If I Fix You

by Abigail Johnson

  I should have been able to dismiss a casual touch from Sean as easily as he did from me. Not that I was able to casually touch him yet, but that was the goal.

  The casual part, not the touching.

  I freed my hand without effort. “They are pretty red.” But still that same achingly perfect blue.

  Through the windows of the garage, Sean noticed my dad’s truck was gone. “I thought you were kidding about your dad firing you for being late.” Sean gestured with his chin toward the garage. “That a bad sign?”

  “No, I woke him up climbing through my window this morning, so he was going to go in early. It’s cool, I’ll just ride my bike.”

  “I didn’t know you were still doing the roof thing.”

  I saw my own discomfort mirrored in his eyes and realized his comment had reminded us both that we hadn’t talked much in months, and never about anything of consequence.

  “I don’t mind dropping you off at the shop,” Sean added.

  “You’re forgetting I just saw up close how exhausted you are.” I tried for a smile. “Really, it’s fine. I need to take a shower and everything. Go home. Get some sleep.”

  Staring straight ahead, Sean said, “You hate that bike.”

  So I did, vehemently. And he knew I was choosing it over him.

  He shook his head. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Claire makes it better, doesn’t she?”

  My smile came easier that time. It wasn’t wide, but it was honest. “Yeah.”

  “So we have to be sweating at the butt crack of dawn, just to be around each other? Awesome.”

  “We’re around each other now.” And it was only half as hard as I’d feared.

  He glanced at the still-lightening sky and fingered the edge of my damp T-shirt. “Kinda my point.”

  He meant it to be a joke, based on the way he cocked his head at me, but laughing was the furthest thing from my mind. I didn’t want that. I wanted to be able to hang out with him sans buffer. Claire did make things easier, but she also kept things stagnant, and we wouldn’t fix anything if we stayed like that.

  I looked through his window and saw my bike crowded into the Jetta’s backseat. I did hate it. “Help me with it?” I meant the bike, but more than that too. I envied him and his godlike power of pretending things were okay. He made it look so easy. Smile, tease, flirt, repeat. I was still struggling.

  My head was always clearer when my hands were busy, and I needed clearer. Things with Sean could get murky if I let them. I moved to the back door to pull my bike out. Without comment, Sean stepped around me, and between the two of us, we got it out without undue bloodshed. A triumph on any other day, but that day it wasn’t enough.

  I entered the code to open the garage and rolled my bike in, pausing with my back to him. “Maybe I will take that ride.”

  “You sure?”

  I was. I hoped I was. “Yes.”

  In the blink of an eye, Sean changed. The stiffness in his posture relaxed, the shape of his mouth lifted, even his eyes seemed to change. It wasn’t until that change washed over him that I realized how much he’d been holding back, how I’d been missing him even when I saw him almost every day. He flashed a dimple and held his arms open.

  If I still loved him, in that moment, I’d have known exactly why.

  “Sweaty hug on it?”

  My eyes darted from his arms to his eyes and back again. He was asking me to accept more than a ride. A lot more. It was starting to feel like too much, but I wouldn’t know if I didn’t try.

  I stepped into him, my cheek pressing against his damp T-shirt.

  “Wow, you sweat a lot for a girl.”

  My heart was steady as I smiled into Sean’s chest, silently thanking him for saying the exact right thing to keep the moment light and easy. When he seemed reluctant to let go, I stayed in his arms a second longer, relieved that hugging him didn’t hurt. Not much anyway.

  CHAPTER 7

  After taking the world’s fastest shower, and Sean taking the whole yellow-lights-mean-slow-down law as merely a suggestion, I made it to work on time.

  Sean waited until I pulled the door open and waved him on before driving away. I watched him go, lowering my hand slowly. We’d done that a million times, and I remembered the rides that had ended with me dancing through the door when he was out of sight. Today my feet stayed firmly on the ground, but I did watch for longer than I should have. He had to have been nearly home by the time I walked into Jim’s Auto Shop and let a blast of frigid air and the dark, dank scent of motor oil embrace me.

  I inhaled deeply and smiled, relieved to leave Sean and the past outside. For some people it was fresh-baked cookies or apple pie hot out of the oven, but for me, the shop smelled like home. Unfortunately it sounded like home too.

  Dad had a thing for Hall & Oates, and since I was like two seconds late, he already had the band blaring. Once the music was set, nobody else in the garage could touch it. Shop rules.

  When I entered the main garage bay, Dad was in full-on awkward dance mode half-hidden behind the crumpled hood of a Land Cruiser. He spotted me and grinned while lip-synching to the chorus of “Private Eyes” and he pointed to the dry-erase board on the wall.

  The work board. I always approached it with an addictive mix of fear and excitement, like Jigsaw or Santa Claus might be waiting for me. Sometimes Dad would banish me to the office for a morning spent chained to the desk, or assign me to endless oil changes. My favorite jobs were the unknowns; the vehicles that came in with serious emotional problems that hid behind odd growls or unexplained shakes.

  And of course the shinies, the head turners that we humble mechanics never otherwise got to drive.

  My feet began to drag the closer I got to the board. “Come on, really?”

