Chapter 6
I'm dying. Actively, measurably dying.
The iced coffee in front of me has given up—condensation pooling around the base and honestly?
I respect it. The surrender. The acceptance that fighting Arizona in July is pointless and we're all just slowly liquifying together.
I watch a bead of water slide down the cup, taking its sweet time, and I'm jealous of water for having the option to evaporate because at least that's an exit strategy.
I'm pretty sure I'm witnessing what death by heat stroke looks like from the inside. Or maybe the outside? Is there a difference when your brain's melting? These are the thoughts of someone whose internal temperature has reached critical mass.
The oscillating fan on my desk does nothing except push hot air from one side of my face to the other in lazy intervals.
I've got invoices spread out in front of me that I should be filing, but my brain's too melted to care.
The shop's been dead for hours—literally no one in their right mind would bring a car in when stepping outside feels like opening an oven door and then climbing inside the oven and closing the door behind you and just accepting your fate as a baked good.
I lean back in my chair, unstick my tank top from my spine with one finger—the peeling sound is disgusting and satisfying—and consider just lying down on the concrete floor to absorb whatever coolness might be hiding there.
Probably none. The concrete's probably hotter than I am.
Everything's hotter than everything and we're all going to die here.
"I'm moving to Alaska," I announce to no one, to everyone, to the universe at large.
"You'd hate Alaska," Holt's voice drifts from under the Bronco he's been working on all morning, muffled but certain. "Too much snow."
"I'd learn to love snow. Snow and I would become best friends. I'd build snow a little house and we'd drink hot chocolate together and—wait, do people in Alaska actually do that or is that just what I think they do? I might be thinking of Canada. Is Alaska different from Canada?"
"You're rambling."
"It's the heat. My brain's melting. This is what liquified thoughts sound like when they leak out of my ears.
" I peel myself forward, rest my forehead on the desk, and contemplate death.
"This is how I die. Not dramatically. Just..
. slowly cooking at my desk while pretending to care about invoices. "
A clang of metal on concrete, the squeak of a creeper rolling, and then Finn emerges from under a Civic two bays over like a grease-stained gopher sensing opportunity. He's got a cherry popsicle in his mouth and he looks way too energized for someone who should be melting.
"That's it," he declares around the popsicle, standing up and wiping his hands on his jeans. Oil streaks everywhere. "We're closing."
I blink at him. "It's two in the afternoon."
"And it's a hundred and fifteen degrees, Scout. No one's coming in. We're dying. Holt's dying. You're dying. The cars are dying. Everything's dying."
"The cars are fine," Holt says from somewhere beneath the Bronco, which is the most Holt response possible—defending the cars while his business partner stages a mutiny.
"The cars are judging us for working in this bullshit," Finn corrects, pointing what's left of his popsicle at me. "Swimming hole. Lake. Body of water that is NOT the temperature of bathwater. We're going. Right now. This is happening."
Holt rolls out from under the truck, sits up, and fixes Finn with that look that probably worked in the Marines but has never once worked on Finn Weller. Watching this dynamic is like someone trying to discipline a golden retriever who knows he's cute. "We've got—"
"Nothing," Finn interrupts cheerfully, spreading his arms wide. "We have nothing. No customers. No emergencies. No appointments. Just three people slowly cooking to death in a garage." He looks at me. "Back me up here, Scout."
I glance between them—Finn wearing that trouble-grin, Holt's jaw working like he's trying to find a reason to say no and coming up empty, his shoulders already starting to drop in surrender. "I mean, I am actively melting. That's not hyperbole. I think my organs are shutting down."
"See?" Finn gestures at me triumphantly. "Democracy. Medical emergency. We're going."
Holt stands, wipes his hands on a rag that's more oil than fabric at this point, and I watch him almost-argue before he gives up.
The surrender. The acknowledgment that Finn's right and also that fighting him takes more energy than anyone has in this heat.
"Half hour. I need to finish this brake job. "
"Twenty minutes," Finn counters immediately.
"Forty-five."
"Deal!" Finn spins toward me before Holt can renegotiate or realize he's been played.
"Go change. Bring a towel. Prepare for the best afternoon of your Arizona life, which I realize isn't a high bar considering you've mostly been sweating and fixing cars, but still.
