Page 50 of Grumpy

“Fine,” he practically growled. “I’ll get the fucking wheelchair.”

Smiling, Kelly reached over. Her finger tips gently brushed down the length of his arm until she blindly found his waiting, upturned hand. She laced their fingers together. He leaned forward, bowing his head over their clasped hands to kiss the back of hers.

“I don’t think I’ve ever asked you. Why do you like cars so much? I know you were a mechanic in the Army, too. So clearly it’s something you enjoy, or are at least good at.”

Grumpy was silent for a minute, his thumb brushing along her knuckles. “We haven’t talked about my mom a lot. Frankly, it’s not a topic I’m particularly fond of—especially right now. To an extent, I’ve always known what my mother was. Growing up, she was always the victim. Nothing was ever her fault. Her manipulations were more subtle back then. It took me a while through my teens to figure it all out, how she’d twist and guilt to get the results she wanted. As I got older, I even argued with myself that she didn’t do it out of malice, but love. She was very disappointed in me when I joined the Army, said I broke her heart. When she realized that she wasn’t going to change my mind, she became the perfect, proud Army Mom.” He paused to take a drink of water. “I know what my mother is, but she was still my mother. I couldn’t abandon her, not after being told all my life that I was the reason my father left and was unfaithful to her. Those were never her exact words. She never came out and said that, but I always knew that’s what she meant, knew that was the reason she clung to me so hard.

“Even with how much I knew and accepted about my mother, I had no idea the extent of her manipulations. I truly felt blindsided last week when her actions came to light. Or maybe a part of me always knew, and it was my own mind manipulating me so I didn’t lose the only parent I’d ever known.”

Kelly stayed silent, not wanting to interrupt his thoughts and musings, though she still had no idea what his mom had to do with his love of cars. She pulled off the exit for the museum. They were only about five minutes out now.

“Cages don’t lie,” he finally said. “They either work or they don’t. You can’t talk or bribe a cage into running. You can’t manipulate it or lie to it. The problem is always specific and the solution is always findable, if you’re patient enough. That’s why I prefer older models to newer ones or EVs. Too many electronics, too many other things that can go wrong.”

Kelly got it now. She understood his meaning, could even understand his relationship—or former relationship—with his mom better now. Pulling into the parking lot of the museum, she wondered about his father, and if Grumpy had considered that his mom had been manipulating that story, too. This wasn’t the right time to ask, but she found it suspicious that the one story his mom might have been truthful about was her history with Grumpy’s father.

Turning off the car, Kelly turned to face him. With a smile that said she was prepared to be bored out of her mind, she asked, “Ready?”

By the end of their time at the museum, Kelly was actually surprised how much she enjoyed it. It wasn’t just walking around looking at a bunch of nearly identical cars on display. There was the Skydome Sinkhole exhibit, which had a very interesting history. In February 2014, a massive sinkhole opened beneath the museum floor and swallowed eight historic Corvettes. But rather than fill the sinkhole, the museum made the decision to keep it as a permanent exhibit. They restored some of the cars while others were left as recovered wreckage on display.

Kelly found the exhibit fascinating from a historical aspect. The museum had turned a freak geological event into a goldmine attraction that even a car philistine like her could find intriguing.

It even opened the door to Kelly’s interest in the other exhibits and cars. But what she found held her interest the most was Grumpy’s vast knowledge. Without even looking at the information plaques posted he knew the production history—three hundred—of the original Corvette from 1953. The one displayed was the first ever made, and unlike cars today, it was hand-built. Even the fact that he specified the paint color as “Polo White” instead of just “white” captivated her. This coming from the same man who once claimed that there were only two types of shoes in the world: practical and stupid.

By the time they reached the 1963 Split Window Coupe display, Kelly was glad Grumpy had caved and agreed to the wheelchair rental. The motorized ones were more expensive, but it had a basket on the front that a standard wheelchair lacked. So Jackson followed them around, driving the scooter at a snail’s pace behind them while carrying any supplies Kelly thought they might need. With all the talking Grumpy was doing, she actually had to send Jackson to refill their water bottles.

Maybe the most enjoyable part for her was when she was the one waiting for Grumpy to exit the bathroom instead of the other way around. She knew it wasn’t his fault, and she was glad he was taking his time, but she still got a kick out of it.

