Burying Water (Burying Water #1)(15)

Back to their lives.

And I am left completely alone, waiting to remember mine.

SEVEN

Jesse

then

“Not bad, kid.” Miller hovers over the open hood of Rust’s ’78 red Corvette, the low rumble of its engine filling the six-bay auto shop. “Get working on the Enclave.” And then the burly man ambles toward his office, a greasy rag hanging from the back pocket of his ratty jeans.

I shoot a glare Boone’s way. Is that all I get?

Boone shrugs and smiles lazily. “What do you expect?”

I’ve got the boss’s car purring in under an hour, when it wouldn’t give more than a hack and a cough before stalling for everyone else. I know that our shop manager can be a dick, but this is f**king ridiculous.

“A bended-knee proposal, that’s what,” I mutter as I kill the engine and slide out of the driver’s seat, wiping my hands on a cloth. For all the good that’ll do. My fingernails have been stained black with motor oil since I was fourteen.

Boone wanders over to slap the frame of the car, as if he’s the one who fixed this beast. Given it’s his uncle’s, he’ll probably be driving it anyway. “You want a bended-knee proposal, come out to The Cellar with me tonight and maybe you’ll get one from Viktor.”

“No thanks,” I mutter, heading over to the Enclave, already up on the hoist. “I’m done with that place. If this Viktor guy wants to make a deal, he can come talk to me here.”

“Nurse Boone, will you please hand me that torque wrench?” Tabbs hollers from beneath the hoisted Cadillac.

Snickers fill the shop as Boone drags his boots along the concrete floor to meet the mechanic. He slaps the tool into his greasy hand none too gently.

“Hey! Didn’t they teach you how to pass tools gently in nursing school?”

Zeke, a heavyset black mechanic with a Louisiana accent, explodes with a roar of laughter.

“Just keep it up . . .” Boone pops a dirty middle finger in the air and marches over to join me under the Enclave. “I’m f**king sick of this.”

“What’s your problem? You had those brake jobs and that timing belt.” I guess his complaints to Rust at The Cellar reached Miller, because he’s been giving him some work.

“Yeah, but these guys are never going to stop busting my balls. Not until I’m running this place and I fire their asses.”

“Just smile and ignore them until then.”

“Easy for you to say.” He wanders over to a table covered with tools and begins wiping them down. Miller may look like a bum off the street, but he’s meticulous about how he keeps this place. I don’t know if that’s his rule or Rust’s, but every tool is cleaned and put in its rightful spot each night or there’s hell to pay. Unfortunately for Boone, that job normally lands in his lap.

I’ve managed to make a good impression on the other mechanics. I got a lot of smirks when I strolled in here the first day. And then I overhauled a Volkswagen W8 engine in record time and they all shut up pretty quick. Some of them have even asked for my advice when it comes to an engine problem. I’ve been here for only six months.

“You’re the one who wanted me here so bad.” I wait for him to glance back so he can see the wide grin on my face. I know Boone’s not jealous of me. Well, maybe a little. But he hasn’t been a dick to me about it.

“So . . . The Cellar tonight?”

I shake my head. Any place that requires I borrow clothes from Boone isn’t my style. Plus, I can live without another vodka-induced hangover, especially when I have to be inhaling fumes here at eight a.m. sharp tomorrow. Miller docks pay by the hour for latecomers.

“You sure, man? Priscilla’s friend, the redhead at the bar, was asking about you.”

“Sure she was.” Boone can be relentless. And a liar. “For what, exactly?” It’s fair to assume that she’s exactly like Priscilla. I picture a girl like Priscilla waking up on the double mattress lying on my bedroom floor—no frame—and I burst out laughing.

Turning back to work on the wheel alignment, I listen to the guys chirp harmlessly back and forth. I like them. They’re all a little rough around the edges, but they know cars. Just like me.

I’m finished with the Enclave about half an hour later and lowering the hoist when a loud grumble approaches outside. We had the bay doors open all summer, but now, with the cool fall temperatures, Miller makes us keep them closed.

Tabbs peers through one of the windows and drawls, “She’s baaaack. Wonder what the missus did this time.”

Any half-wit would know it’s coming from a wrecked muffler.

I glance out the small panel window but can’t make much out besides drizzle from this distance and angle. A whistle sails through the garage as Tabbs punches the button on the wall, and a door begins its noisy ascent along its tracks.

My attention immediately zeros in on the rare silver BMW Z8 parked just outside. There’s little doubt that it’s the same car. But can it possibly be . . . ? A woman steps out of the driver’s seat and pops a zebra-striped umbrella open.

No way. It’s the gold-digger from The Cellar. The one with the peanut butter–colored hair.

Her hair isn’t peanut butter–colored anymore, though. It’s back to the platinum blond that my headlights caught that night in passing. In black dress pants and a fitted leather jacket, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, she still screams money, only now there’s something less trashy about her, something decidedly more sophisticated.