Chapter Six
Lai
Muscle cars were so fragile. I didn’t laugh or make a big deal out of the sudden silence, though the temptation was there.
Ghost had gone from swaggering old lord of the road to a wounded war veteran over a dead radio, and while some part of me found that deeply, absurdly funny, a larger part of me knew better than to poke at it.
Ghost was taking it hard.
So when we arrived back at the mansion, I parked him carefully in the garage and let him rest.
The Challenger, sulking in the dark, somehow managed to look like the silent hero of a country song whose horse had died and whose woman had left him for a car with Bluetooth.
I stood beside his door for a moment, cane in one hand, the other resting lightly on his frame.
No answer. No pale eyes in the tinted glass.
Just silence.
I knew he needed space. Somehow, all my men and all my cars were the same type. Proud, wounded things with powerful engines and terrible communication skills. Would I ever learn?
Probably not.
But at least I knew how to deal with them.
Pushing would not help. Prodding would not help. Demanding he speak before he was ready would only make him dig in deeper. So I left him there, giving the door frame one small touch before I turned away.
A promise, perhaps.
Or an apology.
I didn’t know how to fix him, but I needed to figure it out.
The problem was that there weren’t many people I could go to.
Magic? Dragons? Curses? I would be spoiled for choice.
Car problems, however, narrowed the field considerably.
There was only one man here who could help me, and I loathed the thought of burning an IOU on a busted radio.
Still, pride was a luxury for people whose cars were not having silent existential breakdowns in the garage.
I glanced at the old clock on the wall. If I was lucky, Al would still be in the office, and for the first time today, the luck gods were on my side. I didn’t knock. I didn’t need to; it was my house. “Oi, you,” I announced as I walked in.
Al looked up from his laptop and glared at me over the screen. The glow caught the sharp planes of his face, making him look more tired than he would ever admit and more handsome than he had any right to be as he sat in my father’s chair.
“Am I rescuing you,” he asked, “or bailing you out?”
“Eat shit.” I grinned despite myself and took the chair opposite him.
How strange it was to still be on this side of the desk in my father’s office.
Even though I owned it now, it was still the same antique oak furniture, the same heavy shelves, the same ridiculous old globe in the corner that had not shown accurate borders in at least a century.
Only the man behind the desk was different; no longer the surly old pirate who had raised me with equal parts affection, threat, and terrible advice.
Now, the man behind my father’s desk was my ex. Sigmund Freud, eat your fucking heart out.
“Well,” Al said, closing the laptop, “that attitude won’t get you anywhere.”
“You got a moment?”
He raised a brow, questioning if he even had a choice.
Of course, he didn’t.
“Something is wrong with Ghost.”
Al chuckled, leaning back in his seat. “Oh? You think?”
I raised my cane and brought it down against the edge of his desk with a sharp crack—a warning.
“Besides his being a grumpy old cowboy.” Al’s grin widened.
I ignored it. “We went for a drive–”
He barked out a laugh and moved preemptively out of my cane’s reach. “So he’s totaled?”
Perhaps I had walked into that one. I gritted my teeth as Al made a valiant attempt to compose himself and failed for several seconds.
I waited because we had a routine. We had always had a routine.
It had survived distance, resentment, poor decisions, and whatever strange, half-healed shape our relationship had taken now.
He mocked me. I threatened him. He mocked me more.
I endured it with saintly patience, and eventually he offered help because under all the swagger, Al had always been tragically useful.
“Yeah, yeah.” I waved my hand. “I suck at driving, I hit curbs, and I put in the wrong fuel all the time. I admit it. Now, can we get to the point?”
“Depends. Is the point funnier than that?”
“His radio stopped working.”
Al pressed his lips together. I saw the smile trying to escape.
“Do not,” I warned.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You thought it loudly.”
He held up both hands. “Look, he’s from the seventies. I’m surprised he can drive at all.”
I mirrored his face, but my expression was less entertained.
“Fine,” he said with a groan, pushing himself out of the leather chair. He stretched, shoulders rolling, the movement slow enough to be irritating. “Probably just blew a fuse or something.”
“Probably?” I raised a single eyebrow.
“Likely.”
“That is not better.”
“Old cars are dramatic. The good thing about them is you can fix half their problems with a gum wrapper, a screwdriver, and a prayer to whatever god handles wiring.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“It wasn’t meant to be. It was meant to sound manly and competent.” He came around the desk and headed for the door, pausing only to offer me his arm.
I did not need it.
I took it anyway.
There was a strategy in accepting help from men. A science, really. One had to play the damsel role just enough to activate whatever primitive mechanism made them useful. The more helpless one appeared, the more determined they became to prove they were needed.
Al was not an exception. If anything, he was worse because he knew I was doing it and still fell for it.
So I played my part.
I winced as I rose to my feet, shifting my weight onto him instead of my cane. His arm slid around me at once, steady and warm. He laughed softly and adjusted his hold on me, letting me lean on him as we moved toward the door.
I looked up at him. “You cannot be an asshole about it.”
Al’s brows lifted. “About what?”
“Ghost.” I snapped. “He’s delicate.”
Al stopped walking for half a second. Then he smiled, but this one was not mocking. “Don’t talk to me about delicate cars,” he said, wrapping one arm more securely around me. “I have one too.”