27
RUBY
I forgot that I left my car at Everly’s until I stepped outside Morgan’s apartment. And with Morgan’s sore ankle—it doesn’t matter that she’s trying to hide it; I noticed right away when she got out of the shower—no way am I letting her walk all the way to Everly’s with me. Instead, I convince her to let me borrow her bike and set her up on the couch with frozen peas—despite her protestations—and pedal my heart out.
Everly isn’t home when I get there, but a quick text tells me that she left my keys under the front seat of my car. I text her back a quick thank you, along with a kissy face, before shoving my phone into my pocket and going for the keys.
There’s something else under there too, and when I slide it out, I see it’s the picture Everly took of me, lust-struck on the bleachers. She must have printed it out after I left. There’s a hot pink sticky note on it that says, We need to talk. Love you. And I know. I know. I run my hand over my face and head behind the car, safely depositing the picture in the trunk. I don’t want Morgan to know it exists, to know how far gone I was on her from the start. It’s safer this way, I think as I shut the trunk.
I recline the passenger seat and hit the quick release on the front tire of Morgan’s bike before sliding it inside. I have to take a couple really deep breaths when a little mud gets on my nice leather seats, but Morgan is worth it.
When I get to her apartment, though, I ask her if she’s cool with hanging for a little bit so I can get it cleaned up, using a little of the car interior cleaner I keep stashed under the passenger seat—okay, a lot of the car interior cleaner. She laughs and says yes before disappearing back inside.
When everything is said and done and I finally go in, marginally sweaty but feeling a thousand times better, Morgan is carrying plates to the table, pizza and salad already sitting on it.
“You didn’t have to do all this,” I say, torn between marveling and panicking at the utter domesticity of it all.
“No trouble.” She grabs some napkins off the counter and slides into one of the seats at the table. “I just reheated some old pizza and opened a bag of lettuce.”
“I know, but—”
“Eat,” Morgan says. “This is more of a precaution than a good deed.”
I raise my eyebrows.
“I get very, very, very hangry when I don’t eat. And I skipped breakfast.”
I laugh. “I’m sure I can handle you a little hangry.”
“Oh, it’s not a little. It’s like DEFCON one—run for cover, scorched earth, the whole nine. You will cower in the face of a hungry Morgan.”
“Good to know,” I say, passing her the salad. “Eat up, then. I didn’t leave any time in the schedule for cowering.”
“So where exactly are we going?” Morgan asks within minutes of us being on the road.
“You’ll see,” I say, desperately trying to ignore the constant thrum of What if this is a terrible idea? spiraling through my head.
“I can’t wait.” She sets her hand over mine as I shift gears, giving it a little squeeze, and for a second my fear flies out the window, disappearing into the warm spring air.
I’m alone in this car with the person I like. And she likes me back. And right now, that’s enough. I flex my hand, catching her fingers between mine, and her lips curve up in a smile.
Roughly ten minutes later, we’re pulling up in front of Billy’s garage, the comforting scent of grease and gasoline wafting in through my open windows. I glance at Morgan, who stares inquisitively at the building.
“Come on,” I say. “I want you to meet someone.”
Billy is hunched over his desk, wrestling with a jammed-up stapler and letting out an impressive string of swears, when we step inside his office.
“Here, let me,” I say, taking it from him and using one of my long nails to pry out the pile of staples from when he obviously just kept squeezing it and hoping for a different result.
“What are you doing here, kid?” he asks. He wipes his hands on a rag and then leans back in his seat. “I didn’t think I’d see you until . . .” He stops midsentence, finally noticing Morgan hovering in the doorway. She gives him a little wave as I set the now-fixed stapler down in front of him. “And who’s this?” he asks, looking thoroughly amused.
“This is my . . .” I hesitate. My what, exactly? “Friend” doesn’t seem to cut it, but I definitely can’t say “girlfriend” either.
Billy eyes me, curiosity dancing across his face. Morgan steps forward with her hand out. “I’m Morgan,” she says. “Nice place.”
“Your friend’s a liar, Ruby,” he says. “A polite liar, but a liar nonetheless.”
