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If I told myself that enough, I’d eventually make it true.
The smell of fried food and weed greeted me as I went downthe stairs toward the kitchen. Jason was at the stove, frying sausage patties as my pit bull, Jojo, shoved her wet gray nose demandingly against his leg. The shower down the hall was running and Vincent was loudly singing from within.
“Damn, took a while for you to haul your ass down here.” Jason glanced back at me as I walked in, his shaggy blue hair damp and a towel slung over his shoulders. “Are you hungry? Don’t let that beggar fool you. I fed her already.”
“I could eat.” I flopped down on one of the mismatched chairs next to the table as Jason scooped the sausage out of the pan. Jojo decided I was a better target to beg and came over with her tail wagging so hard it whipped her sides with every swing. I grasped her big head in my hands, shaking her back and forth in a little dance that made her whine excitedly as she tried to lick my face. I wasn’t hungry, not at all, but if I didn’t eat, I’d have the damn shakes in a few hours.
“Toast and eggs, too?” Jason said, hand poised near the refrigerator door.
“Please.”
The shower turned off and Vincent came out singing, obnoxiously loud and completely naked. His long hair dripped water on the floor as he snatched a sausage from the plate and took a bite before heading up the stairs, shouting, “God, Manson, put a shirt on! You can’t be walking around half naked!”
“Has Lucas texted you yet?” Jason said. He slid a plate of food to me as he took a seat on the opposite side of the table. I shook my head, drenching my eggs with hot sauce before I dug in. “He’s on a good one this morning. Pissy as fuck.”
“I’ll talk to him,” I said. Jojo shoved her nose against my hip with an eager whine, and I slipped her a piece of sausage beneath the table. “We were up late in the shop. That Ford was way worse than we thought it would be. Engine sludge thick as fuckingmolasses.”
Jason made a face of disgust. He worked as a programmer, but he spent enough of his free time in the auto shop to know his way around, pitching in when Lucas and I got too swamped with repair jobs.
“Just a few more months and things will change,” he said. “No more shitbox cars once you get the next shop set up.”
I nodded in agreement. We were only a few months away from being able to list this old house for sale and get the hell out of Wickeston. Once we moved, Lucas and I planned to set up our next place as a true tuner shop. I took a hell of a lot of pride in my work and I couldn’t settle for being merely another community mechanic. No more fucking around with Granny’s slipping transmission or Uncle Pete’s blown engine. We wanted to be known for what we loved — building fast cars that could smoke the competition without fail.
As difficult as it was to eat, the food did settle my stomach. I cleared my plate by the time Vincent came back downstairs, finally fully clothed. He sat down beside Jason, smirking.
“Missing something this morning, J?” he said.
Jason gave him a long look. “Probably.”
“Something like your lighter, maybe?”
Jason shook his head with a sigh. “Let me guess — it’s behind my ear?”
Vincent opened his mouth in an exaggerated shock as he completed his favorite magic trick and pulled Jason’s lighter from his ear. “Damn, J, why are you keeping your lighter in your ear?” Jason groaned, and I hid my smile behind the last bite of toast.
As I was putting my plate in the sink, the front door creaked open, and Lucas poked his head inside. “Manson. Need to talk to you.”
“Hey, at least get some breakfast!” Jason said, but Lucasstalked off again as quickly as he had appeared. I glanced over at Vincent, who shook his head.
“He’s in agreatmood today,” he said.
“He’ll calm down,” I said. “I’ll go see what’s up.”
I walked outside, squinting in the glaring sunlight. The property was large, most of it covered with trees and weeds. We had cleaned up the front yard when we moved in, hauled away the junk, and repaired the big metal garage built on the side of the property. That garage was now our shop; its exterior walls emblazoned with Vincent’s paintings. My parents had allowed this place to waste away when they owned it, but I’d inherited it a little over a year ago and already we’d done more work to the place than my dad had in all the years he lived there.
I couldn’t guess where my dad was now. When Mom passed away last year, he only showed up to make a fuss about the will before he disappeared again. For all I knew, my old man was dead too, and good riddance to him.
Lucas was pacing the yard, a deep frown fixed on his face as he smoked. His hands were dirty from working at the shop, streaked with oil and grime. The garage was manned by the two of us, and we worked it seven days a week, sometimes twenty-four hours a day when we got busy enough.
Our other dog, a little snub-nosed mutt that Vincent had named Haribo, lay nearby with his head resting between his paws. As I left the porch, the dog gave me a look that clearly said,this guy is stressing me out.
It was clear to me anyway. Lucas probably would have disagreed with the interpretation.
“Did you know Alex McAllister is going to that party next week?” Lucas’s voice was low.. Every muscle in his throat was tense with the effort to control his volume.
It took my brain a second to catch up with what he’d said. “You mean the bonfire? On the 4th?”
“Yes, at the fucking bonfire.” He took a long drag on the cigarette, his body one rigid mass of nervous energy.
