by Devon Monk
She glanced up, took a nice long stare at Sunshine’s back and shoulders, then shook her head as if trying to talk herself out of something.
I was curious.
“I’m thinking new transmission fluid would be good, and oil and air filter.” He held up a donut-shaped part, angling it so she could see the dirt and crud clogging it. “A front end alignment if you have the budget for it. Other than that, I don’t see any immediate trouble.”
“Nothing?” Lu asked.
I pushed off the tool box and moved straight on through the walls separating the work space and the office.
“You’ll need to be thinking about tires soon,” I heard Sunshine say. “And you need a spare. I’ve got a couple out back we can set you up with. Nothing fancy, but I’ll throw it in for free. Struts aren’t great, but they’ll do you for a few months.”
“And how much will that put me back?”
I didn’t hear the answer because I was through the hall and in the office.
Jo had the music playing low, some sweet-voiced woman singing about going down to the river. The window air conditioner was doing the work to knock the early afternoon heat right in the teeth, and the bottle of soda on the desk sweated on top of a short stack of napkins.
Jo muttered to herself, chewing on her lip, then letting go and clacking the stud in her tongue against the back of her teeth.
“What is wrong with you?” she muttered. “I’ve run the diagnostics. Wireless is here. It just keeps cutting out. Why? There’s nothing out here to block the signal. Is it the building?” She glanced up at the walls and back to the router that sat on the desk, a pile of paper on each side. “Crappy wiring? Someone hacking in to get their share without the boss man knowing?”
She leaned back a bit and her gaze clicked right out the office door to the bay where Sunshine stood, one hand in his back pocket, thumb and pinky spread over that cheek, his other hand gesturing with the rag toward the truck.
“Not that Fisher would allow crappy workmanship around here,” she scoffed. “I mean, look at him.”
I stepped up right next to her, turned, and looked at him.
“I don’t get it,” I said.
She hummed.
I tried again. “What do you think about him?”
I was pretty sure what she was going to say. That he was a hick, a redneck, a country boy with more grease and beer in his veins than blood. That he was ornery and chauvinistic, and not worth a second look.
But a second look she gave him.
“You like him?” I pushed a little harder, incredulous.
“No,” she said. “No more jumping into things. That’s how I ended up back in maintenance. And I refuse to give that asshole Brett the satisfaction of seeing me fail.”
So that was…not very informative. She’d been demoted? By Brett? Or was Brett a boyfriend, brother, friend?
“You like him,” I stated.
She picked up her soda and ran her thumb through the condensation. “I am not going to get involved because I am not that dumb. He was an ass. He told me I work for a crap company, which—okay, Brett is a dick. And Calvin’s…” she shrugged. “Whatever that is with Red Sonya out there.”
“He’s not flirting with her,” I said. Calvin leaned close to Lu and told her something like it was a secret. Lu laughed. No, Lu giggled. I hadn’t heard that sound out of her in months.
Jo scoffed and chugged down the soda. “Fuck him anyway.”
“Atta girl,” I said. “Fuck him. Well, don’t actually. You’re worth more than a pretty face and a pair of greasy hands.”
“Right in here,” Sunshine said, as he followed Lu toward the office.
Jo’s face had done a remarkable blank-slate make over. She was clacking away at the keys of her computer like she hadn’t looked up in an hour.
Sunshine opened the door like a gentleman and stepped aside so first Lorde, then Lu could enter. Lorde tipped her head up at me and wagged her tail, then settled down on the opposite side of the desk.
Lu looked happy, her face flushed and those hard lines across her forehead and at the corners of her eyes smoothed away.
She was up to something.
“Cupid is still a god, Lu,” I said. “Still dangerous. So is Fate. Do you really want to get us mixed up in god business?”
“Hey, Jo,” Lu said, all friendly. “How’s the repair going?”
Sunshine lingered by the door, holding the rag in both his hands and looking nervous. He glanced at Jo, looked down at his boots, then pulled his shoulders back, forward, then back again. He threw glances at the computer and out the little window with the air conditioner stuck in the bottom of it.
