Forever Innocent
Page 20

He looked under the hood as I locked in the bolts. “I don’t see anything damaged. She got lucky.”
The sockets were solid, so I backed away from the engine. “She should be good to go.”
“Start her up. Let’s take a listen.”
I hopped in the seat again and fired up the motor. The clunk was gone. Bud dropped the hood and came around. “She’s good. Pull it around.”
By the time I came back into the office, Bud was leading an old lady to the door. “And here’s the man who got her ready for you, Mrs. Peters.”
I handed her the keys. “Ma’am, you must live near some rough roads.”
“Oh, posh,” she said. “I live in La Jolla. I just hate speed bumps.”
Bud coughed to hide his laugh and I kept a poker face. “Well, I guess we’ll be seeing you again in about twenty thousand miles,” I said.
“Works for me!” She winked, the blue eye shadow over her eyes as bright as a peacock’s feather. “Maybe I’ll mess up something else just to come back and get another gander at you!”
Bud passed her a clipboard. “Sign here, Mrs. Peters.”
I turned to head back to the bays, but the woman grabbed me by the arm. “It wouldn’t be very gentlemanly of you if you didn’t see me to my car and make sure it is in good working order, now would it?”
Bud waved me on. “Start it up for her, Gavin.”
Mrs. Peters continued to hang on my elbow as I opened the door and led her out to the Camaro, all red and sparkling in the late afternoon sun. “What a grand day!” she said. “I don’t guess I can sneak you away for a drive!”
I pictured her wrecked and broken motor mount and imagined jumping creek beds with Mrs. Peters behind the wheel, her white hair flying. “I’m afraid I am much needed here.”
“Well, poo.” She waited by the car as I opened the door, then she slid inside. “Let’s see what she’s got.”
I handed her the keys and winced as she cranked the motor, stomping the gas so the engine revved loud enough to make people across the street turn to look. I leaned in the open door. “You might want to take it easy.”
“This car is going be around longer than I am!” she shouted over the roar. “Life is short. Go after what you love and ride it as hard as you can!”
I barely managed to close the door and jump out of the way before she shot backward across the parking lot, then slammed it into drive and careened past me again, heading for the exit.
That woman was going to kill someone. Still, I had to laugh as I headed back inside. Bud was stuffing her papers in a file folder. “She’ll be back. Drivers like her mean good money for us.” He turned around. “Let me guess, she gave you some sort of advice about life being short, and she was about to die?”
“Yeah.” Of course, that got me thinking about Corabelle. Hell, everything did.
“She’s been saying that for a decade. She’s going to outlive us all.” He glanced at the clock. “You can go ahead and head out. I’m sure whatever kept you all morning is still nagging at you now.”
I suppressed a smart-ass reply. “All right, Bud. See you tomorrow.” I wondered where Corabelle might be, at work still, or on campus. Maybe I could get that pink-haired girl to tell me where she lived.
I should leave her alone. I knew it. But something in me just couldn’t let it go.
Chapter 13: Corabelle
I crossed the quad, anxiety rising as the engineering building grew close. Gavin would be in there, just a few seats down. The two feelings for him warred inside me. Anger that he’d called me easy, when I hadn’t been with anyone but him. And an urgency to get him alone, to feel, if only for a little while, the way we had when we were young and innocent of all the ways life could fail us.
The stairwell echoed with my footsteps, and I couldn’t help but run my hand over the part of the rail where Gavin caught me trying to black out. I had to get control of that now. Gavin showing up again was the sign that my little fits of crazy had to end. I needed some other way to cope.
I thought I’d be able to sneak in close to the start of class and slip into my chair without having to talk to him. But Gavin was waiting outside the door, his lab assignment in his hand. He looked more amazing than ever. Every detail about him was seared into me, the blue T-shirt fitting across his chest and arms, the dark stubble on his jaw, the sideburn near his ear.
He held out the paper. “You turned this in for me?”
I nodded, grasping hard on the strap of my backpack.
“Why?”
“I felt bad that I upset you.” I drew in a deep breath. “By talking about Finn.”
It was so hard to say his name. And not easier on Gavin to hear it. I could see it in how his eyebrows drew together.
A couple other students cut between us to enter the door. “Thank you.” He hesitated. “Can I see you later?”
Panic rose from my belly. “No. I can’t. Please, Gavin. It’s too hard.”
He pressed his lips together. “This isn’t over.”
“It is. It has to be.”
He whipped around and went back in the room.
I leaned against the wall, eyes on the ceiling, trying to pull myself together. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t be with him. There was too much past, and I was barely holding it together before he showed up.
Unless maybe Austin really could help. He seemed so much easier to manage than Gavin, and my secrets had no power with him.