A race for love

In the garage

2,5 years later

*Wyatt*

The alternator bracket is wrong.

Not broken wrong. Not bent wrong. Worse. It is a cheap aftermarket piece pretending it belongs on a car that can clear 130 m/ph without coughing parts onto the freeway.

I hold it under the fluorescent tube light in the back room of Hale Customs and consider throwing it against the wall.

The wall has done nothing to deserve that.

"Talk to it nicely," Nick calls from somewhere near the service bays. "Maybe it'll develop integrity."

"Your face develops integrity every time Barbie threatens you with a socket wrench."

"That is fear. Very different product."

I set the bracket on the workbench, pull another box from the shelf, and find the same useless stamped-metal insult inside. The garage is loud around me. Air compressor cycling. Radio barking an old rock song through blown speakers. A ratchet ticking in Barbie's bay with enough controlled violence to make a priest confess things.

I like the noise. Noise means engines are open, problems are solvable, people are still here.

The back room is quieter. It smells of old tires, oil, hot metal, and the cedar blocks my mom used to tuck in every cabinet until the whole shop smelled like a mechanic's closet. Above the shelves, a faded Hales Auto Parts sign leans against the wall. My father's name used to be on it too. He took that part with him when he left.

Good. Less lettering to dust.

A door hinge gives a soft squeak behind me.

"Wyatt."

Tiffany stretches my name until it has too many vowels. I look at the chrome hubcap hanging beside the shelves rather than turning around. Her reflection arrives first, blonde curls pinned high, red dress bright enough to get her arrested by the Fashion Police, if the Fashion Police had standards and lived in Van Nuys.

"You stalking me in my own garage now?" I ask.

"I brought you lunch."

I notice a brown paperback in her hand, "That bag smells like tacos."

"It is tacos."

"Then I take back the stalking charge. You may be performing a public service."

She moves closer, heels clicking over the concrete. Tiffany has been orbiting the shop for almost a year, usually when one of the guys with better cars and worse sense is around. She likes fast engines, cash prizes, and men who mistake a woman looking at them for a binding legal agreement.

She is not mean. She is just exhaustion in a dress.

"You never called me," she says.

"I texted you."

"You sent a thumbs-up."

I shrug, "It was an enthusiastic thumbs-up."

"You sent it three days later."

"I was building suspense."

She smiles anyway, because Tiffany likes the part where I refuse to give her exactly what she wants. It turns every conversation into a game. I have never understood why people enjoy games with no prize.

Her hands land lightly on my chest. My black T-shirt is streaked with grease and dust. That has never discouraged her. Nothing seems to discourage Tiffany except being ignored in a room with mirrors.

"I could help you loosen up," she says.

I glance down at her manicured fingers. "I'm pretty sure that's a s****l suggestion, but I've been awake since five, so walk me through it."

"You are impossible."

"I've been told."

She leans closer, perfume and citrus gum cutting through the garage smell. "You have a race tonight. You always get all tense before a race."

"I get tense before a race because people keep putting bargain-bin parts in expensive engines."

"That is not what I meant."

"I know."

Her expression shifts. Not hurt, exactly. Tiffany does not give hurt away for free. She knows where this goes, knows I will let her flirt until it asks for something real, then put a hand up and make a joke out of the exit.

It is a bad habit. I have several. I keep them in labeled drawers.

"Come by after," she says. "If you win."

"If I lose, I'll be too busy crying into a carburetor."

"I'd still come over."

"See? That's commitment."

The back room door swings open hard enough to knock a stack of invoices sideways.

Barbie fills the doorway in steel-toe boots, fitted black jeans, and a cropped work shirt with HALE CUSTOMS stitched over one breast. Her platinum braid is looped over one shoulder. Her eyeliner is perfect. There is a smear of purple torque-marker paint across one cheek, which does nothing to make her look less dangerous.

She takes in Tiffany's hands on my chest, then looks at me.

"Are you charging storage fees now?" she asks. "Because somebody left a decorative object on you."

Tiffany turns. "Excuse me?"

"I said what I said."

"Tiffany brought tacos," I tell Barbie.

Barbie's gaze drops to the paper bag in Tiffany's hand. "That improves her legal standing."