“It’s fine,” Jo said. If a CLOSED sign could talk, it’d sound just like that.
“Is there anything you need?” Lu pressed. “That diner down the street Calvin recommended was really good.”
“I’m on the clock,” she said, still not looking up. I was pretty sure she was peeking sideways at Sunshine.
Lu shot a look Calvin’s way and lifted one eyebrow.
He took a big breath, then let go of the rag so it was hanging from one hand. “I was thinking,” he said. “That maybe you and I, maybe we could…”
“Hold up there, champ,” I said. “She’s working. On your crappy technology. You stuck your boot in your mouth this morning. She deserves an apology. Or better, she deserves you to just walk away.”
“…the diner’s real nice,” Calvin was still saying. “Uh…I know the owners…”
“Sorry, Lu,” I said. “This thing isn’t going to work.”
“…and everyone’s gotta eat.” He winced. “I mean, I’m headed out to lunch and thought you could use a break too. Thought maybe we could…”
“Not a chance, Sunshine. She’s busy.” I dropped one hand on the computer, the other on the router. Sometimes I could get the feel of a thing, of what was broken in it.
“…would you?” Calvin yammered. “I’d like to buy you lunch. For all the hard work you’re doing here. And to apologize for the rough start this morning.”
I shoved my fingers into the router, feeling around for heat and cold and the strange discordant waves of electricity traveling as packets of data. Took me all of a half second to find a blank spot where electricity wasn’t flowing. I figured that was where things had gone gunny bag.
“Gotcha.” I focused, willing that blank spot to carry the electricity, which wasn’t easy. In for a pound plus a penny.
“I don’t think…” Jo said.
“If you don’t want to go out for it, that’s okay too,” Sunshine said. “You can order in. On me. Because I…uh…really appreciate you doing…this.” He sort of waved the rag at the desk.
I pulled hard, forcing the electricity to surge.
The was a pop, there was a snap, snap, snap, and then there was smoke rising up out of the router case.
“Holy shit!” Jo pushed back.
I groaned. Lu just looked at the router, looked at Lorde, who sat up and stared at me. Lu rotated so she was facing me. A little smug smile curved her lips as she crossed her arms over her chest.
I should have been angry, frustrated, but that smile was honey on the flower’s petal. It was sunlight pouring soft through the clouds.
Even if it was an I-know-what-you-tried-to-do smirk.
God, I loved her.
“Fine,” I said. “It didn’t work. That doesn’t mean Sunshine over there is dating Jo. You haven’t won.”
Lu gave me one slow blink and her smile widened. Not enough to show teeth, but I knew she was laughing at me.
“I got this,” Sunshine said. “Hang on.” He strode toward the exact space where I was standing, so I walked through the desk and stood next to Lorde.
“You’re on my side, aren’t you girl?” I asked her.
She wagged her tail faster, her black tongue hanging out as she looked from me to Lu and back to me.
“I’ll get rid of this.” Sunshine picked
up the router, deftly unplugged it, and strode quickly out of the room, taking the stink of burned wires with him.
“So,” Lu said, “you think it might be an electrical problem?”
Jo lifted both eyebrows, half a smile turning her golden brown face sharp, her eyes sparkling. She looked like a woman who liked mischief: starting it, getting into it, and keeping it going.
“Electrical’s a possibility.”
Lu stuck her hands in her front pockets. “If you want me to tell Calvin you’d rather go to lunch with me, or alone, or not at all, I will. I think he wants to make up for that ‘crap company’ and Texas thing. But you don’t owe him anything. Not even lunch.”
Jo stood and picked her messenger bag up off the floor, pulling it on so the strap ran across her chest and the bag rested against one hip. “He was an ass this morning.”
“He was.”
“But he seems…decent.”
“He does.”
“You get along with him.”
“I do.”
