I’m sure you’re great,” I say, meaning it as much as I’ve ever meant anything.
Then I think about Delane in a Wrench Kings button-up, her name embroidered on her chest like the rest of us.
The thought makes me go a little haywire.
Spending the day in the pit with Delane, working on cars together…
it’s like a dream life I never expected. “I’d love to teach you anything I can.”