"Thank you," Tiffany says, suspiciously.

"Don't get used to it."

Nick sticks his head around Barbie's shoulder. His dark curls are combed back badly, and there is a grease mark along his jaw like he lost a fight with an engine and the engine wanted witnesses.

"We have news," he says. "Real news. Not Barbie called a customer an i***t because he tried to repair a fuel line with tape news."

"I called him a danger to society," Barbie corrects. "Details matter."

"He was holding a roll of duct tape."

"He was holding it near gasoline."

Tiffany looks between us. "What news?"

Nick's smile goes sharp at the edges. "Race news."

That lands differently.

I turn away from the shelves. "Where?"

"Old paper mill. Midnight check-in, one run, cash and pinks if the pot gets ugly."

"The mill is crawling with security," Barbie says.

"Not the east side. Chrome drove past an hour ago. Gate chain's cut, cameras have dead angles, and somebody with more confidence than judgment has already painted arrows on the concrete."

"Chrome did that," I say.

Nick shrugs. "Allegedly."

.From the front bay, Chrome shouts, "They're tasteful arrows."

"They're silver skulls," Barbie calls back.

"Skulls can be directional."

Chrome has been working with us for six months, which means he has been calling himself Chrome for six months and we have accepted it because none of us wants to hear the explanation behind his government name. He is a decent mechanic, a better fabricator, and physically incapable of leaving any surface unadorned.

I reach for the second bracket box. "Who's running?"

"Viper's confirmed," Nick says. "Maybe a couple of Boyle Heights kids. Big Eddie is taking bets."

"Big Eddie takes bets at funerals," Barbie says.

"True. But there's more."

Nick's voice loses some of its bounce. He pulls his phone from the pocket of his racing jacket and holds it up. A grainy photo fills the screen. A black car under a freeway overpass. The angle is bad, the streetlights worse, but I know that shape. Everyone who has spent enough nights around illegal races knows it.

Long hood. Wide stance. The rear spoiler lowered flat.

Rex Roderick's Charger.

My hand closes around the silver wrench ring on my right index finger. I spin it once, slow.

"Where'd you get that?"

"Group chat from a guy named Berto. Berto got it from his cousin. Cousin got it from a girl who says she saw Rex at a gas station in Commerce."

"So, evidence suitable for a murder trial," Barbie says.

"Relax, Barbie. I'm not saying he's definitely there."

"No," I say. "You're saying he might be."

Nick looks at me. The garage keeps moving around us, but the air changes. He knows I hate that name. Barbie knows more than he does. Chrome knows enough to avoid saying it.

Rex has been gone a long time. Long enough that newer racers call him a story old guys tell when they want kids to slow down. A monster made out of tire smoke and bad judgment. Ruthless Roderick. The man who could take a corner too fast, nudge another car into a wall, then step out afterward with clean gloves and an expression like he had only won a fair contest.

People who never saw him race made him bigger.

People who did knew better.

I have spent two and a half years hoping his name was just a rumor and hating myself every time I hoped it.

"Could be somebody copying his build," Nick says. "There are a lot of black Chargers in L.A."

"Not with that spoiler," I say.

Barbie watches me for a second, then turns to Tiffany. "You should take your tacos and go home."

Tiffany's eyes flick between us. "Is something wrong?"

"Only if you enjoy being near stupid men with fast cars," Barbie says.

"That covers most of Los Angeles."

"Then you'll be fine."

Tiffany looks at me. I soften my voice because none of this is her fight. "It could get crowded at the mill tonight. Don't go."

Her mouth tightens. "You don't get to tell me where to go."

"No. I get to ask."

"And if I say no?"

"Then I'll ask twice, which is irritating for both of us."

For a moment she studies me, seeing the part I work hard to keep hidden behind the grin. Then she shoves the taco bag against my chest.

"Eat something before you drive," she says. "You make bad decisions when you skip meals."

"Only when I skip breakfast. Lunch decisions are excellent."

"I hope you lose."

"Cruel."

"I hope you lose safely."

That is closer to kindness than Tiffany usually lets anyone get. She steps around Barbie, gives Nick a small wave, and heads for the front.