“Now you’ll plant it for real.”
“That’s something, isn’t it? I should book. Xander’s on my ass about the muffler. I guess I’ll take it in, let him fix the damn thing. I’ll come by when I’ve got everything worked up.”
“Thanks, Lelo.”
“Sure thing. You be good.” He rubbed the wet dog. “Later,” he said, and jogged down and away.
Xander stood under an aging Camry, replacing brake pads that should’ve been replaced ten thousand miles earlier. Some people just didn’t maintain. It needed an oil change and an all-around tune-up, but its ownerhis ninth-grade American history teacherstill didn’t believe he knew what he was doing. About any damn thing.
And never let him forget he’d been suspended for hooking school.
Something that made no sense to him then or now. Suspension for hooking was like a damn reward.
Speaking of suspension, her shocks were about shotbut she wouldn’t listen there either. She’d wait, drive the car into the ground until he ended up towing it in.
He had a transmission job after this and had given a clutch replacement to one of his crew, a simple tire rotation to another.
He had two cars out in the lot, towed in from a wreck on rain-slick roads the night beforea call that had pulled him out of Naomi’s bed at two in the morning.
The drivers got off with mostly bumps, bruises, some cutsthough one of them ended up being taken in by the deputy when he didn’t pass the Breathalyzer.
Once the insurance companies finished wrangling, he’d have plenty of bodywork to deal with.
But he’d missed waking up with Naomi and the dog, having breakfast.
He’d gotten used to those sunrises. Funny how fast he’d gotten used to them, and unused to sleeping and waking alone in his own space.
Even now he had a low-grade urge to see her, to hear her voiceto catch a drift of her scent. That wasn’t like him. He just wasn’t the sort who needed constant contactcalling, texting, checking in, dropping by. But he’d caught himself thinking up excuses to do any of that, and had to order himself to knock it off.
He had workand later in the afternoon a quick meeting with Loo about the bar. He had books to read, sports to watch, friends to hang with.
And the paperwork he should’ve done Sunday night to clear up.
Xander shook his head when he heard the unmistakable cough and rattle of Lelo’s shitty muffler.
“Get that thing out of here!” Xander shouted. “It’s bad for business.”
“I’m bringing you business, man. And half a jumbo Diablo sub.”
Xander paused long enough to glance over as Lelo, dripping rain, walked in. “Diablo?”
“I went by, saw your chick, and she is hot. She is smoking hot. Made me want some hot.”
“You went up to Naomi’s?”
“Still think of it as the old Parkerson place. Not for long if she hires us. Trade you the sub for a Mountain Dew.”
“Two minutes.” Xander went back to the brake pads. “So you went up, took a look at the yard?”
“I’ve been dreaming about that place since I sat up there smoking dope with Dikes. Now I find your smoking-hot chick’s pretty open and flexible about landscaping. She listens. She’s got the vision, man, just like with the photos.”
Lelo boosted himself up to sit on a workbench, unwrapped the sub. “We get a job like that? That place is a landmarksad one these last few years, but still. Showing how we can turn it around’s got my parents doing the bebopping boogie. Going to try to work a deal for pictures we can use for promotion, keep her outlay down some. How come you let Denny play that country shit in here?”
“It’s all right, and it keeps him happy.” Finished, Xander walked over to the soda machine, plugged in coins for a Mountain Dew and a ginger ale.
He grabbed paper napkinsDiablos were hot, and messythen joined Lelo on the bench.
“Is that Mrs. Wobaugh’s Camry?”
“Yeah, she’s driving it into the ground.”
“I had her for American history.”
“Me, too.”
“About bored me brainless.”
“Me, too.”
“Who said that shit about history repeating itself?”
“There are a lot of people who said that shit,” Xander told him. “A favorite is: ‘History, with all her volumes vast, hath but one page.’ That’s Byron.”
“Cool. So, why do we have to study it, be bored brainless, if it’s got one page?”
“We keep thinking if we do, we’ll change the next page. Not so much,” Xander decided. “But as somebody else said, hope springs. So high school kids get bored brainless.”