8. Lance
Lance
I throw on jeans and a shirt, drag the hem straight, and head outside looking approximately thirty percent alive.
George is already elbow-deep in my engine.
Of course he is.
The man somehow manages to look aggressively put together this early in the morning.
He’s standing there in the cool San Diego air with grease streaked across his grey long-sleeve, one bad hand braced against the frame while the other works through whatever mechanical sorcery my dying Civic requires today.
My car is a red 2008 Honda Civic with a hundred and fifty thousand miles on it. At this point, I consider it a miracle every time it starts without making a concerning noise.
George straightens when he hears me come out and hands me a coffee without even looking. Espresso, oat milk, hint of cardamom. I take a sip with a small smile, immediately feeling human rights returning to my body.
“Thanks for always getting it right.”
He grunts, takes a sip of his own. “Your alternator’s starting to go.”
“That sounds expensive.”
“Will be if you keep ignoring it. Battery light flickering is your first clue. You leave it, you’ll end up stranded somewhere.”
“Is that what the noise is?”
“Part of it. Your upper radiator hose is cracked too. That’s what you’re hearing right now. Your brake fluid’s low, and you’ve got a small oil leak, but those are separate problems.”
“Of course they are.”
“You want the short version? Your car’s tired,” George says.
“That makes two of us.” I sigh. “Can the hose be fixed today?”
“Already texted Carter to bring the part.” He wipes one hand on a rag. “You need to bring it into the shop soon for the rest though. Call whenever you’re ready and I’ll fit you in.”
“And the cost?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
I nod solemnly, intending to worry about it later in private.
George pauses mid-wipe and squints at me.
“Your shirt’s inside out.”
I look down. Motherfucker. “I was asleep a few minutes ago, so I think I’m doing great, actually.”
“You’ve got both shoes on and your socks matching. It’s a high bar you’re setting for yourself.”
“Thank you. I worked hard to get here.”
George takes another sip, looks back at the engine, focused and slightly judgmental. He disappears under the hood again. He keeps talking while he works. “You also need new wiper blades. I can see them from here.”
“Can you just fix the hose, and we can pretend the rest of this conversation didn’t happen?”
“Sure,” he says pleasantly. “And then next week when the brakes go soft you can call me in a complete panic.”
“I don’t panic.”
The look he throws over his shoulder contains approximately ten years of contradictory evidence.
He goes back to work. At one point, he reaches for his pocket automatically, remembers his hand is covered in grease, and makes a low irritated sound.
“Hey,” he says without looking up. “Grab the VIN for me? Silver plate inside the driver-side doorframe. Need it for the repair file. Just take a photo.”
“On it, boss.”
I open the driver-side door and crouch down. The VIN plate sits exactly where he said, a little rectangle of letters and numbers that probably mean something important to mechanics and serial killers.
I take a clear photo. “Got it.”
“Send it over when you get a chance.”
I pocket my phone. “Will do.”
Carter shows up twenty minutes later with the part and a coffee for himself. He looks between me standing there uselessly and George buried in my engine.
“Good morning,” Carter says.
I nod. “Debatable, especially when George is playing hero with one bad hand.”
“Yeah.” Carter smiles. “Anything for you, he comes running.”
George makes a sound of disapproval somewhere under the hood. My brain does not produce a fast answer to that.
“I got it,” Carter says, holding onto the part, immediately going Dad mode. He doesn’t let go right away. “You’re not supposed to be doing this yet.”
“I’ve got a perfectly good other hand.”
Carter hovers a second longer than necessary, then releases it. “Yeah. That’s not what I meant.”
George ignores that, already focused on the engine.
Carter shifts closer anyway. “What do you need?”
“Hold that steady.”
Carter steps in without hesitation, bracing the hose exactly where George needs it.
They fall into a rhythm that looks a hundred times rehearsed.
Carter passes tools before George asks for them, adjusts his grip without being told, watches his hands a little too closely for someone who’s just here to drop something off.
I lean back against the car, sipping my coffee, and watch.
“Careful,” Carter mutters at one point, low enough that it almost gets lost under the sound of metal. “Don’t push it.”
“Not pushing anything,” George mutters back.
Carter laughs a little, but doesn’t move away. If anything, he edges closer, shoulder nearly brushing George’s.
It’s subtle. I notice it anyway.
Carter’s hand rests on the frame of my car, close enough to George that he’d only have to lean a little to touch him. He doesn’t lean. Doesn’t need to. He’s already inside whatever this is, and it’s working, and something hot and wrong turns over low in my stomach.
I don’t like it. I don’t like how naturally Carter knows where to stand, or how they move together as if they share one mechanic brain cell between them.
I don’t like that George hasn’t moved away once in the last twenty minutes.
And I especially don’t like that I’m standing here in my own parking lot drinking coffee and reacting to this like a man who needs to get a fucking grip.