“Hey, in her defense, she doesn’t even have a car. She probably genuinely thinks your shithole is what garages are supposed to look like.” I smirk.
“You need to teach her better, then,” Billy says, narrowing one eye. “Can’t send her out into the world thinking that way.”
“I will.” I laugh. And this would be the perfect moment to grab her hand, to show Billy exactly who she is to me, but I’m not ready. Morgan tucks hers in her pockets, almost like she knows it too.
“What can I do for you girls today?” Billy asks.
“Morgan wanted to see where I hang out. I thought she could meet you and I’d show her around a little.”
“Well, I’m pleased to meet you, Morgan. And, Ruby, you know you don’t need my permission to go poking around in here,” he says. “I’ve got about fifty invoices to staple now, though, so I trust you can handle the grand tour on your own?”
“Yeah,” I say, relief washing over me.
I don’t know if he gets it, if he realizes that this is as close as I’ve ever gotten to bringing somebody home to meet my family, but if he does, he seems on board—and even figured out a way to give us privacy to boot. Billy hasn’t had fifty invoices this month, let alone this week.
I step into the main bay, pulling his office door shut for good measure. The garage is eerily silent—not even Billy’s favorite Best of Johnny Cash CD is playing, a rarity for this place. I take Morgan to the far corner of the garage, away from the lifts, where I have a little workspace.
“This is my area,” I say. She stops at the bulletin board I’ve filled up with pictures of models posing with cars. All of them are women.
She looks at me, a smirk on her face. “Nice pics.”
“I just really like the cars?” I say with a fake wince.
“Mm-hmm, yeah, all of these women have really, really nice . . . cars,” she says, then bursts out laughing so hard she snorts, and, oh my god, I love her. I mean, not really, but still.
I slide open one of the drawers once we’ve reined it in. “These are my tools here, and these are some parts I’m working on. Billy lets me work off stuff for my car. He’s a flipper on top of his regular work. He’ll bring in these really garbage cars, and then I work on them with him until they can pass inspection and be sold. That’s how I fixed up my car, actually.”
“There is no way that was ever a garbage car,” she says, gesturing toward the parking lot, where my baby sits, its fresh paint job glinting in the sunlight.
“Yeah, she was.” I reach into another drawer and pull out what Billy calls my “befores and afters”—pics we take when we first bring a car in and then on the day it’s sold. I flip through the pile until I find the “before” picture of my car, all rusted-out and ruined, and drop it on the table in front of her. She picks it up and holds it in view of my baby, squinting as she looks back and forth.
“There is no way that is the same car.”
“It’s amazing what you can do with an angle grinder and too much free time,” I say as we walk to get a closer look.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Look,” I say, pointing to a tiny little dent on the side fender in the picture and then pointing to it on my car. “Same dent.”
She scrunches up her eyebrows. “If you could turn that rust bucket into this incredible car, why didn’t you fix that dent? You fixed everything else.”
“I wanted to leave it,” I say, a blush rising to my cheeks.
“Why?” She stands so close her pinkie finger brushes against mine.
“It’s stupid.”
“Good thing I like stupid, then.”
I roll my eyes with a good-natured sigh. “Fine, I left it as a reminder of its rough times or whatever. You can buff them out and paint over them, but they’re still there. Still a part of you, and that has to be okay, right? You have to live with it, but it’s not the end of the world.” I bite my lip. “Like I said, it’s stupid.”
“No,” she says, looking at me so earnestly it hurts. “It’s really not. It’s . . .” She trails off.
“What?”
“It’s just, you do the whole pageant thing and then all of this. I don’t know a lot of girls who could pull off both at the same time.”
I’d be marginally offended if she didn’t sound so sincerely in awe. “Well, some girls do.”
“Yeah,” she says, bumping her shoulder against mine. “I guess they do.”
And I swear to god I might explode if I don’t kiss her right this second, but I know I can’t. Not in public, not in places that aren’t just hers and mine, that aren’t safe. Not yet. I look at her, and she smiles. I hope she gets it. I hope she can feel how much I want to.
Even when I can’t.