5. Chapter 5
Colt jogged away from Joyce backwards, tossing her a wave and waiting for her to return it before he turned back around and snatched up his coffee cup. He bolted through the door before it decided to snap shut on his ass.
Beau—and Colt had tried to switch to Merc, but he’d been saying Beau since he was a kid and couldn’t manage the change—stopped at the front desk and turned on the computer. He didn’t look at Colt at all. Just sipped the coffee Colt had brought him and pulled over a clipboard.
Oh, Colt was so, catastrophically bad at tests. Which this clearly was. Sitting still for any amount of time was something his tutors had spent all his formative years trying to beat into him.
Connor was the only person in his life growing up who hadn’t expected him to.
Beau hadn’t put on his coveralls yet. He was wearing black jeans and an Alice Cooper concert shirt that hugged his broad chest. Dark arm hair peppered with gray over tan, muscular forearms, and—
Whoops.
Nope.
Absolutely the fuck not. That way madness lies.
The clock was fascinating, really, a metal cutout of a classic Mustang backlit in blue. A quiet tap-tap-tap echoed through the lobby. His shoes. Shit. He consciously stilled his tapping feet. God, he could do this. His future relied on whether he could stand still for two fucking minutes.
“Holy shit, it’s that guy from the video!”
The door to the main garage swung open, and a dark skinned guy a few years younger than him popped his head in. There was a gold stud in his left ear and a phone in his hands, and he was staring at Colt like he was one second from asking for an autograph.
“Xavier, get back to work.” Beau’s voice was steady, his eyes fixed on his computer.
“But boss—”
“Boy, I know you didn’t just ‘but boss’ me.”
Oh. Why was that kinda—
Colt swallowed.
“Nope, sure didn’t,” Xavier hurried to answer. He shoved his phone in his back pocket. “Dunno what you heard. I said, ‘sure, boss’. Must have mumbled. You know how it is.”
“Mhmm.” Beau clicked the mouse twice.
Xavier left into the shop. He bounded up to a kid in a backwards hat and shook him by the shoulders, and the kid turned.
His eyes went wide when they landed on Colt, and he waved, grinning.
Colt turned back to the clock behind Beau’s shoulder.
He’d have been thrilled literally just yesterday to see a couple of guys excited to see him because of his video. Not today.
Ten minutes and thirty-two seconds later, the phone rang.
And rang.
Colt looked away from the clock and found Beau watching him. Slowly, he raised one dark eyebrow. “Well, boy? Answer it.”
It was on its fifth ring before he managed to scramble over and pull it off the receiver. He fumbled it, nearly letting it slip from his fingers before bringing it to his ear. The desk dug what was sure to be a spectacular bruise into his hip because of course.
“Merc’s Motorworks,” Colt greeted. “Um—how can I help you?”
”Yeah, hi,” the woman on the other end breathed as a kid screamed in the background. ”I need an oil change.”
“An oil change,” Colt repeated. Like an idiot.
In the thirty seconds it took for Beau to take pity on him, sweat prickled at his upper lip. Without looking up, Beau turned a second computer screen toward Colt. There was a schedule on it. Easy to read with simple blocking, thank fuck.
“Yeah, uh—” He cleared his throat and snatched the mouse Beau set in front of him. “We have an appointment this afternoon. At two. Um. P.M.”
Fuck his actual life.
”Two? Yeah, okay. Two works.”
The line was quiet long enough that Colt started drumming his fingers on the desk. “So, yeah, we’ll…see you at two?”
”Don’t you need, like, my name?” the woman asked. Something crashed to the floor on her end, and she sighed. ”Tommy Price, you pick that up right this second.”
“Name! Yes. Right.” Ears burning, Colt clicked the appointment slot and leaned further across the desk to grab the keyboard. Beau smirked, and Colt ignored it. “And phone number.”
Beau raised both eyebrows.
“Uh. Please. Ma’am.”
Snorting, Beau turned back to what he was doing on his computer as Colt took down the woman’s name. When he finally hung up, he let out a short, relieved breath. God, he couldn’t have looked more incompetent if he’d tried.
“You got a job?” Beau asked. He reached under the desk and pulled out another clipboard.
“No.” Colt rubbed the back of his neck and then pushed his fingers up through the shorter hairs at the base of his skull. “Mostly race to make rent.”
“Mhmm.” Beau clicked his pen and started writing. “How’s that working for you with that fancy ankle bracelet you got on there?”
“I’m supposed to look for work within my perimeter,” Colt mumbled, pushing the toes of his sneakers against the floor. “There’s a Seven-Eleven across from my apartments.”
The scratching of Beau’s pen was drowned out by the sound of the garage doors opening in the next room, and light flooded the lobby. Colt pressed his lips together, the need to fill the silence worming against his skin.
Eventually, Beau set down the clip board and dropped the pen into the pocket of his jeans. “You gonna keep showing up here?”
Beau leaned back against the counter behind him, crossing his arms. Watching, steady, so unhurried that Colt felt like a prey animal darting around a lion that hadn’t quite decided if he was worth standing up for yet.
“Yes.” Colt nodded. “Every day. However early you want me here. I’ll—whatever you need, I’ll do it.”
“Even if I don’t train you?”
Colt’s stomach clenched, but he worked his jaw and squared his shoulders. “Even then.”
“I won’t pay you,” Beau said evenly.
“S’okay.” Colt stilled his tapping toes and flexed his fingers instead. “I can get a night job, or—”
“You can bus tables for Joyce.”