  Dad shimmied my way and told Hall & Oates to take five by turning down the volume. “You got something against Acuras?”

  “I do when they aren’t Mustangs, which we also have in the shop today.” I tapped it on the board. “You haven’t even assigned it to anyone, unless you hired...” I squinted at the tiny figure Dad had drawn. “The devil in a golf cart without telling me?”

  Dad straightened. “That’s a speed demon.” He was always drawing little figures, leftovers from when he wanted to be a cartoonist.

  I leaned closer. “That’s actually pretty good, but seriously, where are we on the Mustang?”

  “The Mustang isn’t a rush, but I tell you what. The toilet is backed up, so if you’d rather I start on bleeding the cooling system on the Acura, we can swap.”

  I slumped forward on the counter and rested my chin on my hands. “Do you ever worry about spoiling me with such a glamorous life?”

  Dad laughed long and hard and reached out to rub my cheek with his thumb to show me a smear of grease that I’d somehow managed to get on my face already. He had the most contagious laugh.

  “You want the Mustang?” he asked.

  “Yes, please.”

  “And what do I get?”

  “I’ll close tonight so you can catch the game.”

  “What game?”

  “I don’t know. Some team somewhere is playing a game on TV. That one.”

  Dad made a big show of caving. “All right. You can drive the new flip home.”

  “The truck?” Oh, sweetness. The Mustang and he was going to let me drive the truck! I was doing a decent moonwalk over to grab the keys when Dad nodded his chin toward the back of the garage.

  “Try again.”

  We always had a car or two in the shop that Dad got cheap at auction or online. The newest flip was an ugly-as-sin Mazda that had decent guts but needed serious cosmetic work. It was the kind of car that turned heads—just not in a good way.

  Dad cued up more Hall & Oates, forcin
g me to yell over the music.

  “How about I stay late dutifully clearing out the storage closet, while you take the Mazda and leave me the truck?”

  Dad’s answer was to smile and turn up the stereo as “I Can’t Go for That” started playing.

  * * *

  After Dad left, I reclaimed the stereo and spent way too much time trying to decide if I was cheating on my imaginary Spitfire when I called the Mustang baby. I was fairly certain I was in the clear when I heard something worse than the din of “Rich Girl” blaring through the garage: the unmistakable grinding screech of Neighbor Guy’s Jeep.

  I shot out on my creeper so fast I nearly took out a tool chest. I spared a glare at the Mustang for completely eclipsing last night’s nocturnal activities from my mind, then grabbed a rag to clean my hands before hurrying to the front office.

  My steps slowed when Claire’s comments from that morning reemerged alongside the knowledge that I was alone in the shop. I hadn’t been scared last night, but Dad had been a shout away and there’d been a wall between us. What if I had glossed over Neighbor Guy’s potential danger because of my messed-up relationship with my mom?

  Stupid Claire. Stupid Mustang.

  Stupid me?

  My sneakers squeaked loudly on the checkered linoleum as I crossed to the counter, but when the door chimed, admitting him, any lingering trepidation flitted away.

  My first thought when I saw him was that it was actually possible for some people to look good in fluorescent light. Not Sean I-descended-from-Olympus good, more I’m-definitely-not-going-to-strangle-you-and-look-how-well-I-fill-out-this-T-shirt good.

  I smiled; Neighbor Guy did not.

  “What are you, like, the only girl in this city?” His dark eyebrows drew together. “Do you actually work here, or is this some kind of stalking game you’re playing?”

  Blood rushed to my face and my jaw jutted forward. A litany of profane words in the most offensive combinations my short-circuiting brain could think of slammed into the back of my teeth. It was only respect for Dad and his shop that kept me from freeing them.

  “Nice seeing you again too. I’m Jill, and this is my dad’s shop. I’m the one who left the coupon on your Jeep so you wouldn’t end up wrapped around a streetlamp when your brakes went out, but yeah, it was mostly so I could stalk you.” I might have let one totally non-customer-sensitive word slip after that.

  He didn’t respond. At. All. I shook my head and leaned over the counter to grab the coupon he was holding, but he jerked it back. I placed both hands on the counter. “Look, I’ve got other people to stalk today.”

  He rotated his jaw and looked fractionally less like a condescending jerk when he said, “Can I take back the stalking comment? I didn’t expect to run into you. Again. You’re kind of everywhere.”

  “Yeah, my house, my work—that is everywhere.”

  His hands mirrored mine on the other side of the counter, flattening the coupon between us. “How was I supposed to know you were the one who left this?”

  I unzipped the top of my coveralls. Underneath I was wearing one of the many Jim’s Auto Shop T-shirts that I owned. It was identical, if in slightly better condition, to the one I’d worn on my roof. “I wasn’t trying to hide it from you.” I pulled the coupon from under his hand, brushing his skin in the process, flipped it over and read aloud what I’d written. “‘Free brake pad replacement. Welcome to the neighborhood.’” I looked up in time to see a ghost of a smile on his face.

  “Yeah, I, ah, didn’t notice what the shirt said before.”

  I could feel myself turning the same shade of red as my T-shirt. I vividly remembered his eyes passing over me last night. Not for reading purposes, apparently. I gave in to the impulse to zip my coveralls back up.

