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I follow him without taking his hand. I may have decided to take my chances with him, but that’s not the same as taking a chance on him.
On the first level of the fluorescent-lit garage, he stops on the passenger side of an old Mustang with a new paint job.
I touch the black stripe on the shiny red hood.
“You expected more flash?” He opens my door, his laugh teasing.
I slide onto the ribbed bucket seat. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this. My gaze follows him around the car while he gets in.
When he starts the engine, the sound—all brute force—vibrates my seat.
“She’s a 1969 Cobra,” he says, palming the gear shift.
Like I know what that means. I’m happy I know I’m in a Mustang. “Your muscle car is a she?”
“Yep,” he says, his grin pure boy. “And she kicks ass.”
Not the words I would use, but Gabe uses a lot of words I don’t. Vi blames that on the homeschool thing. She’s wrong. It’s more of a me thing. I run my fingers over the wood paneling to the old-fashioned clock built into the glove box.
He strips off his hoodie, throws it in the back seat, and cranks his window—manually. “No A/C. Didn’t want to mess up my dash by adding it.”
“Fantastic.” It might be October, but summer’s lingering. I roll my window down and push my sleeves as high as they’ll go.
He touches my bunched-up sleeve. “You’re gonna be hot if you don’t take that off.”
Peeling off my hoodie’s not an option. The elastic in my tank’s built-in bra died in the washer. “I’m fine.”
He shoots me a look that says he’s figured outI’m fineis my go-to lie the same way I’ve figured out he only saysokaywhen he doesn’t want to deal. Flicking the headlights on, he exits the garage.
In the still-dark Dallas skyline, bright lights play connect-the-dots around the ball at the top of Mom’s favorite building, my favorite building, Reunion Tower. “How’d you end up with a car older than you?” I pull a newer-looking seatbelt across my lap.
“She sat in David’s garage forever. Now she’s mine.” He weaves through the mostly empty one-way streets.
“David?” I twist toward him.
“My lawyer.”
“Your lawyergaveyou a car?”
His half shrug makes me wonder if this is the first time he thinks that might be weird. “David’s younger brother died, he doesn’t have any kids, and he’s into refurbing cars. We rebuilt the engine and...” He lists a dozen other car surgeries that get filed underGuy Languageinside my head.
At the edge of downtown, he takes the ramp onto the highway. The breeze picks up enough to cool me down and whips through my hair. I corral the mass, substituting my fingers for a hair tie. The rumble of the engine and the vibration under my butt could put me to sleep.
“Where do you want to snag breakfast?” He rattles off a few fast-food chains.
It’s hard to hear over the wind and the engine. “You pick.”
“Krispy Kreme?”
I touch my scar. “Not donuts.”
He gives me a curious glance. “You don’t strike me as one of those girls who boycotts carbs.”
I’m not. But since this doesn’t feel like the moment to blurt out—I almost choked on a donut the day my life imploded—I say, “Are you saying I’m fat?”
“Hell no.” He tugs on my sweatshirt. “I’m saying you’re not plastic.”
“You hang out with a lot of plastic people?”