Jesus Christ. Somebody sedate me.
I try not to look as if I’ve been paying too much attention. “Am I supposed to help, or is this a closed operation?”
Carter glances over, probably just remembering I’m also here. “You’re doing great for moral support.”
“Thought so.”
“It’s a very important role,” Carter says.
“Perfect. It’s my strongest skill set.” My smile comes easy, but it doesn’t touch the rest of it.
George still hasn’t stepped back from Carter.
I’ve seen them like this a hundred times. At the shop, at parties, crammed into the same space like no big deal. It’s always been nothing. It’s George and Carter.
So why does it suddenly feel like someone’s slowly tightening a zip tie around my ribcage?
When the engine finally fires up properly, the satisfied look on George’s face says it all. Watching him tear into my engine hits different. He moves like he owns every bolt and hose, no hesitation or second-guessing.
Pure competence. It’s hard not to respect it.
“Good as new,” he says, closing the hood.
“You’re a miracle worker.”
“Send me that photo whenever,” George calls, already walking toward his truck. Carter’s climbing into his own car two spots down, keys out.
I pull out my phone, find the VIN shot in my camera roll, and send it. I head back inside, already planning how to force money on George without triggering one of our usual “I’m not charging you” fights.
I open our message thread to double-check that the photo went through.
It’s not the VIN photo.
It’s the video from this morning—me on my back on the bedroom floor, that dark silicone toy fully inside me. Hips working. Cock hard and my own hand wrapped around it. The thumbnail is the size of a thumbnail, but it’s not nearly small enough.
It’s on read. It has a fucking read receipt.
Holy shit on a flaming bag of dicks.
Every organ in my body tries to leave at the same time through a different exit.
I delete the message, then I delete it again because I don’t trust the first delete to have worked. It’s gone from my end. That doesn’t mean it’s gone from his.
I’m out the door before my brain catches up with my legs. I tear across the lot in my socks, hot asphalt underfoot, at a pace that’s not running except by the strictest legal definition. Thirty seconds to find out whether my life is over.
George is still at his truck. Carter’s already pulled out with a casual wave I return with a hand doing its best to pretend it belongs to someone fine.
“The photo,” I blurt, aiming for normal human volume and missing by several octaves. “Did it come through?”
George pulls out his phone and frowns. “Yeah. Think I got it here.”
He scrolls down and frowns harder.
I die. I die in real time. In those three endless seconds I move to rural New Zealand, change my name to something untraceable like Kevin, and become a professional sheep herder in a remote valley where no one has cell service.
“Weird,” George says. “Thought I saw something come in but it’s not there now. Send it again?”
Relief hits me so hard I nearly see God.
“Of course.” My voice comes out at the flat calm I use in a trauma bay when I’m telling a family everything’s under control when it’s not. “I thought I actually did. It must be some sort of a phone hiccup. Technology, right?”
Wow. I sound so dumb. I want the asphalt to open up and swallow me whole.
George slides the phone into his back pocket. He doesn’t look suspicious. He looks like he already forgot the last thirty seconds happened.
I open the camera roll with violently shaking hands, triple-check that I am selecting the actual VIN plate this time, and send it like my life depends on it.
I make absolutely sure the file is a shot of the metal plate on my driver’s side doorframe and not, under any circumstances, a video of my own ass.
I hit send.
George’s phone buzzes. He pulls it out, nods. “Got it.”
He climbs into the truck, lifts two fingers off the wheel in that wave he does, and pulls out of the lot. I stand in the parking lot in my socks, waiting for something. Sirens. Lightning. The ground opening up.
Nothing happens.
He didn’t see it. He opened the thread, found nothing, and let it go, because George is George and he doesn’t interrogate things that make no sense to him.
I’ve spent years finding this quality faintly irritating.
I now consider it the single finest attribute of any human being currently drawing breath on this planet.
I go back inside. I pour a glass of water and drink it standing at the kitchen counter with both hands on the glass until my fingers stop shaking.
It’s not even the video itself. The video is just…me. Very committed and surprisingly flexible, honest with a camera about what I already know about myself.
The problem is George seeing it, knowing what I look like when nobody’s supposed to be watching.
My hands are shaking because the thing I’ve spent the last two months being careful about was one accidental click away from becoming the first thing my best friend would have thought about every time he saw me or heard my name.
The secure folder system exists for a reason. Every video goes there immediately after filming. No exceptions. The system isn’t about hiding what I do. It’s about not losing control of who sees it. It’s worked for two months because I’ve followed it for two months.
This morning, I fell fucking asleep instead.
Never again. I’ll move the file before I breathe, blink, or do anything that could be mistaken for a thought. And if I ever fall asleep before moving it again, I deserve whatever comes next, which, today, was nearly the complete detonation of our friendship.
I set the glass down. My hands are steadier.
I’m never filming anything again.
I’m absolutely filming again tonight.