“Bus—” Colt bit his tongue and nodded. He’d liked that old lady anyway, and he could more than manage bussing tables. But still. “How do you know she’ll even hire me?”
“She will. Bus boy’s on medical leave.” The counter creaked as Beau hauled his whole, giant self up straight. “She needs the help, and she’s already meddling with you. Means she likes you.”
Beau turned and walked away, and Colt opened his mouth to say—what?
Thank you?
Colt had dragged Beau’s clearly painful past out like blood-soaked linens the night before, had run his mouth and fucked everything up in his usual spectacular way. And then he’d shown up with an apology on his tongue, and Beau had…fixed his problem. Given him a job like it was no big deal.
Thank you didn’t feel like enough.
“Beau—” he started, taking a step forward.
Beau stopped, his shoulders going rigid.
He didn’t turn around. “You’ll call me sir or Mr. Moore.
” Beau’s voice was flat and controlled, the kind of tone that made Colt want to become one with the floor.
“Never Beau. And if I hear ‘Reeve’ come out of your mouth one more time, you’re done here. We clear?”
Colt bit the inside of his cheek. “Yes, sir.”
“Good.” Beau moved toward his office again. “Coveralls are in the front garage. Pick some and put ‘em on. The bathroom is next to the lobby. Clean it. And don’t forget the phones.”
For the next hour, Colt worked alone. Two of the guys came in and out of the shop while he cleaned the bathrooms and answered phones, but they must have been as afraid of Beau as he was because no one said a word to him.
The work was mindless, which was never good for Colt, but it wasn’t sitting still so at least there was that.
He did best when he had something to do with his hands.
He was mopping up a set of boot prints when he caught sight of Beau sitting in his office.
Wearing honest-to-God reading glasses that glinted gold in the light slanting in from his office window, Beau was concentrating on the computer in front of him with a frown.
The gold of the frames made his skin look even more sun kissed.
God, what a fucking daddy.
Colt jerked, his shoe sliding through the soapy mop water on the floor, and caught himself on the edge of the front desk.
Jesus fuck. Stop.
The mop squeaked against the tile as he vigorously scrubbed.
Great. Perfect. His childhood hero was sitting in there looking like every thirst trap on the internet, and right now with dirty mop water on his shoes was when he chose to notice. As if Colt didn’t have enough problems.
The door to the garage swung open, and someone stomped over to him.
Camila, of course, her long brown hair thrown back in a bun, wearing the black coveralls she’d spent weeks embroidering a rose into.
Oh, and she was mad. Her eyebrows were doing the thing.
If Colt gave her a minute, that vein in her forehead would pop to the surface.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she hissed, giving his shoulder a shove. “And why are you wearing—what the fuck, Colt? I told you you can’t visit me at work. Are you trying to get me fired?”
Leaning on the mop like he hadn’t used it an hour ago to scrub piss off the bathroom floor, Colt grinned. “What? I thought if I showed up and pretended to work here, everyone would just accept me as part of the shop. Like a shop cat.”
“Colton Rourke.” Camila snatched the mop handle out of his hands and he let it go. “Why is everything a joke to you?”
“Aw, Mila, you wound me.” Hand over his heart, Colt took the mop back with the other. “I’m here officially. Kinda? I dunno. Your boss is really hard to read, did you know that? How do you ever know if you’ve done something right, or if he’s thirty seconds from firing you?”
Camila looked from his shoes to his throat and raised an eyebrow. “What, he actually hired you? You’re not just here to fuck with me?”
“First of all—rude. I have never messed with your career, ma’am.” Colt held up one finger and then another. “Second of all, no. This is pure slave labor, baby. No pay for your local janitor slash receptionist.”
“Hey, you’re that guy,” an unfamiliar voice said from the direction of the shop. The kid with the backwards hat was standing in the threshold for the garage. He looked at Camila. “Holy shit! It's like having a celebrity in the shop—mopping? Shouldn’t he be in jail? Is this community service?”
“He’s here to clean, and if he’s gonna be a distraction, he won’t be here at all,” Beau said, leaning against the doorway to his office with his arms crossed and his glasses up in his hair. “Leave him alone. Ain’t no one famous here.”
“Sure, boss.” Camila shoved Colt again. “Be good, you street punk.”
“I’m always good.” Colt wiggled his eyebrows. “If you know what I mean.”
Groaning, Camila grabbed the kid’s arm and hauled him back into the shop. The door snapped shut, and she yelled something in Spanish at the other two, who jumped back to their tasks like she’d cracked a whip at them. Scary, scary woman.
“You know her?” Beau asked as Colt pushed his mop again. “Is that how you learned about me?”
“Nah.” Colt dropped the mop in the dirty water bucket and swished it around. “We’ve been friends for a really long time, but she’s banned me from the shop. Said her boss is a real hardass and he’d hate me on sight.” Laughing, Colt wrung the mop out. “She’s got your number, huh?”
The weight of Beau’s gaze burned into his back, and he turned to find Beau watching him. Their eyes met, and Colt’s ears went hot.
“I’m serious.” Colt put the mop back in the water and leaned on the handle.
“You worked on my friend Harvey’s Fastback a couple of years ago.
When I hit up my network for anyone who might know someone with NASCAR experience, he told me that the guy who owned Merc’s looked like someone he used to watch race.
Mila would never. And, for what it’s worth, she doesn’t know shit about racing. ”
“Mhmm.” Beau dropped his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose. “Get back to work.”
Beau disappeared into his office, and Colt let out a short breath before he kept cleaning.