Chapter 31 Amy #2
His footsteps fall back, and I can picture him walking away, laughing at me begging like that.
I managed to play the good girl for a week, but this has dragged on long enough. I get it—I messed up; message received loud and clear. But if I have to spend a second longer stuffed up in the apartment listening to the world spin on without me, I’m going to lose it.
I sneak around the back of the building, returning with bolt cutters tucked under my arm, dropping my crutches to the ground. I lean against the door for support and get to work. Two tries later, and I’m cutting the lock free.
I toss the cutters and chain to the side, and yank open the door.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me!” RJ yells.
I brace my crutches back under my arms and stagger into the shop with a victory cry. And when I see what he’s working on, I freeze. It’s my Pontiac—or what’s left of it, anyway. I haven’t seen my car since the crash, and it’s way worse than I imagined.
“I knew a chain wouldn’t be enough to keep you out!” RJ looks pissed as he swaggers over to me.
My mouth falls open. My car. My baby. Completely caved in.
The Firebird is officially a wreck—I don’t even understand why RJ is wasting his precious time trying to fix it.
It reminds me of my dad’s Mustang, and my heart lurches.
Whenever I was lost, he always showed me the way. Not this time, though.
RJ reaches a hand to my face and brushes away a tear. “We didn’t want you to see this. If you’d just done what you were told…”
“So, I was never ‘grounded,’ then?”
“Oh, you were definitely grounded, too.”
“Wait a minute… ‘We’?”
My eyes drift across the shop. Esteban is sitting there on a pile of tires, and the disappointment knocks the wind out of me. For the smallest sliver of a second, I thought it’d be Lewis. Don’t be upset. There’s nothing to be upset about.
“I thought you’d gone back to New York.”
He came to say goodbye to me at the hospital.
He apologized for leading me off the straight and narrow when I was vulnerable.
He was too proud to come out and say it, but I understood what he was trying to say—Ohio is my home now.
Nothing he said was news to me, and I’m not mad at him for doing what he did. I used him, too. That makes us even.
“That was the plan,” Esteban rasps. “But I got called in for one last favor.”
I turn to RJ. “He tug on your heartstrings, or something?”
“Hey, don’t look at me!”
“I asked him to stay.”
I recognize that voice. My heart is in my throat as I turn this way and that, following the sound, until I see Lewis getting to his feet behind the Pontiac, his face smeared with grease. Looking hot as hell. I hate what he still does to me, despite it all.
“You…”
My mouth isn’t working properly; I can’t get the words out. It’s been two weeks since I last saw him, and nothing has changed for me.
I let out a sigh. And then I turn and drag myself back out the way I came.
I just want to get back to normal again. How do I do that?
Footsteps on the ground. Lewis has followed me outside.
“So, you waste all that energy on breaking in, and you’re just gonna leave like that?”
I can’t turn around to face him. I don’t want him to see how much I care.
Just keep walking, I urge myself, but having him this close is rooting me to the spot.
My body still wants him so badly. My mind is torn.
He’s right here, spending precious time and energy on my car.
He’s right here, and I want to ask him why.
“Got yourself a new BFF, huh?”
“He’s a solid mechanic, and we needed a third pair of hands. The whole thing was tanked.”
“No shit.” I’m not talking about my car, and he knows it. “Trying to buy yourself a little forgiveness, huh? Nice…”
“Is it working?”
“Depends what the endgame is,” I say.
“What do you think it could be?”
Who cares what I think? I get it wrong every time—and he’s broken my trust.
I decide to change the subject. “How long have you been working on it?”
“RJ went straight out to pick it up, and we got right on it.”
“ ‘We’?” Isn’t March tournament month?”
“We got knocked out during the Elite Eight.”
What? Despite it all, I’m disappointed for him.
“I’m really sorry to hear that.”
“That’s life.”
He can’t see me frown. Since when is he so chill when it comes to basketball?
“Want to see your car?” he asks carefully.
Yes.
“No. I’m gonna wait until it’s dark—once you guys have gone.”
“Sounds like you still want to punish me.”
“Punch you, more like.”
“I guess we’re right back where we started—nothing has changed.”
Everything has changed. We let out a sigh at the exact same time, and I’m pretty sure we’re thinking the same thing. He’s stepping closer now, I can feel his breath against my hair. I close my eyes, hungry for whatever he decides to do or say next.
“I’m sorry, Firebird.”
My knees buckle, and I’m suddenly so glad for my crutches. I screw my eyes shut, bracing myself for the hit. Hearing him apologize makes me feel a little better—only a little, though. Whatever I do, I can’t turn around.
“Well… Guess I better head back in there. That plasma cutter is a dream,” he adds.
Oh, fuck you!
“See you around, Hitman.”
His voice is thick with unspoken words. I give it a solid minute before I glance back over my shoulder.
Is that it? That’s it. There he is, diving right back into the Pontiac, and something inside me softens, stirs.
My car is like an extension of myself, and watching him bent over it, tending to it like that…
It’s like seeing him lavish his attention on me, too.
“Oh my God! Is that Lewis?”
