Chapter 5
“So,” Riley said when they were at the kitchen table drinking coffee. “Can I tell my brother about this one?” Eli frowned and she raised her hands. “Pardon me, but I just don’t see what the big deal is.”
“Yeah, you really don’t seem to get it,” Eli allowed, making her scowl at him. “Let me see if I can explain this to you.” He took a breath. It had been a long time since he’d told this story. “My parents weren’t great.”
“Okay?” she asked, her brows drawn in confusion.
He gave her the ghost of a smile. “It’s all relevant, I promise.”
Riley sipped her coffee and nodded, though she still looked a little skeptical. “All right. Your parents were not great. Go on.”
“It was a pretty average situation,” Eli said. “At least where I’m from.”
“Where is that, by the way?”
“North Carolina.”
“So that’s where the sexy accent comes from,” she said. “Sorry, I know I’m interrupting. I’m just curious about you.”
“It’s okay,” Eli said. “I’d rather talk about the accent than the parents, honestly.” He shrugged and took a deep breath. “Anyway. There was never enough money, mainly because they both drank it all away as fast as they could. But my old man didn’t blame it on that, he blamed my mom for not working. And when he got mad, he took it out on both of us.” That bitter smile flickered over his face again. “Then she’d take it out on me after he was done.”
“What did you do?” she asked, sounding shocked.
“Not much,” he replied. “I was just a kid. It wasn’t like I could tell them to stop knocking me into furniture. I mean, eventually I figured out that the less time I spent at home, the fewer bruises I ended up with, so started hanging out anywhere else I could.”
“I guess I can’t blame you for that,” Riley said, her green eyes sympathetic. “Was there anyone else you could talk to?”
Eli chuckled. It was such an innocent question. “You mean like a counselor invested in the needs of a scrappy middle schooler? Our school was a little short on those. I picked up a group of friends along the way. Even got a hobby.”
“I feel like this isn’t going in a healthy direction,” she said, chewing her lip.
“My life didn’t do that for a hell of a long time,” he informed her. “So buckle up, buttercup. We all loved cars, but none of us had one. And since we knew we’d never have anything but a piece of junk, we started taking ‘em. When I was fifteen I did a lot of joyriding. I never actually stole anything--”
“Wait, I thought that’s what joyriding was,” she cut in. “It’s not stealing cars?”
Eli shrugged. “I always put mine back sort of near where I took ‘em.”
“Sort of?” Riley asked, arching a brow.
“Never return to the scene of the crime,” Eli said firmly. “And it was a good thing I always sort of brought the cars back because it really helped my case when we all finally got caught.”
“What happened to you then?” she asked, leaning forward.
“The same thing that happened to everyone else involved. I did some time in juvie,” Eli answered. “Not as long as some of the others because they didn’t think I was as bad.”
Riley gave him a smile. “Well that’s not so--”
Eli shook his head and held up his hand to stop her. “Still not headed in a healthy direction, baby. I was in juvie just long enough to meet a kid whose brother ran a chop shop. The kid liked me, mainly because I kept the other guys off his back. He was a little guy and I wasn’t. He said that he’d do me a favor since I loved cars so much. I didn’t have any idea what he meant, but when I got out, his brother was waiting at the gates for me. He said he’d been looking for a new mechanic.”
“What happened to his old mechanic?” Riley asked warily.
“You probably don’t want the details,” Eli said, remembering. “Just don’t ever try to scam a scammer. It never works out for you in the end.”
Riley swallowed hard. “Noted.”
“So I decided what the hell, and I went to work for him.”
“How old were you?”
“A few weeks shy of seventeen.”
“Did your parents--”
“They’d split up by then. Technically my mom had custody but she was pretty messed up all the time. She’d moved from drinking to shooting up. Some days she probably didn’t remember she had a kid. She sure as hell didn’t remember on the day I got out. She was supposed to come pick me up and I didn’t hear from her till two weeks after I got released.”
Eli looked down at his coffee for a second and then cleared his throat, continuing. “I was old enough to drop out, so I did. A few months after I started working for Tony, I moved in with a few of the other guys from the shop. I had everything I wanted. Liquor. Girls. Money of my own.” He smiled, remembering it. Most of the memories weren’t fond, but there’d been a few good times. They’d been stupid. But good. He shrugged and admitted it. “And, hell, they liked me, which was a lot better than what I was used to at home. They all said I was the best mechanic they’d had.”
“How did you get out?”
“I didn’t,” he admitted. “I probably would have stayed there for the rest of my life, but we got busted. Everyone went to jail. I was in for a few years this time around.”
Her eyes went wide. “That’s awful!”
