Blood and Engines

Warning Lights

I ain’t easily rattled.

I mean yeah, I got nerves like anybody else, but I don’t move off ‘em. You learn early, growin’ up where I did—sometimes your gut lies to you. It tells you run when you supposed to fight, tells you stay when you need to get gone.

So I don’t trust it. I trust patterns. I trust people’s habits. I trust what I can see.

And Diego Bishop? He wasn’t makin’ no damn sense.

That matchbook stayed in my back pocket all day like a ghost breathin’ against my hip. Couldn’t stop thinkin’ ‘bout it. About him. That smirk. That way he ain’t ask nothin’ straight, just danced ‘round it like he already knew too much.

By the time I got home, I needed to hear another voice ‘fore I lost my mind.

So I called Rosa.

My cousin. My day-one. My reality check.

She answered on the third ring, voice sharp and tired like always. “This better be good. I’m watchin’ my show.”

I laughed. “Girl, you always watchin’ your show.”

“Mmhmm. So what’s up, Nia?”

I paused.

She heard it. “Uh oh. You in trouble?”

“Not yet. But maybe.”

That got her attention.

“Spill it.”

So I told her. About him. The Camaro. The fake engine problem. The money. The matchbook.

I didn’t dress it up. Didn’t add no flowers to it. Just laid it out raw, the way Rosa liked it.

When I finished, there was a beat of silence on the other end. Then she sighed long and slow like she already knew where this was headed.

“Nia... That man smell like money and danger.”

I leaned against my fridge, heart suddenly too loud in my ears. “What’s that even mean?”

“It means that ain’t no mix for a girl like you,” she said. “You hear me? You workin’ hard. Keepin’ your head down. Ain’t nobody in a blacked-out Camaro showin’ up for ‘engine work’ unless he tryna test your peace. Or pull you into some shit.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

“I think you do,” she snapped. “But you like it. Just a lil’ too much.”

I ain’t say nothin’ to that.

She softened. “Look, Nia. I get it. You been holdin’ it down for so long, you forget how it feel to be looked at. To be seen like that. But don’t confuse intensity with interest, okay?”

I closed my eyes.

“Rosa…”

“Mm?”

“…What if I already looked back?”

More silence.

Then she exhaled again, but this time it sounded like resignation.

“Throw it away.”

I already had. Told her that.

“Good,” she said.

But I ain’t tell her the truth.

Didn’t tell her that after I hung up, I stared at the trash can like it was whisperin’ my name. Didn’t tell her I’d been standin’ in my boxers, one sock on, starin’ at the microwave clock blinkin’ 11:59 PM.

Didn’t tell her how my hand moved before I could talk myself outta it.

I pulled the matchbook from under a crumpled receipt and an old pizza crust like it was a damn artifact.

The ink had smudged a little. But the address was still clear.

Redline. Midnight.

My heart beat in my throat.

I told myself I just wanted answers.

Told myself I’d go, take one look, then walk away.

But deep down, I already knew—

I wasn’t goin’ there to ask questions.

I was goin’ there to feel somethin’.

And that was the real danger.