My head snaps up. Raven is opening her trunk, beaming, and I know her voice like my own—there’s no way she’s fooling me.
“You are such a bad actor. You knew he was here, didn’t you?”
“Guilty as charged!”
“When were you planning on telling me?”
“Telling you?” She laughs. “And miss that look on your face? Never!”
“I hope my niece ruins your life!” I hiss, glaring at her belly.
Just a few more months to go now, and man, does it show. It’s a miracle she manages to get out of bed.
“Who said it’s a girl?” She pouts.
“It better be—you deserve a Hitman daughter.”
“Bring it on, baby! After all the crap I went through with you, this should be a cakewalk.”
She leaves me standing there, speechless. Because the truth is, she has a point.
WITH NO SECRET LEFT TO keep, RJ finally—finally!—unlocks the door that leads directly from my apartment to the garage, and I sneak up to the walkway for a better look.
The three guys are all down there, working on my car side by side, and I spend the next hour watching them. I do the same the next day, and then the next, until I blow my cover when I trip over a bucket of screws that so shouldn’t have been there. Definitely an RJ booby trap!
The next time I get to my lookout, there’s a chair waiting for me, but I make a point of ignoring it for a good ten minutes, until my leg can’t take it anymore. I want so badly to roll up my sleeves and get dirty with them, but I hang back.
RJ and Lewis are getting along just fine.
I hadn’t expected Lewis to be such a skilled mechanic, but it’s making me want to work on car stuff with him.
Our eyes accidentally meet when he ducks out from under the Pontiac’s hood, and I look away.
Seeing him here every day is hard. He looks way too at home in my world—so why does everything feel so complicated?
“I’m sorry, Firebird.”
That’s what he said to me, but that’s not what I wanted to hear.
I mean, it is—but I was hoping for more.
I must be a sucker for pain, because despite it all, I head out to watch them night after night, dragging my chair closer and closer until finally I’ve got a front-row view.
My car still isn’t what it used to be, but the scars are gradually fading. On both of us.
Lewis is taking this seriously, that’s for sure—he spends hours here with Esteban and RJ, casting me glances every now and then, like he’s waiting for me to do something.
The whole situation is unreal. I’ve stopped looking away now, and RJ keeps having to cough to get us to focus.
I don’t know where this is headed, exactly, but I’m not wrestling with that sense of overwhelming anger anymore.
And that feels good. Is this enough for me? Could it ever be enough?
“Wrong wrench!” I bark at Esteban.
He laughs. “She’s back in business, guys!”
“Nope.” I shake my head at him. “Not that one, either. Let me…”
I limp over to the trolley, shoving him back with one crutch and easing myself down onto the creeper. Not one of them offers to help me—they all know better than to get in my way.
I slide under the engine, taking a deep breath in. The smell of grease, and oil, and fuel… It feels so good to be back.
Lewis appears to my left. “Need a hand?”
No. I need more than just your hand.
He’s right there, a breath away from me, and my fingers are quivering. It doesn’t matter how high I build a wall against him, I can’t shrug him off, and it’s getting harder and harder to keep my distance. Haven’t you learned anything from all this, Amy?
I haven’t even had the chance to tell him everything I feel.
And I haven’t been able to stop wondering what it was he wanted to say to me, back there that day at the hospital.
At the time, I was raging. But there’s a growing void deepening inside me, and I don’t know how to fill it. He’s so annoying!
“Jam that for me, will you?” I ask, passing him the pliers, and he does as I ask.
For a while, we lie there together, working side by side. Grease, and oil, and fuel… I’d missed them all. But I’ve missed the smell of him even more. The craziest part is I still don’t know what it is about Lewis Conley that I like so much. It would be good to know, at least.
“Okay, Amy—that’s tight enough.”
I refocus my gaze. I’d been so lost in my own thoughts; I hadn’t been concentrating on the job. I manage a whole five seconds before turning to meet his eye. He’s staring at me expectantly.
“What?” I ask.
“Got plans for spring break?”
Why do you care?
“Just the usual, I guess—stuck here with a broken car, hanging out with my hysterical sister. How ’bout you?”
“Stuck here under a broken car, hanging out with a hysterical Amy.”
“Sounds crappy.”
“The worst.”
“You don’t have to do this, you know…”
“I don’t?” He brightens. “You mean, you already forgive me, and I’ve been wasting my life with these two losers, for nothing? Absolute disgrace, dude!”
What do I need to forgive him for, again? For not loving me? Is that it?
“I’ve been thinking,” I start slowly. “What’s the point of all this?”
He pulls a sad face. “Wait a minute… Are you dumping me again?”
“St—”
Suddenly, his hands are gripping his creeper as he slides back out from under the car, leaving me lying there alone.
Seriously?
“Hey, we’re not done here!” I call over, and I can’t tell whether I mean working or talking.
I keep my eyes trained on his boots as he circles the car and stops. A second later, he’s lying on his belly on the ground.
“Don’t worry, Firebird. I don’t plan on letting you down.”
He jumps back on his feet, but by the time I’ve wriggled out from underneath the car, he’s gone.