by Amber Heart
“I feel like this isn’t going in a healthy direction,” she said, chewing her lip.
“My life didn’t do that for a hell of a long time,” he informed her. “So buckle up, buttercup. We all loved cars, but none of us had one. And since we knew we’d never have anything but a piece of junk, we started taking ‘em. When I was fifteen I did a lot of joyriding. I never actually stole anything--”
“Wait, I thought that’s what joyriding was,” she cut in. “It’s not stealing cars?”
Eli shrugged. “I always put mine back sort of near where I took ‘em.”
“Sort of?” Riley asked, arching a brow.
“Never return to the scene of the crime,” Eli said firmly. “And it was a good thing I always sort of brought the cars back because it really helped my case when we all finally got caught.”
“What happened to you then?” she asked, leaning forward.
“The same thing that happened to everyone else involved. I did some time in juvie,” Eli answered. “Not as long as some of the others because they didn’t think I was as bad.”
Riley gave him a smile. “Well that’s not so--”
Eli shook his head and held up his hand to stop her. “Still not headed in a healthy direction, baby. I was in juvie just long enough to meet a kid whose brother ran a chop shop. The kid liked me, mainly because I kept the other guys off his back. He was a little guy and I wasn’t. He said that he’d do me a favor since I loved cars so much. I didn’t have any idea what he meant, but when I got out, his brother was waiting at the gates for me. He said he’d been looking for a new mechanic.”
“What happened to his old mechanic?” Riley asked warily.
“You probably don’t want the details,” Eli said, remembering. “Just don’t ever try to scam a scammer. It never works out for you in the end.”
Riley swallowed hard. “Noted.”
“So I decided what the hell, and I went to work for him.”
“How old were you?”
“A few weeks shy of seventeen.”
“Did your parents--”
“They’d split up by then. Technically my mom had custody but she was pretty messed up all the time. She’d moved from drinking to shooting up. Some days she probably didn’t remember she had a kid. She sure as hell didn’t remember on the day I got out. She was supposed to come pick me up and I didn’t hear from her till two weeks after I got released.”
Eli looked down at his coffee for a second and then cleared his throat, continuing. “I was old enough to drop out, so I did. A few months after I started working for Tony, I moved in with a few of the other guys from the shop. I had everything I wanted. Liquor. Girls. Money of my own.” He smiled, remembering it. Most of the memories weren’t fond, but there’d been a few good times. They’d been stupid. But good. He shrugged and admitted it. “And, hell, they liked me, which was a lot better than what I was used to at home. They all said I was the best mechanic they’d had.”
“How did you get out?”
“I didn’t,” he admitted. “I probably would have stayed there for the rest of my life, but we got busted. Everyone went to jail. I was in for a few years this time around.”
Her eyes went wide. “That’s awful!”
“Well, I thought so. At first.” He took another sip of his coffee and tried to figure out how to explain this to her. “It was probably the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“How?” she asked, clearly confused.
“I got clean. Right before I went in, I’d moved on from drinking,” he said the words simply, but his voice had gone rough. “I spent a long time swearing I’d never turn out like my parents. Then I spent a few years doing the same damn things.”
She waited in silence now, watching him as she chewed her lower lip. He knew that he’d given her a lot of information to take in, but he couldn’t help but wonder if knowing the things he’d done had changed him in her eyes. He found that he was holding his breath, but she didn’t speak. She just watched, waiting for him to continue.
“Once I got out I knew I had to do something else,” he went on after a moment. “The problem was, there wasn’t anything else to do. Not in that town.”
“Why didn’t you move?”
He grinned ruefully. “You need money for that, baby. People kept coming around, wanting me to come back. Most of the people in charge were still serving time, but I knew that when they got out I’d have to go back or end up like the last mechanic. You don’t get to just walk away.” He shrugged. “And leaving felt pretty pointless, even if I’d had the money to go.”
She tilted her head. “Why?”
“It’s on my record. Anyone can find it. I was a high school dropout, I’d served time, and the only thing I knew how to do was put a car together. It wasn’t like leaving town was going to change any of that.”
“So...when does this story get to the good part where your life is finally okay?” Riley asked.
“When I met your brother,” Eli answered. “Told you that it was all relevant. He came to pick up a car and it quit working right outside my house. The mechanic he’d brought up with him didn’t know jack shit, so I helped them get it fixed up and he offered me a job.”
“And you came here?” she said with a smile. “That’s--”
“I said no.”
“What?” she asked in total surprise. “Why would you do that?”
