—11— Wyatt #3
I wonder if the real question he’s asking is if I’m always this nosy about people. For a moment, I don’t know how to answer.
He almost asked the question politely, for one.
Second, he’s got a point.
“Probably.”
He glances at me.
I shrug. “It’s exhausting.”
He casts his gaze aside, lowering his head. “Sounds like it.” He rubs at a spot on his jaw, then starts busying himself under the hood again as I stand next to him, watching.
After a moment, I take a step closer. “Can I help?”
He doesn’t look up. “Nah.”
I cross my arms, drum my fingers, fidget. “You sure?”
He says nothing. Then he blinks hard, sighs, and says, “Hand me the thirteen.”
I freeze. “You need thirteen of … what …?”
He looks up. “Wrench.”
I turn to the toolbox near him—and the array of wrenches.
All matters of wrenches.
“The thirteenth one from the … left?”
He snorts—does that count as a laugh?—turns, takes one of the wrenches out, then shows it to me.
“Thirteen millimeter. If it’s not this one I need, it’s the ten.
” He lifts another one, gives it a wiggle, then sets it back in the toolbox.
“Or, if you want, you can just keep to your wildflower experiment that looks like it’s going fairly well, and I’ll …
” He glances back at the engine with a sigh.
“… continue pretending like I know what in the hell I’m doing. ”
I smile. “Sorry. I’m probably not as helpful with this as I’d like to be. Total fish outta water when it comes to car stuff.”
“Everyone starts somewhere.”
He dives back into the engine.
I lean my hip against the side of the car, watching him work. He doesn’t seem to mind, otherwise I might take him up on that suggestion of just minding the flowerbed.
I wonder if he minds conversation. “So this car means a lot to you, huh?”
He pauses. Then cranks the wrench some more. Pauses again. “Ten.”
I don’t follow for half a second, then realize he’s asking for a tool. I unfold my arms and turn back to the toolbox, looking over the wrenches. I offer one. “This?”
He takes it, gives it a look, then goes back into the engine.
I assume I’m right and feel a pinch of satisfaction.
After a while: “Thirteen.”
I hand him the other tool right back.
He’s back under the hood.
This goes on for some time. I start growing closer, leaning my head over the engine, too, propping my elbows on the edge. Diego shows no sign that he minds the proximity.
It’s good, because I’m enjoying it.
A lot.
Maybe so is he.
He doesn’t even say anything one time, holding his hand out without looking. I already know to give him the other tool. Then back in he goes. I think I even follow what he’s trying to do, even if I can’t be asked to save my life knowing the names of any piece of the engine he’s working on.
It turns out passing someone tools can be a conversation all on its own.
Ten.
Ratchet.
Thirteen.
Hold this.
Thirteen again.
I catch myself looking over at him instead of the engine a few times, lost in the intense focus of his eyes on the project.
The way his face works when he thinks.
How he mutters at stubborn bolts.
The wrinkle between his eyebrows when something refuses to cooperate.
How he wipes his hands before touching the next tool.
Even if everything’s already kinda greasy.
“Wanna give it a try?” asks Diego.
His first actual question in what feels like hours catches me by surprise. I look at the engine. “Uh, try what?”
“The car. Key’s in it already. Give it a turn.”
Oh, of course. I come around, then decide for some reason to reach in through the window to turn the key. It’s an awkward and farther-away endeavor than I anticipated, and before I know it, I lose my footing and fall into the car with an unflattering yelp.
The sound that follows is one I’ve never heard before.
Diego’s laughter.
An actual, honest-to-God laugh.
When I finally pry myself free from the car window, I find him quickly having regained his composure, back to his usual statue face with just a twinkle in his eyes betraying the laughter he just let out.
I crack a smile, shake my head, and let myself into the car the proper way—by actually opening the damned door—and give it a go. Rumble. Grumble. Cough, sputter, spit.
Wheeze. Sigh.
“Kill it.”
I stop turning the key and crane my head out. Diego grips the edge of the hood, staring down at his mortal nemesis, squinting at it with intense thought. “Not today,” he mutters half to himself.
I don’t know if it’s sitting in this car, or him allowing me in his space without putting up as much of a fight, but I feel included somehow in his frustration, like for once, it’s us versus something else, not versus each other.
“You’ll get it,” I tell him.
He meets my eyes and says nothing.
But he doesn’t look away.
Not today, he may have said. But his voice wasn’t hopeless. It’s like what he meant was really: Maybe tomorrow.
That’s one of the things I noticed about Diego. I wrote it off as stubbornness at first. But I’m starting to see it as something else.
Once something matters to him, he refuses to quit on it.
He doesn’t give up.