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I leaned against the side of the garage, Mark at my side. His fingers brushed against mine, and I felt something like a pulse of magic along my arm. I ignored it.
“—and when did the engine light come on?” Marty was saying.
“I told you,” the man in the suit said. “Last week. There’s no stalling, no hesitation. It doesn’t shake, it doesn’t—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Marty said. “I heard you. May be a faulty wire somewhere. These sports cars, they look nice, but they’re built for shit. You get all the pussy you want for a chunk of change, but they fall apart and you’re stuck with it.”
“Can you fix it or not?” The man in the suit didn’t sound very happy. I wondered if he didn’t get enough pussy. I wondered what pussy was.
“Grab the owner’s manual,” Marty said. “It better be in English or it ain’t gonna be for shit if the repair book I got doesn’t tell us anything. Let’s go into my office and take a look.”
The man in the suit let out a huff but did as Marty said. He leaned into the IROC-Z and grabbed the manual from the glove compartment before he followed Marty toward the back office.
Now was my chance. The pretty girl was just sitting there, wide open. Waiting for me. I was going to lube her up and put my fingers inside, just like Grandpap had taught me.
“I’m going in,” I whispered to Mark.
“Okay,” he whispered back. “I’m right behind you.”
Judas Priest gave way to Black Sabbath as we stepped inside. It smelled of man and metal, and I breathed it all in. The guy under the truck shifted slightly but otherwise didn’t move. Marty and the man in the suit were back in the office, blocked by a car on a lift.
The IROC-Z was there, waiting for me. She was gorgeous, a candy-apple red with black trim and silver rims. The man in the suit didn’t deserve her.
I bent over her engine, searching for something, anything.
“Light,” I muttered to Mark.
“What?”
“I need a light. When I ask for something, you hand it over. It’s how you work on cars.”
“How am I supposed to find a light?”
“With your eyes.”
He mumbled something, but I ignored him, taking her all in.
“Light,” he eventually said. I stuck out my hand. It was a small flashlight. It wasn’t much, but it’d do.
“Come on, you little bitch,” I said.
“What? You don’t need to call me names. I got the—”
“Not you,” I said. “It’s something you do when you work on cars. You curse at them while you figure out what’s wrong. My grandpap taught me that.”
“Oh. It helps?”
“Yeah. When you curse at it enough, you finally figure it out.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It works. Trust me.”
“I trust you,” Mark said quietly, and I felt another little curl of magic crawl along my skin. He pressed along my side, bending over the engine with me. His shoulder brushed against mine. “So we just call it names.”
“Yeah,” I said, feeling slightly flushed. “I mean, that’s… yeah.”
“Okay. Um. You… asshole?”