Eli shrugged. “I’m not always the brightest. I knew that I didn’t have the money to get down to North Carolina and I didn’t wanna go through the whole thing about being in jail with him. I thought I’d figure something else out. Then my boss got out of prison. Came to the house I was staying at and told me that I’d be back at work by Friday if I knew what was good for me. He already had a car on the way.”
Her eyes wide, Riley waited for the rest of the story.
Eli sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I was standing there Friday morning, bright and early, but nobody else was there yet. The longer I stood there, the sicker I felt and I knew that I couldn't fucking do it, but I didn’t know what else to do. I had about 50 bucks in my wallet...and I just bolted. Used the money for a bus ticket as close to Kansas as I could get and I called the number on the business card your brother gave me. I told him the whole story and said that if he still wanted to offer me a job, I’d take it. He came and got me. Then he gave me an advance on a couple of paychecks and found me a place to stay. And I’ve been here for the past three years.”
Riley’s smile was soft. “That’s a really awesome story. I remember Shane telling me that he’d hired you, but he didn’t tell me all of that. I’m glad you did.”
“This thing...me and you...doing this behind his back doesn’t feel right.” Eli rubbed his chin, feeling the scrape of stubble. He’d forgotten to shave. Not surprising with the delicious distractions he’d had in the shower this morning. “It feels like I’m betraying him.”
Riley sat in silence, chewing on her lower lip. “Eli, it doesn’t have to be--” she began, then she sighed as her phone rang. “Speak of the devil, that’s Shane now.”
Eli could hear Shane’s voice when Riley answered the call, but he couldn’t make out the words. He could tell by the tone that his buddy wasn’t thrilled though. Riley’s face darkened.
“I was just--” she started, but Shane began talking again. “No, I--” Shane interrupted again, his voice growing louder. “I’m a grown woman, Shane!” she finally said, obviously furious now. “I don’t have to tell you when I’m not coming home!”
Eli stood and went to the sink with his coffee cup. The house was too small to give her much privacy, but he did what he could. The argument continued for a few minutes and ended with Riley cutting off the call in the middle of whatever Shane had been saying. She slammed the phone down on the table and let out a long frustrated breath.
“Does he micromanage you like that?” Riley demanded, rubbing her hands down her face.
“No,” Eli said, leaning
back against the sink. “But I’m not his sister.”
She frowned at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that it probably wouldn’t hurt you to tell him where you’re going when you head out,” Eli said with a shrug. “He worries about you.”
Riley threw her hands up. “Why am I not surprised that you’d take his side? It’s not like this is a dangerous town.”
“I think you proved yourself wrong last night,” Eli pointed out. “And I’m not taking his side, I’m just saying--”
“I don’t need you to “just say” anything,” she informed him, pushing her chair back. “And you don’t need to worry about us doing anything behind Shane’s back, because I won’t be calling you again.”
With those words, she was gone. Eli was a few steps toward the door before he caught himself. As much as he didn’t want to, he needed to let her go.
Chapter 6
Eli leaned against the bay door on Monday night and eyed Shane. Shane was eyeing the Superbird. Eli had stopped on his way to clock out because he thought that his friend was finally making plans for what needed to be done. The longer he watched though, the more sure he was that Shane didn’t even see the car that was right in front of him.
“Everything all right?” Eli finally asked.
Shane spun around. “What? Yeah, of course.”
Eli raised an eyebrow. “You don’t look like it. And staring at the car isn’t gonna fix it. I think you might actually have to put your hands on it.”
Shane shrugged negligently. “He said I could take my time.”
“Well sure, but I think he probably expected to hear something by now. At least a diagnostic. It’s been two weeks, man.”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s not your name on the door,” Shane snapped. “I don’t need you to tell me how to run my business.”
Eli held back the retort that came to mind and took a breath. He hadn’t been to a meeting since leaving prison, but AA had ingrained some things into him successfully. He counted to ten before he said anything else.
“Okay,” he said in a level voice as he turned to walk out. “I’m headed out for the night. Call me if you need anything.”
“Hang on,” Shane said.
Eli stopped and turned back. Shane combed his fingers through his hair and sighed in frustration. This was the most that they’d spoken all day, so Eli waited patiently for Shane to spit out what was bugging him.
“It’s been a hell of a day, but I shouldn’t take it out on you. Sorry.”
Eli shrugged and crossed his arms. “We all have ‘em. Anything I can do?”
Shane shook his head. “I don’t think so. Not unless you want to try to convince my sister that she’s being an idiot.”
“What’s she doing?” Eli asked, trying to sound casual and not worried. Riley had kept her word about not calling him again over the weekend. He’d spent the time trying desperately not to call her.
“She’s moving out, for one thing,” Shane said.