“Well, I thought so. At first.” He took another sip of his coffee and tried to figure out how to explain this to her. “It was probably the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“How?” she asked, clearly confused.
“I got clean. Right before I went in, I’d moved on from drinking,” he said the words simply, but his voice had gone rough. “I spent a long time swearing I’d never turn out like my parents. Then I spent a few years doing the same damn things.”
She waited in silence now, watching him as she chewed her lower lip. He knew that he’d given her a lot of information to take in, but he couldn’t help but wonder if knowing the things he’d done had changed him in her eyes. He found that he was holding his breath, but she didn’t speak. She just watched, waiting for him to continue.
“Once I got out I knew I had to do something else,” he went on after a moment. “The problem was, there wasn’t anything else to do. Not in that town.”
“Why didn’t you move?”
He grinned ruefully. “You need money for that, baby. People kept coming around, wanting me to come back. Most of the people in charge were still serving time, but I knew that when they got out I’d have to go back or end up like the last mechanic. You don’t get to just walk away.” He shrugged. “And leaving felt pretty pointless, even if I’d had the money to go.”
She tilted her head. “Why?”
“It’s on my record. Anyone can find it. I was a high school dropout, I’d served time, and the only thing I knew how to do was put a car together. It wasn’t like leaving town was going to change any of that.”
“So...when does this story get to the good part where your life is finally okay?” Riley asked.
“When I met your brother,” Eli answered. “Told you that it was all relevant. He came to pick up a car and it quit working right outside my house. The mechanic he’d brought up with him didn’t know jack shit, so I helped them get it fixed up and he offered me a job.”
“And you came here?” she said with a smile. “That’s--”
“I said no.”
“What?” she asked in total surprise. “Why would you do that?”
Eli shrugged. “I’m not always the brightest. I knew that I didn’t have the money to get down to North Carolina and I didn’t wanna go through the whole thing about being in jail with him. I thought I’d figure something else out. Then my boss got out of prison. Came to the house I was staying at and told me that I’d be back at work by Friday if I knew what was good for me. He already had a car on the way.”
Her eyes wide, Riley waited for the rest of the story.
Eli sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I was standing there Friday morning, bright and early, but nobody else was there yet. The longer I stood there, the sicker I felt and I knew that I couldn't fucking do it, but I didn’t know what else to do. I had about 50 bucks in my wallet...and I just bolted. Used the money for a bus ticket as close to Kansas as I could get and I called the number on the business card your brother gave me. I told him the whole story and said that if he still wanted to offer me a job, I’d take it. He came and got me. Then he gave me an advance on a couple of paychecks and found me a place to stay. And I’ve been here for the past three years.”
Riley’s smile was soft. “That’s a really awesome story. I remember Shane telling me that he’d hired you, but he didn’t tell me all of that. I’m glad you did.”
“This thing...me and you...doing this behind his back doesn’t feel right.” Eli rubbed his chin, feeling the scrape of stubble. He’d forgotten to shave. Not surprising with the delicious distractions he’d had in the shower this morning. “It feels like I’m betraying him.”
Riley sat in silence, chewing on her lower lip. “Eli, it doesn’t have to be--” she began, then she sighed as her phone rang. “Speak of the devil, that’s Shane now.”
Eli could hear Shane’s voice when Riley answered the call, but he couldn’t make out the words. He could tell by the tone that his buddy wasn’t thrilled though. Riley’s face darkened.
“I was just--” she started, but Shane began talking again. “No, I--” Shane interrupted again, his voice growing louder. “I’m a grown woman, Shane!” she finally said, obviously furious now. “I don’t have to tell you when I’m not coming home!”
Eli stood and went to the sink with his coffee cup. The house was too small to give her much privacy, but he did what he could. The argument continued for a few minutes and ended with Riley cutting off the call in the middle of whatever Shane had been saying. She slammed the phone down on the table and let out a long frustrated breath.
“Does he micromanage you like that?” Riley demanded, rubbing her hands down her face.
“No,” Eli said, leaning back against the sink. “But I’m not his sister.”
She frowned at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that it probably wouldn’t hurt you to tell him where you’re going when you head out,” Eli said with a shrug. “He worries about you.”
Riley threw her hands up. “Why am I not surprised that you’d take his side? It’s not like this is a dangerous town.”
“I think you proved yourself wrong last night,” Eli pointed out. “And I’m not taking his side, I’m just saying--”
“I don’t need you to “just say” anything,” she informed him, pushing her chair back. “And you don’t need to worry about us doing anything behind Shane’s back, because I won’t be calling you again.”
With those words, she was gone. Eli was a few steps toward the door before he caught himself. As much as he didn’t want to, he needed to let her go.