Life-changing water experience incoming. "
I'm already standing because honestly? The idea of being submerged in cold water sounds better than every other option currently available to me, including winning the lottery or finding out I have a rich uncle who wants to leave me his fortune. Water. Cold. Now. "You had me at 'not bathwater.'"
Twenty minutes later—Finn's version of twenty minutes, which means actually thirty because Holt refused to leave the brake job half-finished—I'm in the passenger seat of Holt's truck with Finn crammed between us on the bench seat, windows down, country music playing low from speakers that crackle on the high notes.
Finn insisted on the middle—said something about "optimal chaos positioning" and "being the fun buffer"—and now his elbow keeps bumping mine every time he gestures, which is constantly, while he works through some story about a regular customer who thinks her car is possessed.
"I'm telling you, Holt, she brought sage. Actual sage bundles to cleanse the alternator."
"Did it work?" I ask, my arm hanging out the window, hot wind whipping through my fingers, the air rushing past feeling like a hairdryer on full blast but at least it's moving air.
"Alternator still needed replacing," Holt says dryly, one hand loose on the wheel. "But she felt better about it."
Finn snorts, shifting to look at me, his knee bumping mine. "She tipped us in homemade jam. Which, to be fair, was excellent jam. Like really, truly excellent. I ate an entire jar with a spoon."
"You ate it with a spoon?" I twist to look at him. "Just... straight jam?"
"It was apricot. Don't judge me."
"I'm judging you so hard right now."
"Noted and ignored," Finn says cheerfully. "Oh! Speaking of which—" He leans forward to look at Holt. "Did you tell Scout about the guy who wanted us to make his car sound like a spaceship?"
"I didn't tell her because it's not relevant to anything."
"It's extremely relevant. It's the best story we have. Well the best after the chicken guy." Finn turns back to me. "This guy—I'm not making this up—wanted us to rig his exhaust system to make sci-fi sounds. Like, pew-pew laser noises when he accelerated."
"What did you say?"
"Holt said no," Finn grins. "I said we'd think about it. We're still thinking about it."
"We're not thinking about it," Holt says flatly.
"I'm thinking about it very hard right now."
The highway stretches out in front of us, heat waves making the asphalt shimmer like water that isn't actually there, everything wavering in the distance.
I've got my hair piled on top of my head—messy, already falling down, but at least it's off my neck—and sunglasses on, and I already feel better just knowing we're heading toward water.
The promise of it. The idea that in twenty minutes I'll be cold for the first time in hours.
The landscape blurs past in shades of red and brown and that bleached-out beige Arizona does so well—scrub brush, red rock, the occasional ranch fence marking property that goes on for miles.
I glance at Holt, at the way he drives—relaxed. He's got the window down, arm out, and there's something about seeing him like this—not working, not tense, just driving toward something good—that makes my ribs squeeze tight, makes me want to memorize this exact moment.
"So what's the swimming hole situation?" I ask, pulling my attention back to safer territory. "Are we talking murky pond or—"
"Spring-fed," Finn says, leaning back into the seat, taking up more space than any human should. "Cold as hell, blue-green water, cliff ledge about fifteen feet up."
I twist to look at him. "Cliff jumping?"
"Optional but encouraged." He grins. "Highly encouraged. Mandatory, even. I'm making it mandatory right now."
"You can't make cliff jumping mandatory."
"Watch me. I'm the Chief of Fun. It's in my contract."
"You don't have a contract."
"Verbal agreement. Implied. Holt, back me up—do I or do I not enhance every situation with my presence?"
"No comment," Holt says, but his mouth twitches.
"See? That's practically a yes." Finn nudges me with his elbow. "I jump every time. With increasingly impressive form."
"Do you actually jump?"
"Every single time. Sometimes twice. Once I did a backflip." He pauses. "It was more of a back-flop, but the spirit was there."
I glance at Holt. "You jump?"
He keeps watching the road, but there's something in his expression—amusement, maybe. A softness around his eyes. "Sometimes."
"Holt still jumps," Finn says, elbowing me conspiratorially. "Just takes him longer to climb back up." He says it casually, easy, and Holt doesn't react beyond an eye-roll that suggests this is well-trodden conversational territory, a joke that's been made before and will be made again.
"How often do you guys go?" I ask, watching the landscape roll by.
"Summer?" Finn stretches his arms overhead, nearly elbowing both of us. "Couple times a month. When the heat gets stupid."