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My muscles still, including my heart. Did he just say. . . “Your car is not a piece of shit. ” I flinch at using the word shit and the right side of his mouth turns up in response. I stare at the napkin my hands continually fold and refold. I don’t like that he reads me so clearly.
“She’s. . . she’s gorgeous,” I stammer. “Your car, I mean. My favorite is the ’04 Cobra. ”
My parents bought me and my siblings the car of our choice for our sixteenth birthday. I asked for a 2004 Mustang Cobra, the last year that model was made, but Dad didn’t think I’d notice the difference and got me my baby. I love my baby, but I knew the difference, even though I pretended I didn’t.
“I’ve never seen a ’94 GT up close before,” I continue, hoping for a spark of conversation.
No response. His eyes become restless again even as his body stays completely motionless. Fold. Refold. Fold until the napkin’s so thick I can’t fold anymore. My fingers release the napkin and the folds tumble out. I smooth out the paper and begin again.
I don’t know this guy and he doesn’t know me. He hates me. He has to. I’m weighing him down, and I’ve noticed how he’s looked at my clothes, my diamond earrings, the gold bracelets on my wrist, my car. He can tell I’m not from this part of town—that I don’t belong. Not that I belong at home, either. But he told me before the race to leave. I didn’t. And now I’m a burden he’s dragging around.
My lower lip trembles and I suck it in. First that horrid speech. Now this. I’m scared, I’m seconds from a panic attack and I want to go home.
I try to breathe deeply. It’s what my middle school therapist told me to do. That and to think of other things. “You shouldn’t talk about your car that way. ” And I don’t know why I can’t stop talking, but his car is a gem, he should know it, and cars are the only things that don’t make me cry. “It won Motor Trend’s car of the year in ’94. ”
“Yeah,” he responds in a bored voice.
“That was the year they put the pony emblem back on the car’s grill. ”
“Mmm-hmm. ”
“It has a V-8. ” And I’ve run out of good things to say about the car. “But what I don’t get is how Ford was okay with producing the thirtieth anniversary car using the same engine as the ’93 and losing 10 horses off the power. ” And I’m rambling. I press my mouth shut and sigh heavily. Not that he’s listening anyhow. As I said before, guys don’t like girls who talk cars.
He surprises me by answering. “I don’t have the original motor in my car. ”
My eyes snap to his. “For real? I know it probably sounds like I’m talking bad about your car, but really, the engine rocked. I mean, add a different air filter, or pulleys, or, I don’t know, some other mods and bam, your pony’s flying. ”
Lines bunch between his eyebrows as they move closer together. He opens his mouth. Closes it. Tugs on the bottom loop of his right ear and relaxes back into his seat. “How do you know so much about cars?”
I shrug. “I read. ”
His eyes mock me with amusement. “You read. ”
“I read,” I repeat. A moment of silence stretches between us, and the band begins to play Jason Aldean. “Thank you for coming back for me. ”
It’s his turn to shrug. “It’s nothing. Thanks for not leaving me back at the warehouses. I owe you. ”
I owe you.
A tiny whisper of wings tickles the inside of my chest as he says those last three words. Or maybe it’s the way his gray eyes become charcoal as if he’s swearing a pact. Either way, the moment is heavy, and I can’t help but look away in response. “Anyone would have done it. ”
“No, they wouldn’t have,” he says. “You could have gotten away clean without me. I can’t be arrested, Rachel, and I owe you big. ”
The cuticles on my fingernails have never been so interesting. “So I’m assuming I also owe you, since you came back for me. ”
“No,” he says automatically. “You sacrificed a hell of a lot more for me. ”
I bite the inside of my lip to conceal the smile forming. All right, so this is cool. Very cool. I’m well aware that I’m barely seventeen and in a bar because I’m hiding from the police, and the guy across from me is my opposite in more ways than I can calculate, but I can’t help but feel like a princess who has a knight pledging his loyalty.
And because this moment is so intense, and there’s no way it’s as powerful for him as it is for me, I clear my throat and force a change of subject. “So, does that make us friends?”
Okay, last-minute game changer. I know, I know, any self-respecting girl would have let the subject drop, but I need to know. I don’t have that many friends, and I like the idea of having a friend who isn’t one of my brothers.
“Yeah. ” He taps his finger against the table. “I guess it does. ”
Cool. I release the napkin and turn my head toward the stage. The drummer wraps up “My Kinda Party” and the guitar player rips right into “Sweet Home Alabama. ” “I like this song. ”
The people crowded near the stage throw their arms in the air and sway with the beat that vibrates not only the floor beneath me, but also the table and my seat. So much so that my entire body trembles with the sound. There’s an energy surrounding the stage that illuminates the once-dark bar. What was moments ago brooding and overwhelming now appears light and hypnotic.