“Oh. Did she, uh, did she meet someone?” Eli put his hands into his pockets so that Shane wouldn’t see how tightly his fists were clenched. That couldn’t be it. She’d been with him two nights ago. But there had been that other guy in the bar. Now that he thought about it, he had no idea how far things had gone between the two of them. But she wouldn’t have moved in with him. Or at least, he didn’t think she would.
Shane shook his head. “No, she’s moving to a place by herself.” He sighed heavily. “At least, I think she is.” He dropped down onto a chair and gave a bitter half laugh. “Hell, I don’t know. She probably wouldn’t tell me if she was moving in with someone. I can count the number of conversations we’ve had since she got back on one hand.”
“Come have a beer with me,” Eli offered.
“Not tonight, I--”
“Come on. You said it yourself. It’s been a hell of a day. If you go home you’re either gonna fight with your sister or get ignored by her, so let’s go out and have a responsible number of drinks.”
Shane smiled slightly. “A responsible number of drinks does sound pretty good right about now.”
****
In the bar, once they’d ordered and had beers set down in front of them by a waitress who couldn’t seem to keep her eyes off of Shane, Eli said, “All right, Harris. Spill it.”
“I already did,” Shane said in confusion as he took a long drink of his beer.
“No, you didn’t. Come on. Tell me all your problems.” When his friend didn’t look inclined to do so, Eli said, “I don’t play counselor much. You should take advantage of it. Offer expires in three...two...one and a half...”
Shane frowned slightly and took a longer drink of his beer. “All right, fine. The thing is, Riley was always such a good kid.”
Of all the ways that Eli would have described her: headstrong, impulsive, temperamental...he hadn’t really expected to hear that. He tried hard not to look surprised.
“She got straight A’s from kindergarten all the way through college,” Shane went on. “And I thought that she was happy with the job she found after college too, but she didn’t even give them notice when she left, apparently.”
“What did she do?” Eli remembered that she’d said something about computers, but he couldn’t remember what it was. He’d been distracted by other things that day. Things like her body and the fact that she was his best friend’s sister.
“Hell, I barely understood it,” Shane admitted with a shrug. “Some kind of computer software thing. She was always talking about it when she called, but it was completely over my head.”
“Shane, word documents are over your head.”
“Fuck off. Anyway, about a year ago, she stopped calling as much, but I kind of figured that maybe she was busy. She said she was taking on a lot of extra hours at work and I thought that she and Mark were maybe planning a wedding. I don’t know. I mean, I know most sisters don’t call their brothers on a weekly basis, so I tried not to bug her about it. Now I wish I had. Maybe then she’d still be talking to me.” Shane leaned back and sighed.
“Sounds like the two of you were really close.” That made Eli feel even worse.
“Yeah. I mean, it was just the two of us after we lost mom and dad. She was only fourteen when they died, so I basically raised her.”
Oh God. “I’m gonna get another,” Eli said. “Want one?”
Shane nodded abstractedly and Eli headed for the bar. There was no way around it. He had to tell Shane what was going on. Or rather, what had been going on. Maybe after the second beer. That made sense. The second beer was going to be the best possible time.
As he was waiting for their drinks, his phone buzzed and he pulled it out of his pocket. Apparently he’d gotten several texts and hadn’t heard the ringer. All of them were from Riley. He opened the message and read over it quickly.
“Hey there. Miss me?”
“Eli, are you ignoring me?”
“I kind of need you to come get me. I’m not feeling so great.”
“Fine. I found a ride with somebody else. Don’t bother to answer this message.”
There were enough spelling and punctuation errors to convince him that she’d been pretty drunk when she was typing. He was just about to call her in spite of the last message when he felt a tap on his shoulder. Shane was standing there, his face completely white.
“What’s wrong?” Eli asked.
“I just got a call that my sister’s in the hospital,” Shane said, his voice tight. “I have to go.”
“I’ll go with you,” Eli said without thinking. “Whoever she got a ride with must’ve been drunk too.”
“What? How do you...” Shane trailed off when he glanced down and saw the messages on Eli’s screen. “Are those from...you’ve been seeing Riley?”
“Not...I mean, sort of...but...”
Shane cut him off. “I don’t have time for this right now,” he said. “Let’s just get to
the hospital.”
Chapter 7
“I’m Shane Harris,” Shane said when they got to the reception desk of the emergency room. “My sister was admitted here after a traffic accident.”
“The doctor is seeing her now,” the busy receptionist said with a quick glance up at Shane. “Have a seat, we’ll call you back when they’re done.”
“Can you at least tell us how she is?” Eli asked.
The woman looked up, and up, into his face. Then she nodded. “I’ll find out.”
