Tomorrow Is Never Promised

Chapter 7 Part 1

Ethan

It had been almost three days since Oliver and mines little confessionals at the station, and in that time, not a single murder had occurred. I would almost be relieved, if it also wasn’t so frustrating. We had zero leads, none, zilch, and because of that I was feeling extremely frustrated.

So that left me with one of two choices, I could either dig through miles and miles of reports and evidence or, I could do something more constructive with my time that would also take my mind off the case for a bit. Which was why I found myself peering under the hood of Oliver’s Jeep, trying to figure out why it won’t start.

I may have embellished on my mechanic skills a little. I had fixed several things in a car before, but I was scratching my head on this one. So why did I volunteer my services for this one?

Do you really need to ask that question?

I rolled my eyes at that thought. Yeah, sure, I wanted an excuse to spend more time with Oliver. Now that we weren’t throwing daggers at one another he was actually nice to be around.

“Need a hand?” A voice spoke out, causing me to jump and hit my head on the underside of the hood.

“Fuck.” I grunted, rubbing the sore spot.

“Someone’s jumpy.” Oliver approached me with an amused expression. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I pulled my hand back to make sure I wasn’t bleeding. “Just in my own world.”

“Here let me take a look.” He goes to grab for my head and my breath catches.

My body remained frozen in place and once his hands plant themselves firmly on my head my mouth goes dry, and my knees go a little weak. How is that someones touch can have this sort of effect on me. It’s not fair, its downright diabolical is what it is.

He tilted my head to get a better look, running his fingers gently over the sensitive spot. I winced a little, but it didn’t hurt, his fingers having some weird magical power over my pain receptors that I can’t quite put my finger on. I leaned into his warm touch slightly, craving more.

He cleared his throat and released my head from his grasp. “It looks fine. I don’t see any bleeding.”

I swallowed hard, my only response being somewhere between a mumble and squeak. Really? I don’t f*****g squeak. I cleared my throat and turned my attention back to his car, immediately missing the feeling of his hands on me.

“You know, I can just take this to a mechanic.” He offered.

I knew he was just trying to be nice, but it only made me want to sink my feet in further. My stubbornness I can feel beginning to rear it’s ugly head.

“You’re the only rich person I know that doesn’t drive a brand new car.” I quipped, changing the subject.

“How many rich people do you know?”

“Good point.” I conceded.

I pulled off his valve cover and began checking his spark plugs. That could be the issue if the car wasn’t firing up.

“Besides,” He patted the Jeep lightly. “Me and Blue have had some good times. I can’t just get rid of her.”

I quirked an eyebrow at him. “You named your Jeep, Blue?”

“Well, yeah,” He gestured at the Jeep. “She is blue after all.”

I snorted and shook my head, returning my attention to inspecting each plug.

“What, you don’t have a name for your car?” He asked.

“No, it’s not that. Just Blue is a little on the nose isn’t it?” I teased with a grin.

“Oh okay, and what would you have named her?” He questioned with hands on his hips.

I thought about it for a second before my grin spreads wider. “What about Jeepsy Soul?”

His eyebrow’s shot up in surprise. “That’s actually a good one.”

“Hm.” I grunted cockily and I heard him chuckle, the sound warming my insides in a pleasant manner and forcing me to come up with other way’s to force that sound from him again.

I pulled another spark plug out, the tip looking disfigured and obviously not functional. This had to be the issue.

“I think I found the problem.” I held the spark plug up so he could see. He took it into his fingers and looked over it before shrugging his shoulders.

“Is it not supposed to look like that?”

“No, it’s completely warped. But all you need is another spark plug and then we can see if that fixes your problem.”

He nodded his head. “Okay, there’s an auto parts store over on Lombard. Let me go get my wallet.”

I waited for him outside the house as he grabbed his wallet, scoping out the neighborhood that Oliver called home. It was a beautiful neighborhood, all old craftsman style homes or other styles that were popular in that era. The trees were in their full stage of vibrance for the fall, nothing but yellows, oranges, and browns hanging from their limbs. It reminded me of the neighborhood I grew up in, except Olivers house looked warm and comfortable, the house I grew up in was a place I dreaded going to everyday.

“You ready?” Oliver’s voice jerked me out of my thoughts.

“Yeah.” I gave him a nod and we headed towards my car.

“You okay?”

I glanced at him, his eyebrows were furrowed and he had a questioning look on his face.

I gave a curt nod. “Yeah, just feeling really spacey today is all.” I lied.

“You strike me as the type of person that always has their wits about them.” Oliver pointed out.

God, could he see right through me or something? I gripped the steering wheel a little tighter, the leather creaking slightly under my grip. I didn’t want him to know what I was thinking about before he came back outside. I didn’t like talking about my childhood much, let alone my dad.

I gave a nervous chuckle. “Caught me on an off day I suppose.”

“Yeah,” he gave me a curious a look. “An off day.”

It didn’t take us long to get to the auto parts store and then back to his house. He opted to buy all new spark plugs, his excuse being since one was already being replaced. I didn’t mind honestly, it just meant that I could hang around him a little bit more.

“Okay, fire her up.” I called to Oliver.

The engine roared to life and I did a little internalized happy dance. Ethan 1, Jeepsy Soul 0.

“You did it!” Oliver’s face was lit up with excitement as I closed the hood and made sure the clips were snapped shut.

A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth at seeing him like that. “Well, I’m glad I could help.”

“Let me make it up to you. How about you stay for dinner?” He suggested, the words seeming to have a nervous lilt to them.

I paused. Dinner, at Oliver’s house? My stomach gave a low rumble in response to the mention of food. I was definitely hungry. But there was another, more powerful feeling that overcame me. It was warm and tingly, and seemed to start in my gut and work it’s way up to my chest. Probably just hunger.

“I won’t take no for answer.” He c****d an eyebrow at me, a stubborn tilt to his jaw forming.

I rubbed the back of my neck, completely absent at the fact that my hands were covered in engine grease. “Yeah, dinner would be good.”

A slight blush creeped up into his cheeks at my acceptance. He pushed his hands into his back pockets and jerked his head in the direction of the house. “C’mon, I’ll start dinner and you can get cleaned up.”

I followed him up the walkway to his house, that warm feeling vibrating through my body never really going away. This was a good idea, right?