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Pain lances my finger when my hand slips. Metal cuts a thin line across the knuckle, and I call the piece of shit Honda Civic I’m working on every expletive I can think of.
“Damn, man. I don’t even know what half those words are,” Charlie says from under the hood of a Camaro in the next bay over. He pulls his head out and looks over at me. “You okay?”
No.
“Yeah,” I grumble, my bad mood getting worse as the day progresses.
Charlie’s sympathetic brown eyes hit me with a hefty dose of pity. He understands the significance of today. Everyone in the whole damn garage knows.
“Ryder won’t mind if you take the rest of the day off.”
“I’m good,” I shout over the loud whir of an air impact wrench.
Not wanting to clean the blood off on the dirty, oil-covered towel tucked in the waistband of my work trousers, I head to the back to wash up and grab the first aid kit.
As I scrub the grease from my hands, I stare at my reflection in the small circular mirror that’s mounted to the wall above the sink. Haunted blue eyes underlined with the faint bruises of fatigue stare back at me. My hair is also too long. I usually keep it cut short, but the wavy dark-brown strands have grown out and curl around my ears. I’m three days past time to shave, and the overgrown scruff is itchy as hell.
Ripping a couple of paper towels from the dispenser, I dry my hands.
“Here,” Ryder says, shoving an open first aid kit at me when I turn around.
He leans a shoulder to the wall and crosses his arms over his chest, considering me with his shrewd copper eyes.
Ryder Cutton owns the garage, Randy’s Custom Auto, and is a street racing phenom who I have fanboyed over since I saw a video of him race at The Fields when I was a kid. Working for him has been a dream come true. Over the last four years, we’ve become good friends, something I desperately needed after my best friend Parker died. Today is Parker’s birthday, hence my shitty mood.
I dab antibiotic ointment on the cut and wrap a Band-Aid around my finger.
“Knox is racing at The Fields tonight. Be there by eight.”
Ryder doesn’t ask. He never does. He knows how difficult today is for me, and he’s doing his part as my friend to make sure I don’t spiral into the dark place I used to visit at the bottom of a liquor bottle whenever Parker’s birthday came around.
I nod my gratitude, and he slaps my back a few times before walking toward his office.
“Eight o’clock sharp! Don’t forget,” he calls out before disappearing around the corner.
Removing the shop towel from my waistband, I toss it into a bin that Ryder has a laundry service come pick up once a week.
“Charlie, I’m taking a break!” I yell across the expansive space.
A thumbs-up pokes out from the Camaro’s raised hood.
Grabbing a chilled drink from the mini fridge, I exit the side door and drop my ass down to the parking lot curb. Knees bent and legs splayed, I prop my elbows on my thighs and pop the tab to the can of soda. The smells of motor oil and rubber are quickly replaced by the sweet honeysuckle growing up the trellis against the side of the garage.
When I feel the weight of my emotions strangling me, I tune out the noise from inside and close my eyes.
Fuck, Parker. I miss you, man.
Parker and I met on the first day of kindergarten. He shared his peanut butter and jelly sandwich with me when he saw I hadn’t brought any lunch—I’d forgotten the lunchbox Mom had packed in my haste to get to the bus stop, excited for my first day of school. He and I were inseparable from that day forward. Ten years after we met, a guy who was too busy texting and not paying attention while he was driving sideswiped the car we were in and took my best friend from me. Parker fought like hell to hold on, but his injuries were too severe, and I watched him take his last breath in the hospital two days later.
The rumble of an engine gets louder when my younger brother Paxton pulls up in the rollback tow truck and parks right in front of me. He presses the horn just to be an asshole, then shuts off the engine and hops out.
“You look like shit.”
I flip him off. “Kiss my ass, pretty boy.”
Pax got his blond hair and fair looks from Mom, while I’m the spitting image of Dad. Dark-brown hair, green eyes, and linebacker build, which served me well on my high school’s football team.
