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CHAPTER ONE
Jay was almost at thefront door of the testing center when his phone pinged. He pulled it from his jeans pocket and saw an email preview on the lock screen: ASE TESTING RESULTS, the subject line read. ‘Immediate testing results’ was no lie.
He shoved his phone back in his pocket and pushed through the door and into the oppressively heavy heat of an Oklahoma August. He dropped his aviator sunglasses on his face and headed for his bike.
He’d fucked up at least two of the exams, he was sure of it. He needed at least a seventy percent on each of the nine exams, and if he hit that mark on Electrical and on Engine Performance, it would be just dumb luck. He’d flat-out guessed on about half the questions. He knew the shit when his hands were in an engine, but everything he knew had evaporated straight out of his head in the testing center.
He’d be pretty surprised if he’d passed all the others, actually. It wasn’t that he didn’t know what he was doing—he’d been apprenticing at the station for three fucking years, and had had his hands in engines from his preschool days. But standardized tests sucked. Ever since the first time he’d had to take one, in like third grade, they’d made him sweaty and shaky, made him so worried that he pretty much forgot everything he’d ever known. He was lucky to end up scoring in the fiftieth percentile.
His older brother, Zach, on the other hand, did great on exams of every kind, got great grades, was a standout in school sports. Coming up a few years behind him, through the same schools, the same teachers, had made for a nonstop existential workout.
Your brother did so well at this. Maybe he can help you.
You’re going out for baseball, right? Zach was one of our best first basemen.
You know, Zach was always in his seat when the bell rang.
Now Zach, having totally abandoned his family and run off to the desert, was the fucking Sergeant at Arms in Nevada. The asshole was twenty-six years old.
Zach had, of course, passed the ASE on his first try. Not just passed—aced.
As Jay reached his bike, his phone pinged again, this time alerting a text. He pulled it out again and checked.
Duncan. He could read the whole text from the preview:You done yet? How did it go?
Unwilling to tell Duncan he was too much of a pussy to check his scores, and equally unwilling to dodge until his friend figured it out for himself, Jay parked his ass on his saddle and opened the email.
There was a lot of detail, but he didn’t care about that. All he cared about was pass or fail, so he scrolled and homed in on those particular words.
A1—Engine Repair—PASS
A2—Automatic Transmission/Transaxle—PASS
A3—Manual Drive Train & Axles—PASS
A4—Suspension & Steering—FAIL
A5—Brakes—PASS
A6—Electrical/Electronic Systems—FAIL
A7—Heating & Air Conditioning—PASS
A8—Engine Performance—FAIL
A9—Light Vehicle Diesel Engines—FAIL
Fuck.
He thought he’d been prepared for that result, but now his heart sank, his stomach flipped, and a kind of rage swelled up in him like a tornado, so powerful he almost sent his phone sailing across the parking lot. He got as far as cocking his arm back to do it before he managed to rein in the impulse.
He was going to have to tell his old man that he’d fucked up yet again. Shit, he was going to have to face his brothers at the station, all of whom had been training him, and had spent the past few weeks quizzing him, and tell them he’d fucked up yet again.
He opened his text app and replied to Duncan.
No love. Flunked 4 of 9.
Shit. Sorry bruh.