“And hey, free food, right?” She gathered a few pieces of equipment off the desktop.
“Free food’s good,” Lu said. “But not if it comes with strings attached.”
“Oh, I can handle myself.”
“I see that.” Lu snapped her fingers once for Lorde to come up beside her. “I’m just saying you don’t have to.”
“You wanna join us?” she asked.
“Say no,” I said. “Come on, Lu. You got them a lunch date. That’s enough. Isn’t that enough?”
“Sure,” Lu said. “I could eat.” She smiled, showing white teeth, the canines just slightly sharper than normal.
Sunshine strode back into the office. “That’s in the trash where it won’t burn anything down. Go ahead and step out for awhile so the office can air out.” He walked the long way around the desk so he didn’t have to squeeze past her, then turned off the air conditioner and did something with the upper part of the window to open it a crack.
“If you decide on lunch, put it on my tab,” he said. “Susan knows me. She’ll set you right up.”
He was moving around the office, unplugging cords from the wall, turning off the surge protector, and fiddling with the light switch to make the ceiling fan rotate the right way.
“Good?” he asked, over his shoulder.
Jo shrugged. “Lu could use a bite to eat too. How about we all go together?”
Sunshine stopped. I could feel the hope that radiated off him. Like he’d been walking down the dust and heat of the road for days and finally spotted a river running clear and clean.
“I’d like that,” he said with so much heart in his voice no one could have missed it.
I tipped my eyes to the sky. “It’s not my fault,” I said to Cupid. “No one could have talked Lu out of this. Not even you.”
Cupid didn’t reply. I hadn’t expected him to. The gods largely ignored us—just one more human tragedy in a world full of them—so Lu and I largely ignored them.
It was better that way.
“I’ll let Ray know we’ll be out,” Sunshine said.
“Good,” Jo replied.
“Great,” he said, looking at her like she’d just handed him a puppy and his favorite cone of ice cream.
Jo stood there studying him. Those dimples, those sky-filled eyes, that smile that poured out summer and sunlight, easy music and slow moving warm waters.
“Lunch?” Lu’s happy tone broke the spell.
Jo came back to herself with a little start. Sunshine grinned harder at the slight rise of color in her cheeks.
“I’ll be right there,” he said.
Jo strolled out of the office, Lu and Lorde drifting behind her.
“Great,” I said.
Chapter Eight
I’d seen a lot of people fall in love. Sometimes the fall was slow and easy, growing out of years of friendship, of familiarity. Sometimes it was a lightning bolt strike: fast, furious, and scorching hot.
But most of the time, falling in love was a mix of things. A collection of moments. That one joke, those two songs, that third meal, that fourth walk when gazes locked and didn’t look away.
When a soul reaches out and another soul answers back.
Lu had seen just as many falling hearts. She had an eye for it, truth be told. Could see when two people were hoping, wanting. Could sense loneliness like an old, dusty song scratching out into the empty and waiting for the echoed harmony.
And when Lu got her teeth into something she thought she could fix, she wasn’t an echo, she was a damned bullhorn.
“You live in Texas?” Lu dragged a fried pickle through the little paper cup of sauce: dip, drag, dip, drag.
Jo finished chewing a bite of burger. “Not really.”
Lu raised her eyebrows.
“I’m here now. I’m traveling. Looking for a place.” She very carefully didn’t look over at Sunshine, who was forking down a salad with lots of taco fixings and a river of hot sauce running through it.
“That smoking router mean you’re staying a night?” He was all casual and cool now, the diner a familiar enough place, lunch a neutral enough ground, he’d gotten his feet back under him.
Lorde was outside lounging in the shade of the tree. When Susan—owner and hostess of MaryJo’s—had seen the dog, she’d produced two bowls, one for water, one for “ends and bits” that turned out to be chicken meat, some fresh boiled eggs, and kibble with a nice, juicy beef bone sticking up out of it.
Lorde couldn’t be happier. Well, she’d probably prefer to be in the diner with us, but she was just a few steps away from the building. I could get to her in an instant if Lu needed her.
