Friction and Fire

The Wedding Looms Part 1

The air in Taylor Mechanics is always thick. Oil, sweat, the bracing bite of metal—like the atmosphere itself is built from engine grease and bad language. Most mornings, Rhonda likes it that way. It drowns out the noise in her own head, gives her something to grind against.

She’s got half her upper body inside the guts of an old Harley when she hears the familiar scuffle of boots on concrete. She’s deep in the problem—a seized cam, some asshole’s lazy maintenance, and a gasket that’s clinging to the block like a tick. Her fingers are black to the wrist. The old box fan in the corner spins hot air over her back, and from the shop radio comes a battered classic rock riff, distorted, glorious.

“Hey, Red, you hear about your sister?”

Jimmy’s voice is casual, but it bounces off the garage walls like he’s lobbed a grenade. Rhonda freezes, wrench braced in both hands. Her first instinct is always defense. She leans out, green eyes narrowed, sweat slicking her cheek.

“Which sister?” she fires back, not missing a beat. “You know there’s only two of us, and one would rather eat nails than give you the time of day.”

Jimmy’s got that s**t-eating grin. He’s crouched by the Triumph on the next stand, hands stained but clean compared to hers, wiping a carburetor with a rag that’s seen better centuries.

“Alicia,” he says, drawing out the name like it’s got extra syllables. “Word on the street is she’s getting hitched.”

Rhonda’s heart thuds. The wrench slips a hair in her grip, and she feels a ripple of heat that’s got nothing to do with summer or sweat.

She sets her jaw. “You’re full of it,” she says. “She’d tell me if she was. You been reading the society pages again, Jimmy?”

Jimmy shrugs, sets the carb down, and grabs for the cold coffee on the bench behind him. “Not the pages. Mack’s Bar, last night. Bunch of bikers in, couple exec types slumming it. Somebody said they saw your sister with that Lancaster guy, real cozy, talking ‘wedding’ like it was already on the books.”

“Bullshit,” Rhonda says, but her voice wavers, just enough to catch her off guard.

Jimmy sees it. He pushes, gentle but persistent. “I’m just repeating what I heard. Could be nothing. You know how people are.”

She does. People see what they want. Rumors are the only currency that moves faster than oil in this town.

But Alicia wouldn’t do this to her. Wouldn’t go behind her back, wouldn’t—

Rhonda glares down at the Harley’s innards, trying to focus on the stuck cam, on the precision she lives by, but her mind’s all static.

She yanks the rag from her back pocket, scrubs her hands until the skin’s raw, and tosses it into the bin. “Tell me exactly what you heard,” she says, crossing the bay in three steps. Her boots are loud. “And don’t leave out the part where you probably misheard ‘wedding’ because someone’s head got slammed into the jukebox again.”

Jimmy leans back, both hands up like he’s surrendering to the police. “Hey, I’m just the messenger. Said they saw Alicia at the corner booth, hand in hand with Mark. Said they looked serious. Like ‘run away together’ serious.”

The name hits harder than she expects. Mark Lancaster. Vondrel’s little brother. The one with the sheepish smile and the habit of letting bigger dogs do the barking.

Rhonda rolls her neck. Her skin crawls. “She’s not stupid,” she mutters. “She knows what’s at stake. If Vondrel finds out—”

“Maybe he already did,” Jimmy says. “Rumor was, Lancaster himself is gonna make a stink about it. You know how those types are, can’t stand when things don’t go their way.”

Rhonda’s hands are trembling. She hates it, tries to make a fist but just cracks her knuckles loud enough to echo off the cinder block.

The radio gives way to an ad for discount mufflers, the DJ’s voice oily as a parts dealer. In the momentary lull, Rhonda thinks about Alicia—her soft voice, her nervous laugh, the way she’d always been able to smooth out the world’s rough edges. The idea of her getting railroaded by a Lancaster, especially the one with the ice in his eyes, makes Rhonda want to break something.

She spins on her heel, stalking to her battered metal locker. The sticker on the front reads “Chicks Fix Bikes” in fading Sharpie. She flings it open and pulls out her phone, hands black but deft.

