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But if Pike was with Amber, then clearly he was moving on, and I needed to back off. Maybe this was the push I finally needed to get over him. Maybe seeing him with someone else, while I was with someone else, would help me to move on myself.
Which was why when Carter asked me out on Wednesday after I was saying goodbye to Michelle, I said yes.
He looked elated, and it was kind of cute to know that I had made him happy. Carter wasn’t my Mr. Right. I knew that for certain. I had always known it. But I didn’t need to find the love of my damn life. I just needed help getting over the man I had let myself think of as the love of my life for the past, oh, eight years like an idiot. I needed a Mr. Right Now, and Carter fit that role perfectly.
I’ll get over Pike, have fun with Carter, and eventually find a good guy to settle down with, someone who I could trust to be there in the morning when I woke up.
Or, at least I could hope, anyway.
17
Pike
I finished wiping down the car I’d just been working on, grinning as she shone in the sunset. There were few things in the world more satisfying to me then finishing work on a car and knowing that she ran like a kitten all over again, clean and fixed and shining like new.
“Look at you with a big ol’ grin on your face,” Jones said as he walked up. “I take it you’re enjoying being back here? Hmm?”
“Of course I am.” I started to put away my equipment. “You know this is all that I want—I’ve always known that it was what I wanted, in some way, I just didn’t really think about it when I was younger. And if the service was good for anything… it gave me a lot more discipline and a lot of technical knowledge. And on your way out of the army they give you—they have this program that helps you prepare, teaches you about handling your money and things like that so I think I’m in a pretty good place.”
“A good enough place to run a business?” Jones asked.
“I mean—sure, I could help you expand the customer base, introduce some new technology so we could work on new models of cars—”
Jones laughed in that wild way of is, wheezing, like he was drunk. He always sounded off his rocker when he laughed. It never failed to make me smile. “No, no, you idiot, I meant what if you were the owner of the garage. The sole owner. Would you like to buy it from me, is what I’m asking.”
I stared at him in shock. Jones had always run this garage. It had bene around for as long as I could remember. And he loved this place. “Are you serious?”
Jones nodded, walking over to the office and shutting off the lights, finishing up the closing duties. “I’m ready to retire. I love this old place but my bones are old too, Pike. I’m getting on in years. I’d like to go while I’m still hale and hearty enough to enjoy my retirement. I’d come in and tinker a bit sometimes, with the cars, y’know, but on my own time just for fun. Besides, if I don’t set things up now and make sure—you’ll take good care of this place. I know you will. But if I don’t sell it and then I up and die then some stupid fucker might buy it and where would I be then? Where would my legacy be then?”
“I mean—Jones, I know I joke about you being an old man and all but you’re not that old. And I don’t know the first thing about running a business. I mean, sure, they gave me some tips and all but I’ve never done anything like this. It’s out of my wheelhouse.”
“I didn’t know jack shit when I first started this garage, and that was over forty years ago now,” Jones replied. “You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, I know you’ll learn.”
Well. I did have some savings from my time in the army. And I did know some basics. Maybe I could make a go of it? It would be a lot more income, owning and running the place instead of just being one of the mechanics. And I would love to run this place. Being a mechanic was all I’d ever wanted, even if it took me a lot of time to realize that, a truth that I had somehow managed to keep secret from myself for years while I’d run around trying to find trouble everywhere.
Just like the truth of how much I wanted Billie, something I hadn’t even realized until she’d come onto me at the Christmas kegger.