As promised, Kelly took a picture of Grumpy with his tiara for the club. It was a tough call between the ZR1 “King of the Hill” model and the Coupe, but since Grumpy was only allowing one picture, she chose the Coupe. Grumpy’s obvious interest in the historical conflict between the designer and the engineer basically made the decision for her. She tried to smile and look like she was fascinated by the fact that some guy named Bill Mitchell split a rear window, which was deemed a safety hazard by some other guy whose name Kelly couldn’t remember but was the engineer known as the father of the Corvette. To her, it seemed like a silly thing to break a partnership up over, but Grumpy was more animated than usual as he talked.

They took several breaks. Grumpy even sat in the motorized wheelchair at the displays and walked with her between. That made her happy.

Her interest and attention span were waning by the time they made it to the C8 mid-engine Corvette. She absently wondered if this was how men felt when women take them clothes shopping. Grumpy, the man whose auditory language consisted of grunts, groans, and growls, actually talked for twenty minutes straight about the first time in Corvette history that the company moved the engine to the middle and how this single engineering decision sparked a massive debate that divided the purists.

Kelly was just grateful she knew which pedal was the gas and which was the brake.

It was incredible to watch this side of the man she loved. And though she knew it held no interest to her, she knew they would be coming back to this museum. Or maybe finding others out there like it. She could see the difference between Jackson’s and Grumpy’s opinions of the cars and history. Jackson was intrigued by the flash and the speed, especially when they reached the race car section. For him, it was all about the thrill, the adrenaline rush.

But Grumpy saw the engineering decisions, the compromises between design and function. Like that argument between a designer and an engineer, when a single moment in history could be defined by one person’s artistic vision conflicting with another person’s practicality. Neither Kelly nor Grumpy had a college degree. She didn’t know if he chose not to because he didn’t think it was needed or if the Army gave him all the real-life experience he needed, but she thought he would make an incredible engineer. It was the way he spoke of the mechanical ingenuity, of how he saw cars as puzzles of a thousand pieces that fit together just right.

The trip exhausted him, and while he kept to the four-hour time limit they had set, Kelly thought he could have easily stayed double that. But the thought of sending him with one of his brothers next time didn’t even cross her mind. Regardless of her boredom, she wouldn’t have missed seeing this side of Grumpy for anything.

CHAPTER 10

The closer they got to the hotel, the more nervous Kelly became. Grumpy didn’t need to see her to know this. It was evident in the way she was driving just under the speed limit, how she fidgeted in her seat, and tapped her nails on the steering wheel.

After the museum, Grumpy slept for a while. He felt bad, leaving Kelly to navigate on her own. Maybe if he’d driven the scooter she’d insisted on renting for them, he wouldn’t have been so exhausted. Damn his pride. Kelly claimed she didn’t mind, rotating between listening to her audiobook and music. Still, guilt weighed heavily on him after sleeping nearly three and a half hours.

Grumpy was hurting. It was an antsy sort of hurt, both from walking the museum and from sitting in the cage for so long afterwards. As beautiful as the scenery was in Tennessee, they had no other stops planned following the museum. The original plan was to stop next around Little Rock, but that was just too far after the long stop in Bowling Green. Grumpy was grateful for that decision, even though he knew it was going to take some effort on his part to start moving again once they stopped.

Grumpy wasn’t good at people. He tended to stick to himself and watch the drama unfold from the sidelines. But he couldn’t do that with Kelly. He didn’t want to do that with Kelly. He understood her nervousness. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t have some of his own. Sex didn’t scare him or intimidate him. Normally, he was confident in what he liked and his ability to give his partner pleasure. But his body had a tendency not to cooperate at the most inopportune times. In many ways, he was more nervous than when he’d lost his virginity.

Maybe Kelly was wondering the same things. Maybe she was fearing hurting him. Grumpy didn’t know if it was better to let her be with her thoughts or to try to talk to her about them. Talking wasn’t exactly something he was particularly good at, though even he was willing to admit that he’d been more vocal with Kelly than he was with anyone else in his life.

He liked that Kelly was the unconscious exception to his rule.

But when Kelly missed the exit for their hotel, Grumpy knew he had to say something. “Nothing has to happen tonight.”

Kelly jumped, and the cage jerked slightly. Grumpy heard Jackson’s bike rev behind them, though he wasn’t sure why. What was the prospect’s plan if the SUV did start to swerve erratically?