“No more husband,” she replied, without even the slightest hint of remorse. If anything she seemed proud of the statement. “And what the hell is a GTO?”
Now it was my turn to look confused. I remembered Mr. Nelson’s 1969 Pontiac GTO more than I remembered him, or David, or anything else to do with high school. As far as car fantasies went, it was pretty far up there.
“You mean that thing taking up space in my garage?” she asked abruptly.
“You still have it?”
“Unfortunately yes,” Serena responded. “I have the car, the engine, and the dozens of different parts still laying across the hood. Exactly where Mr. Nelson left them three years ago, when—”
“They’re on the hood!?” I practically screamed.
The woman I’d known only as Mrs. Nelson blinked. “Well there were pieces everywhere!” she exclaimed. “I couldn’t keep tripping over them whenever I went in the garage.”
Panic stole over me. In my mind’s eye I could see the carousel red factory finish of that beautiful muscle-car suffering beneath the scratches of a dozen engine parts. I could see the garage, as it existed in my high school memory. That amazing piece of Detroit-built steel, throwing its guts up obscenely all over itself.
“C’mon,” I said, grabbing her hand and moving past her. “Let’s go.”
She stiffened at the abruptness of touch, but rolled with it anyway. A dozen steps later I was dragging her from the garage.
“W-Where are we going?” Serena asked, bouncing along.
“To your place,” I told her on the way to my truck. “Apparently we need to stop a crime.”
Five
SERENA
“Oh my fucking God!” Tate swore, his voice dropping to what amounted to an astonished whisper. “He was going to paint it?”
We were in my garage now, staring down at my ex-husband’s never-ending project. The old car sat exactly where he’d left it when he took off for the last time, all covered in pieces of itself.
“I think so,” I confirmed. “I mean, he talked about it.”
“You should’ve cut off his tongue,” Tate snapped.
The image of my tongueless ex-husband struggling to talk brought a smile to my face. “He took off all the grills and headlights and stuff.”
“At least you put down towels,” Tate breathed a sigh of relief. “Hopefully that saved the finish. Still, there could be dents underneath. We won’t know until we take everything back off, and wipe the whole thing down with—”
The cute guy from the garage looked even cuter now that he was talking to himself. I’d admired him the whole ride over, wondering how many engines and transmissions he had to hoist to get those beautifully-carved arms. Every time he shifted I watched the muscles flex, winking at me in the afternoon sun.
Easy there, killer.
Hey, I was only human. And not unlike Jacob, this guy was really pushing my buttons.
Push your own buttons, the voice in my head told me. It’s worked for this long.
One by one, Tate began removing whatever parts and pieces I’d stacked unceremoniously on the car’s hood. Back when I was trying to clear a path to the breaker box, I hadn’t really been all that picky.
“Why aren’t you driving this?” he asked, practically wringing his hands. His vocal inflection was that of a sane person talking to the batshit crazy.
“In case you haven’t noticed,” I laughed, “it’s kinda in a million pieces.”
“Yes, but are all the pieces here?”
Tate was looking directly at me now. Beyond the wild dark hair and sexy stubble, his piercing green eyes held me prisoner for a good five or ten wonderful seconds.
“Serena?”