We went to high school together, and though he was only a year older than me, it might as well have been twenty years. I ran with the College Prep kids, and he was the kind of student who flunked everything but shop and hung out smoking with all the other burnouts behind the dumpsters in the back of the school. I heard stories about how those guys did drugs and fought hard and beat up good kids just for existing. I was afraid to so much as look at that group, because I liked my arms and didn’t want anyone to rip them off.
But my car had been making a little whistling noise when I pulled into the junior parking lot at my high school, and Dax was sitting at the adjacent senior lot, smoking with a bunch of his friends on the hood of his Mustang. He’d jogged up to me as I got out of the car, and my pulse immediately shot up. My first thought was to put a hand on my purse. I don’t know why I thought he’d try to steal it, in broad daylight.
He gave me that cocky grin and said, “You need new brake pads, sweet thing.”
I blushed like crazy. Guys had barely talked to me up until that point, and he was the first guy my age to ever call me sweet. And those deep green eyes with the baby-doll lashes . . . holy shit. I’d never seen anything so mesmerizing. He was wearing all black, a tight t-shirt with some obscure metal band on the front. He smelled like cigarettes and all the things I’d been telling myself I had to stay away from, but suddenly, my mind was saying something else.
Get closer.
He told me to bring my bug into the shop so his class could take a look at it. He and his equally scary friends fixed it by the time I got out of Honors Pre-Calculus that afternoon. But when I went to pick it up after school, he told me I needed new shocks, and gave me a coupon for his dad’s garage. He even offered to drive me to and from school if I used them.
Nevaeh and Juliet, my two best friends, told me I was nuts to accept. He’d been arrested, they said. He used girls for sex, supposedly—both of my friends had a laundry list of girls who’d given him blowjobs in the back of the school. He drank and smoked weed excessively. They told me to bring a can of mace on the ride because “you never know”.
Still, somehow I must not have quite believed their warnings, because I took him up on the offer to drive me.
And if he was a guy with a rep, you’d never know it from our drive to school. He was gentlemanly, even sweet, opening the door to his ’67 Mustang for me, asking if the wind from the open window was too much, and talking the entire time about how his dad had gotten him into cars. Plus, he was Hot with a capital H, and his deep green eyes and sexy drawl stirred my insides up like no College Prep boy ever had.
My arms prickle with goose bumps as I recall that first drive together, when I realized that I was falling hard for him.
So hard.
So hard that it took years to get over him, and let’s face it—I never quite did get over him all the way, did I?
“I’m not all that sentimental,” I lie, looking at my car so I don’t have to look into those glorious eyes of his. I shiver. “So, what’s wrong with the engine?”
He follows me underneath the lift. “Like I said, it’s blown. Well, if getting a new car is out, you can either get a new engine, or have this one rebuilt,” he explains.
“Rebuilding is cheaper, right?” I ask immediately.
“Yeah.” He rubs the scruff at the back of his neck, grabs a wrench off the nearest bench, and starts to twirl it. “But even that’s not inexpensive. Or easy.”
“Okay. How much?”
“A thousand,” he says, leaning back against the workbench.
“A thousand dollars?” I nearly gag. Again, I’m back to thinking of my pathetic checking account. “And that’s the cheap option?”
“Look,” he explains. “If money’s an issue, I can rebuild it in my spare time and just charge you for parts. You know that’s my hobby. But like I said, it ain’t gonna be fast. Two to three weeks, at best.”
“At best?” I choke out. I’m going to have a breakdown. I’ve already pissed Fowler off enough by taking the week. I can’t just not show up for three. “Can you get me a loaner in the meantime, then?”
He grins. “I’ll be your loaner.”
I snap my eyes to him. “What?”
“You need to be someplace, I’ll take you.”
“What, like a chauffer?” I spit out, shocked at the offer. “Oh, my parents will love that one.”
He leans back casually inspects his grease-stained hands. “Last I heard, you’re an adult. You can do what you want.”
“Okay. I need to be in Boston for work. Are you going to drive me there?”
“Yeah,” he says, matter-of-factly. “If that’s what it takes.”
I snort. “Right. I’m sure.” I roll my eyes. He’s looking at me with his wide-eyed, puppy-dog expression, but Dax is never innocent. On him, that expression just makes me more suspicious. I cross my arms. “Are you serious? You’re not, are you? You’re probably just . . .”