Crash

“You and me both, kiddo,” he said, tilting his head up. “But me for real and you just as a figure of speech. Your name’s going to end up in lights and mine’s going to be replaced by a number on some warden’s list.”

Stretching the other arm, I inhaled, trying to muster up all the anger I had for him just hours ago. I couldn’t do it. “Haven’t you ever heard the saying that your past doesn’t have to dictate your future?”

His forehead lined as he unwrapped that philosophical present. He opened his mouth; nothing came out, so he closed it again. Seeing Jude tongue-tied made me smile; it somehow made him less intimidating.

Finally, he said. “That’s some stinkin’ smart shit,” he said, hanging his arms over his knees. “Who said that?”

Folding one leg over the other, I shrugged. “I did.”

“You are one smart little señorita, you know that, Luce?” he said, appraising me with warm eyes. “Not only is your name going to be in lights, you’re going to have, like, three acronyms after your name: Lucy Larson, M.D, P.H.D, and some other smart fill in the blank D.”

“Enough with the flattery, Ryder,” I said, wiping my forehead off with the back of my arm. “You’ve got some explaining to do. Some honest explaining to do,” I edited. “Yeah, I do,” he said, thumping his head against the mirror. “Why is the truth so damn hard to admit?”

“Because it’s honest,” I said.

“So damn smart,” he said under his breath, looking over at me.

This man was the pope, president, and god of dodging the topic. Too bad for him he was dealing with the queen, holy mother, and empress of seeing through a man’s stream of shit.

“Ryder.” I turned his face towards mine. I leveled him with a no nonsense look. “Explanation.” I leaned in, lifting my brows. “Now.”

“Bossy, too,” he muttered.

Since playing nice was getting me nowhere, I elbowed him in the ribs and decided to get this conversation ball rolling. “So you stole a car?” How could I sound so casual talking about this? Only one answer to that riddle. Jude Ryder.

“I prefer the term borrowed,” he said, clasping his hands together.

“I suppose most felons do,” I said, biting my tongue two words too late.

“No, you’re right,” he said, trying to comfort me after my flash of bitchiness. “I am a felon. A repeat felon. And if I was eighteen, I would have been locked away for at least a solid month, not just a few nights. It goes on my record as car theft, but I did, in my mind that night, borrow the car.”

I inhaled a dose of patience. This was new conversation territory for me and I was running low on sympathy. “Explain to me why, in your eyes, you borrowed a stolen car.”

He shifted in his seat. “The Chevelle was parked in a buddy of mine’s garage. Damon is a few years old than me and would have graduated from Southpointe, but he dropped out after his junior year and opened up his own garage. He specializes in rebuilding old cars, like real piecers, and turns them into beauties doctors and lawyers pay a hundred grand for,” he said, getting all animated. “You should have seen this one El Camino that came in once, it was a real hunk of junk, not even good enough for scrap metal, and Damon—”

“Jude,” I stopped him. “It thrills me to see you’ve got a passion in life other than women and being the honorary president of the Bad Boys Club of America, but I’ve got about fifteen minutes before my parents start blowing up my phone if I’m not home.”

“Sorry,” he said, cracking his neck. “So I do side jobs for Damon from time to time. I’ve got a knack for getting underneath the hood of a sexy ass machine and making her purr.”

I bit my lip to keep from laughing. “I bet you do.”

“Ah, Luce,” he said, curling his nose at me. “You have a sick, sick mind. You know that?”

“I learned from the best.”

“Ouch,” he said. “But deserved.”

“Very,” I added.

“So someone had just dropped the Chevelle off last week to have a full body detail job done. Damon left town for the weekend to visit his girl on the east side of the state, so he left me in charge of the garage.”

This is where I began to wince because I began to see the picture in the connect the dots he was drawing for me.

“Saturday came and Damon was gone, the owner wasn’t expecting the car back until Monday, and the keys were still in the ignition,” he said, taking a breath. “And me, being the morally corrupt idiot that I am, saw an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.”

“If Damon was on the opposite side of the state, and the owner wasn’t planning on picking it up for a couple days, how did the cops find out you’d taken it?” I asked, feeling sympathy trickling back into my heart.

“Because I didn’t follow my number one rule of always expecting the worst.” He sighed, rubbing his forearms. “Damon’s girl chose Saturday night to break up with his sorry ass, so when he got back to the garage and saw the Chevelle was missing, he assumed it was stolen and called the cops.”

“Wait,” I said, feeling a little numb. “Why would Damon head to the garage at ten o’clock on a Saturday night?” That was working a 24/7 work week.

“There’s a little loft above the garage he lives in,” Jude answered, staring straight ahead.