“Lila? You okay?”
Taryn's at my elbow with a plate for the window booth, kind eyes adding me up gently.
“It's nothing.” It comes out too fast, my voice squeaky. “Sun in my eyes.”
She doesn't believe me, but she’s sweet enough to pretend. I’m rooted to the spot. How long will it take to pack and how far can we get? How fast can I be at that school gate without breaking into a run?
At the end of the counter, Wrench puts his fork down. He looks past me, out the window, assessing the car, then back at me. Then he stands, and his face is grim. Calm and cold at the same time.
He drops bills beside his plate without counting them. Two syllables in Spanish, low and sharp, and Waffles plants himself at the diner door, facing the street, motionless. The bacon moocher is gone. The dog standing guard at the door is all soldier, and the man who put him there hasn't even raised his voice.
“Stay inside,” he says to me, gently.
It isn't a suggestion. Then he walks out the door, across the lot toward that car, his pace slow and menacing. The bell rings behind him, bright and cheerful and wrong.
Across the street, the car's engine starts up and I set the pot down before I drop it.
It doesn't matter that I can't make out the driver behind the wheel. I know that car.
Shawn found us.
Chapter Two
WRENCH
The bell chimes shut behind me and the dark red car's engine starts right up before I'm three steps into the lot.
Coward.
I keep walking anyway. Slowly. Let thependejoget a good long look in his mirrors at who lives in this town.
The car noses off the curb and rolls past me, unhurried about it, showing off. Sun sits on the glass so I can't get a face, just the shape of a man keeping his chin turned my direction, wanting me to know he's not scared. Fine. I'm not either, and only one of us has a reason to be.
The plate's memorized before he’s ten feet away. I file it where I keep torque specs and my mamá's recipes, in the part of my brain that never forgets what I need it to remember.
The rest of the car tells me plenty while it drives away. Big V8 with a lifter tick: an engine built for showing off and skipped oil changes, both. Aftermarket headlights, the cheap souped-up kind that blind oncoming abuelas trying to cross the road. Flashy chrome accents in places where they don’t need to be. Fresh tires on the front only, budget brand. It's a mall-crawler wearing a muscle car's paint, and the man who built it wants to be looked at more than he wants to do any serious driving.
I could pull that whole car apart in an afternoon, probably less.
He takes the turn toward the highway, and lets the engine crackle on the way out like the tuner shop charged him extra for it. Then the street is quiet again, and it's just me standing in the lot, hand shaded above my eyes to make sure he’s gone.
At the diner door, Waffles holds his post, front feet square and ears set forward, eyes on the corner where the car went.
“Tranquilo,” I tell him. “He's gone.”
The ears come down a little; he's not convinced. Neither am I. That car's been in town most of this week. Tuesday it sat down by the feed store. Yesterday it idled a block from the school for two hours. Today it’s out there in broad daylight, wanting to be looked at, same as its owner. So, on my way into lunch, I stopped beside it, knelt like a man checking his own tire, and thumbed a tracker up into the wheel well. Magnetic. Battery good for two weeks. I keep a couple in the saddlebag; the club's been careful since Rotmere came to the valley, and Prez likes to keep track of anyone acting suspicious.
Inside, through the window, Lila's working the counter again. Big smile on her face, those lush red lips curving up to make dimples in her beautiful face. Pouring more coffee for the ladies from the knitting circle as if she doesn’t have a care in the world. If I hadn't spent every meatloaf day for the last few months learning all her tells, I'd buy it.
Lila’s hands shook around that coffee pot. Those capable hands catch falling forks without looking and carry five plates through a Saturday crowd without ever losing so much as a pickle. She moves with the elegance of a dancer; aware of her body and the space around it. Graceful.
I wasn’t the only one who noticed; Taryn asked her if she was okay. And she lied about it. Fast and smooth, like she’salready making a plan. And ever since, my chest has had a belt tightening around it, a quarter turn at a time.
Somebody forced her to learn to lie like that, and made sure she got her practice hours in.
I roll my neck and take a long breath.
Here's a thing nobody in that diner knows, including her. Lila belongs to me. Been decided a long while now, since the afternoon a little girl in braids walked up to my dog and her mama stood in that doorway ready to fight him for her with a coffee pot. She’s fierce, under all that curvy softness. Protects her daughter like a mama bear. Kind to everyone, even grimy bikers like me who get speechless in her presence.