“Not sure,” Jo said. “By the time I drive down to Springfield to get whatever router we have in stock, it’s going to be late. You close at six, right?”
“I can stay if you want to come back tonight,” he offered.
“Do it,” I said to her. “Put in the new router and be on your way. This small town isn’t where your life is headed. You want bigger things, remember?”
I could tell my words had some influence on her. Enough she frowned and took a drink of her cola.
Lu must have felt my words too.
“You could drive down in the morning,” Lu said. “The place I’m renting has a spare room. Quiet. Good price.”
Sunshine leaned back and picked up the huge glass of lemonade, draining it by half in one go. “Since it’s on me that you’d have to make the drive and stay an extra night, you can put the hotel cost on my bill.”
“Don’t fall for those dimples,” I said. “Get outta Dodge and come back tomorrow.”
“I could just come back tomorrow,” she said.
“Great idea!” I clapped my hands. “Now that it’s settled…”
“Fisher, don’t you move!” A man pushed past Susan and stopped at our table. He was short and built like a steamroller. His wide chest and broad belly might have once been muscle but were now going to fat. His suit jacket, dark trousers, and dress shoes were a step above affordable.
Thinning yellow hair, combed and sprayed, didn’t do the job of covering up the bald spot on top.
Insurance? Cars? Time shares? He was some kind of salesman.
“You said you’d have that part in today.” His voice was louder than necessary, making sure everyone in the place noticed when he spoke.
Sunshine leaned back a bit more, his body language opening up. He was squaring for a fight and happy to go the extra round.
“Doug. I’m on my lunch break. How about you stop by the shop in a half hour or so?”
“I’m stopping by now. When can I pick up my car?”
“I’ll tell you that when I’m back at the shop. Which will be about a half hour or so.”
Doug narrowed his eyes, then seemed to notice the other people at the table, especially Jo.
“Well, you sure aren’t from around here, are you?” Doug gave Jo an insulting once over. “Do you speak Engl
ish?”
“You’re a horse’s ass,” I said.
Lu hadn’t moved, but I could feel her tense, ready to spring.
Sunshine shifted his boots under the table, shoulders dipping, both hands going flat on either side of his plate. From the look on his face, he was going to pop Doug right in the nose.
Jo took her time chewing a fry, letting the uncomfortable silence spread out and out. “Not to an ass like you.” She didn’t even throw him a look.
Sales-schmuck’s mouth opened, closed, and he turned a deep, dark red. He sputtered, head jerking back and forth, looking for allies among the diners.
People were watching, hell, it was probably the most interesting thing that had happened all month, being how small the town was. But no one was taking it on themselves to come to his defense.
Most of them were scowling at him.
Jo finished off her soda, then stood. “Thanks for lunch,” she said to Lu and Sunshine.
Sunshine was watching her. It was a mix of respect and humor, and yeah, if I was looking close enough, it might be desire too.
Lu noticed all that, probably better than I. “Do you want to check out that room?” she asked.
Jo shook her head. “Naw, I gotta hit the road if I’m going to get back before dark. Excuse me. Step aside, please.”
Sales-schmuck dug in his heels. Leaned forward to tower over her, even though she had several inches on him. He wanted a fight. Wanted to take her down, put her under his shoe. Wanted to establish his dominance as something better.
As if any human being who behaved like a shit was better than a smart, strong woman like Jo.
Jo shifted the message bag, her hand dropping into a pocket. I figured she either had a sock full of nickels in there or a can of mace.
“Kick him in the pea shooter,” I suggested.
“Move aside,” Jo repeated, not backing down an inch.
The schmuck threw a glare at Sunshine.
“I’d move,” Sunshine suggested. “’Cause you’re making an ass out of yourself.”
“Watch your mouth, Fisher.” Doug jabbed a finger at him. But he finally stepped slightly to one side, not quite making enough room for Jo to get by.
