Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 108862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 544(@200wpm)___ 435(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 544(@200wpm)___ 435(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
I don’t follow for half a second, then realize he’s asking for a tool. I unfold my arms and turn back to the toolbox, looking over the wrenches. I offer one. “This?”
He takes it, gives it a look, then goes back into the engine.
I assume I’m right and feel a pinch of satisfaction.
After a while: “Thirteen.”
I hand him the other tool right back.
He’s back under the hood.
This goes on for some time. I start growing closer, leaning my head over the engine, too, propping my elbows on the edge. Diego shows no sign that he minds the proximity.
It’s good, because I’m enjoying it.
A lot.
Maybe so is he.
He doesn’t even say anything one time, holding his hand out without looking. I already know to give him the other tool. Then back in he goes. I think I even follow what he’s trying to do, even if I can’t be asked to save my life knowing the names of any piece of the engine he’s working on.
It turns out passing someone tools can be a conversation all on its own.
Ten.
Ratchet.
Thirteen.
Hold this.
Thirteen again.
I catch myself looking over at him instead of the engine a few times, lost in the intense focus of his eyes on the project.
The way his face works when he thinks.
How he mutters at stubborn bolts.
The wrinkle between his eyebrows when something refuses to cooperate.
How he wipes his hands before touching the next tool.
Even if everything’s already kinda greasy.
“Wanna give it a try?” asks Diego.
His first actual question in what feels like hours catches me by surprise. I look at the engine. “Uh, try what?”
“The car. Key’s in it already. Give it a turn.”
Oh, of course. I come around, then decide for some reason to reach in through the window to turn the key. It’s an awkward and farther-away endeavor than I anticipated, and before I know it, I lose my footing and fall into the car with an unflattering yelp.
The sound that follows is one I’ve never heard before.
Diego’s laughter.
An actual, honest-to-God laugh.
When I finally pry myself free from the car window, I find him quickly having regained his composure, back to his usual statue face with just a twinkle in his eyes betraying the laughter he just let out. I crack a smile, shake my head, and let myself into the car the proper way—by actually opening the damned door—and give it a go. Rumble. Grumble. Cough, sputter, spit.
Wheeze. Sigh.
“Kill it.”
I stop turning the key and crane my head out. Diego grips the edge of the hood, staring down at his mortal nemesis, squinting at it with intense thought. “Not today,” he mutters half to himself.
I don’t know if it’s sitting in this car, or him allowing me in his space without putting up as much of a fight, but I feel included somehow in his frustration, like for once, it’s us versus something else, not versus each other.
“You’ll get it,” I tell him.
He meets my eyes and says nothing.
But he doesn’t look away.
Not today, he may have said. But his voice wasn’t hopeless. It’s like what he meant was really: Maybe tomorrow.
That’s one of the things I noticed about Diego. I wrote it off as stubbornness at first. But I’m starting to see it as something else.
Once something matters to him, he refuses to quit on it.
He doesn’t give up.
—12—
Diego
The fuck do you wear to a ball?
A small-town ball with no one you know, at that.
I have no idea what to expect. I’ve combed through all of my clothes I own seven times without a damned clue. Last time I ever donned a suit was at my dad’s funeral. It was a rental. Who’s got time to own fancy clothes you only wear once before letting them collect dust in the back of a closet?
Don’t even know if there’s any clothing rental anything in this dinky town. Be lucky to find a thrift shop in walking distance, let alone anything that has an outfit in my size that screams “ball”.
Gonna need a damned fairy godmother to pull this off.
And those are in short supply these days.
I wrinkle my face up at the window nearby, the corner of the house next door in view. I don’t doubt he’ll have insight into what the hell I should wear. He’s the one who invited me to this thing tonight, anyway.
I go through the clothes I have—again—and drag out a plain-ass white button-down shirt. But I have no dress pants to go with them. Would a pair of okay jeans fly in a small town like this? How fancy can a small-town ball be?
Didn’t want to do this, but I go to a specific bedroom I’ve been avoiding since I got here. Go to the closet. Open it.
It’s empty.
Of course it is. Why would my uncle leave any clothes behind? They left. Moved out completely. Didn’t even take the furniture. I guess wherever they went, they planned to start fresh.