Jimmy watches, arms folded, eyebrow c****d. “You gonna ask her or just drive over there and make a scene?”

“I don’t make scenes,” she snaps, thumbs flying over the screen. “I make solutions.”

He snorts. “Yeah, sure. Tell that to the guy you decked last spring.”

“He called me sweetheart,” Rhonda says. “It was self-defense.”

She finishes her text. It’s short, but her thumb hovers over SEND. She wants to phrase it right. Doesn’t want Alicia to panic, but she also wants her to know she’s got backup.

The shop smells like hot rubber and the too-sweet tang of energy drinks. Somewhere outside, a Harley with straight pipes tears down the street, shattering the silence for a full ten seconds.

Rhonda sends the message:

You okay? Need to talk. Stuff going down. Text me ASAP. Love you.

She wants to add “Don’t do anything stupid,” but that’s not her style. She sets the phone down, stares at the screen like it might confess something.

Jimmy edges closer. “You know, Red, people always talk. Maybe it’s nothing.”

She glares at him. “If it was nothing, you wouldn’t be bringing it up at nine a.m. with your face all smug.”

He shrugs again, not denying it. “Just thought you’d want a heads up. No offense.”

She waves him off, more brusque than necessary. “Thanks. I’ll handle it.”

Jimmy’s already rolling back under the Triumph, but his voice drifts out, casual as an afterthought: “If you need backup, I’m off by five.”

“Noted,” she mutters, already mentally plotting her next move.

The Harley’s cam is still stuck. She dives back under the tank, wrench in hand, but her focus is shot. Every move is angrier than it needs to be.

After the third try, the damn bolt finally breaks free. She grins, baring her teeth, and wipes her forehead with her wrist, leaving a streak of black that matches her mood.

The phone buzzes. A new message. She drops the wrench and snatches the phone.

It’s from Alicia. Only three words, but it says everything:

Please call me.

Rhonda checks the time, sees it’s barely nine-thirty, and wonders how fast she can get across town in traffic.

She’s already halfway out of her coveralls before she even answers.

In the corner booth of the café, Alicia has found the world’s smallest safe haven. Outside, the city hammers on: the clatter of streetcars, the shrill spill of traffic, the pulse of people who don’t know or care that her heart is pounding at a sprint. Here, everything is soft—muffins under glass, gentle jazz burrowing into the air, the glow of old lamps reflecting off beat-up tabletops. There’s only one hard thing: Mark’s hand, wrapped tight around hers beneath the Formica, knuckles white, his thumb moving small circles on her palm like he’s winding courage.

He’s overdressed for the place, business suit stiff and tidy, the only sign of rebellion a loosened tie in soft blue. Alicia is in one of Rhonda’s hand-me-down flannels, sleeves rolled back, hair wild and still a little wet from her walk over. The contrast is sweet, not sharp—a reminder of everything she adores about him, and everything that could break them.

Mark leans in, careful not to draw attention, but his voice quivers anyway. “Someone from the office stopped me in the hall. Said congratulations.” He doesn’t blink, just stares at their hands as if they hold the answer.

Alicia’s pulse flickers. “Congratulations for what?” she says, barely above a whisper.

Mark’s voice drops even lower, low enough that she has to bend toward him. Their knees touch under the table. “They said ‘best of luck with the wedding plans.’”

She tries to laugh, but it catches in her throat. “That’s news to me,” she says, but her mind’s already racing. “Who told them?”

He shakes his head. “You know how it is. Gossip spreads faster than a virus.” His smile is wry, but the tension in his jaw doesn’t ease. “I thought we were careful.”

“We are careful,” she insists, maybe a little too sharply, and Mark looks up, finally meeting her eyes. His gaze is soft but terrified. She hates that it’s always like this: love as something they have to hide, have to defend, have to almost apologize for.

“Is it so bad?” Alicia asks, her voice threading around his. She reaches out with her free hand, covers his, and for a second it’s like no one else in the world exists. “So what if people are talking?”