Page 4 of Jackrabbit

Thatfuckinglaugh.

“If I hear that video in my shop one more time, the poor sucker playing it is gonna be scrubbing oil off the floor for the next three weeks,” Beau said, low and measured, as he walked back toward the lobby. “Go home.”

Whispers followed him out of the room as his crew packed up their things and put their tools back where they belonged. It wasn’t their fault he was a cranky asshole about it. Every twenty-something who liked fast cars watching some cocky boy pulling a stunt like that would see the glory. The thrill.

It was good that they didn’t see the rest of it. That they didn’t know that the sound of rending metal dug into your eardrums like something physical. Like claws. Didn’t know that smoke burned your throat until you tasted copper. How your screams ripped you open while you dragged yourself from a heap of parts toward the heap that had slammed into you.

The lights of the lobby were stark white. They burned his eyes as he stopped with his hand on the doorframe. He took a long breath. Behind him, Liam laughed and James shouted something Beau didn’t catch. Swallowing, Beau made a fist and rubbed his knuckles. Tried to press the shake out of his fingertips.

He walked back through the lobby and tried not to feel like his boots were leaving their grit on white tile. Slick oil dripping from his memories.

At his bench, he picked up a bucket of clean rags. Pliers. A ½ inch ratchet wrench, ?, 1 inch. The same set every time. By this point, he didn’t need tape and a marker, though he used them anyway. Everything went right back into the same places it had gone since the first time he’d ripped everything out twelve years ago.

He’d cried then. Wiped tears from his cheeks with his shoulders because his hands had been covered in fluid. This time, he had a rag ready to keep his hands mostly clean when he removed the first hose.

By the time the carburetor was out and sitting on his rolling bench, the crew had gone home. Camila had turned out the lights at six fifteen while James and Xavier piled into the same car, and Liam started up the little Kawasaki motorcycle he’d saved for months to buy.

The only sounds in the shop were his—the soft scrape of metal, the click of a spring, the jitter of a hose being set down on cloth-protected wood.

The crickets that lived in the bushes outside the bay doors went silent as he wiped down a greasy spring, which meant the floodlights had kicked on. An alleycat or a person had to be outside, and his money was on a person because the coyotes had been patrolling these alleys more since it had gotten hotter.

“We’re closed,” he rumbled, setting a float down in its place next to the other parts. A shoe scraped through gravel. “And this ain’t the customer garage. Come back in the morning and go round the front.”

“Are you Merc?” the person asked, loud and confident.

“Mhmm.” Beau set down the pin he’d just pried loose. “Go away, boy.”

“I’m not aboy,” the stranger insisted, sounding every bit like a boy. “Look. I heard from some guys I know that you drive like a pro. And I have this job offer. Only, I need a coach, okay, and—”

“Are you deafanddumb, or just a special kinda stupid?” Beau asked evenly.

I heard you used to race.

How the holy hell had he heard that? Beau had been careful here. No one knew so much as his first name.

The footsteps came closer, echoing across the cement floor. “Merc, please. Hear me out.”

Beau stood up straight and wiped between his fingers. He turned his hand in the light from the flex lamp he had on his workbench to make sure he’d gotten the last of the grease. Then he set the rag down and turned.

And the floor ceased to exist.

Like someone had taken his waking nightmares and spit them out on his garage floor, that cocky little shit from the video was standing there in low-slung jeans and dirty sneakers. The floodlights lit him up from behind, Beau’s flex lamp casting a soft glow on his bare arms — one of which was covered from throat to fingertips in tattoos. Both dimples were out as he smiled like he hadn’t just wrecked the careful peace Beau had been building.

“Get out.”

That smile slipped, and the kid looked up at him—at least a foot shorter than Beau’s six foot six—frowning. “Wait. Wait, please. Will you just hear me out? Racer to racer, yeah?”

“You’re not a driver,” Beau snapped. He crossed his arms. “You’re a walking death wish. And I want you out.”

“Excuse you, you don’t even know me. And I just got a call from Liberty Speedworks offering me a try-out, so, yeah, I think I’m a racer.” The kid frowned, squinting at Beau. “Just because I haven’t been on an official track doesn’t mean I’m not a racer. I’m the best street racer in the tri-county area. Street racing is still racing. Right there in the name and everything.”

Beau took a step forward, pulled himself to his full height and made sure that the first look this little shit got of his face showed just how Beau felt about him. “A try-out offer because you got arrested for being a reckless idiot isn’t a real offer. It’s a cash grab. They’ll show pony you around, call you a Development Driver, and never let you in a single race.”

There was a temper lurking under that flippant bullshit attitude. But if he’d been hoping to trigger it and make the kid leave, he was disappointed. Just as if he hadn’t heard Beau at all, the kid was staring up at him with wide, violently green eyes. Beau took another step forward.

“Can you take a hint?” he snarled.

Chapter 3