  “Look, I’m sorry. You caught me off guard...Jill.” He focused on my name stitched onto my coveralls. “I’m Daniel. Or did you overhear that from your roof?”

  I could tell he was trying for a less hostile tone, and I decided I could do the same, since I was more embarrassed than offended at that point. “No.” My eyes dropped to the bandage on his left hand. He’d wrapped his knuckles, but there were still raw-looking abrasions visible below the gauze. I forgot about him checking me out. “Is it broken?”

  The smallest shrug. “It’s fine.”

  “Are you sure?” I stepped out from behind the counter. “Did you get an X-ray? It might be—”

  “I know what broken bones feel like. It’s fine.”

  I was about a foot away from him, my hand still outstretched toward his injured one. I was totally in his personal space, close enough to see a sliver of a scar in his right eyebrow and catch something lemony/minty coming off him. It made me want to lean in. Instead, I looked away, but not before noticing another scar disappearing under the collar of his T-shirt.

  The lemony/minty scent grew stronger when he leaned closer, causing me to step back, but all he did was slide the coupon from my hand and hold it up between two fingers. “Why’d you leave this?”

  I blinked and felt stupid for practically leaping away from him. He wasn’t staring at me like I’d done anything wrong though. He seemed genuinely curious. Daniel. I could stop mentally referring to him as Neighbor Guy.

  “I meant it when I said you could forget about the window.”

  Yeah, he had. But I couldn’t. And it went deeper than just owing him because I broke it.

  Dad had tried to explain to Mom once why he was happy “just being a mechanic.” It wasn’t that he lacked ambition or aptitude or anything like that. It certainly wasn’t because he was content with “mediocrity.” He loved to fix things. To take something broken and neglected and make it new again. It wasn’t a glamorous job, and he’d never be rich enough to own half the cars he worked on, but he made things better. He said there was more satisfaction in that than anything else he might do. And whether Mom liked it or not, I was exactly like my dad.

  I just liked to extend the practice beyond the garage when I could.

  It was why I’d thrown the pop can. And why I’d left the coupon.

  But that answer was way more than I was willing to give someone I just met, no matter how nice he smelled.

  “It’s the mechanic in me. I might have exaggerated with the streetlight comment, but that grinding noise your Jeep makes when you stop? That’s not a happy sound. You really shouldn’t be driving it. You’ll end up having to get the brake rotors machined or even replaced. That’s a lot more expensive than new pads. And I’d have to break more than your window to give out coupons for that.”

  He might have smiled. Maybe. His mouth definitely twitched.

  “I don’t have time to replace them before we close today, but unless we’re crazy busy...” I glanced down the street at the three grinning idiots on the Pep Boys sign. “I can get to you tomorrow before lunch.”

  “Tomorrow’s fine.” Daniel fished his keys out of his jeans, pulled one off and gave it to me.

  “Hey, if you don’t mind hanging out for a bit, I can give you a ride home.”

  Daniel turned back to me just as his hand touched the door. “I’m good, but thanks. And for the Jeep.”

  With a last nod, he was out the door and gone.

  CHAPTER 8

  I expected to find Dad scrounging for dinner when I got home, but the kitchen was empty. I was starting to wonder if he was sick and had gone to bed early when I heard his voice.

  Dad was a big guy and he had the voice to match. I could hear him clear across the shop even when all the machinery was running. But at home he’d learned to tone it down. Not quiet, exactly—I don’t think he knew how to be quiet—but not his normal thundering volume either.

  But this, this went beyond loud, beyond booming. I remembered this voice like it had been carved into my bones. I knew who
he was talking to before I heard him say her name.

  “What do you want, Katheryn?”

  I backed up until I hit a wall, not that Dad could see me through his bedroom door, but it was an instinct I couldn’t control. It was only a small comfort to realize she was on the phone and not actually in the house.

  It was like being doused with ice water, knowing she was talking to him. He was so big and strong, whereas Mom was such a small thing, and yet she destroyed him, destroyed us, as if she were a giant.

  After months of nothing, what could she possibly want? She was never what I’d consider maternal, so I doubted custody was an issue at this point. I’d be eighteen in just over a year, and it wasn’t like she’d tried to take me with her before.

  And yet, what else could it be? What else could she want? The house? The shop? She’d hated both of them. Whatever it was, Dad was more upset than I’d heard him since the day she left.

  “You are unbelievable,” Dad said. “No, you don’t. You haven’t been here, watching her walk through the house like a ghost, and that’s when she can stand to be in it!”

  I backed down the hall into the kitchen as Dad’s half of the conversation still thundered through the house. The words I couldn’t hear were chipping away at my bones like an ice pick. I lifted the kitchen phone from its base and pressed it to my ear.

  Dial tone. He was on his cell phone, then.

  Something about this one-sided conversation was so much worse than the months of fighting before she left, and it took me only seconds to figure out why.

  They didn’t know I was there.

  Dad didn’t know.

  As horrible as their fights had been, there must have been some part in each of them, whether by unspoken agreement or not, that they’d held back for my sake.