Lennox Read Free Page A

Much stronger than
they give you credit for.” His lips twist downward. “But
you deserve a break sometimes, too.”
    As Nash pulls back off the mountain ridge drive, I hear him again.
He’s pulling the wheel too tight—it’s all in the
way the tires hug the turns. Cyrus is wrong. I don’t get a
break. Not now, when Nash is so tense. I’ve got to keep him
calm.
    “Let us take care of him tonight,” Cyrus says. “You’ve
got work to do.”
    I click the stopwatch off as Nash pulls in. Just over eight minutes.
“Yeah. Okay.”
    I love Nash. But I’m afraid of him right now. I only hope that
the guys can get his head on right so we can go back to normal.
    Except, with Lennox out of prison, I’m wondering what normal
even looks like for me.
     
    The boys plan to head out to the bar once we close up the auto shop,
with Cyrus as the night’s DD. After they handle some crew
business, Drazic adds, patting me on the head. Great. I know just
what that means. So I won’t even ask. I don’t mind,
though. I like having some time to myself at the shop, to catch up on
the bookkeeping and think to myself.
    It’s the strangest thing. I grew up in this shop; it’s
as familiar to me as Uncle Drazic’s house. So many warm
memories of laughter with the boys, of kissing Nash for the first
time, or learning everything I know about cars right at my uncle’s
elbow. But tonight, as I log the latest receipts and draft minimum
payment checks to cover the shop’s debt, all I see when I look
across the mechanics bay are the times I spent here with Lennox.
    There, when he hugged me and let me cry in his arms the first time I
got my heart broken in middle school. And there, when
fourteen-year-old me helped him write the perfect Valentine’s
poem for his girlfriend, though I was secretly pretending he was
writing it for me. And then, sitting on that counter, our voices
hushed, when he clasped my hands in his and made me a promise for
once I grew up—
    I’ve barely thought of him since the accident—certainly
since he was kicked out of the crew. It was like he’d died, and
we’d all buried our memories with him. I thought he’d
faded from my mind completely, but the memories sure haven’t.
They were just locked up with him, and now they’re loose too.
    I shake my head and toss the overflowing file of receipts into
Drazic’s safe. I’ve got to pull myself together.
Nothing’s changed. Lennox betrayed us all, and he hurt Nash the
worst. I can never forgive him for that, just like the crew can’t
forgive him for taking the life of one of their own.
    It’s just eerie, is all. To know he’s no longer a ghost.
To think of him as a living, breathing human again, and yet, I can’t
feel the same obsessive love I felt for him when I was younger.
Because he’s no longer that guy.
    I lock up the shop and grab the keys to my favorite of Uncle D’s
cars—the 1979 Camaro, with its liquid blue paint job and its
engine that purrs.
    The back roads outside of Ridgecrest dazzle with starlight and warm
night air blowing up from the desert. There’s a highway that
runs right by Drazic’s house, but it’s studded with
potholes and tourists on their way to the mountains for skiing or the
desert for hippie communes. I prefer this path—just me and the
mountains, my headlights kissing the tree trunks as I wind my way
along the ridge.
    And then there’s this poor idiot in a stripped-paint Camry
pulled over on the shoulder with his hazards flashing.
    I’m sorely tempted to drive past—my nerves are shot for
the day and I can’t wait to sleep—but I can’t bring
myself to do it. I pull over behind the Camry and slap on my hazards.
I’ve got a decent selection of roadside emergency tools in the
trunk, but I need to diagnose the issue first.
    Uncle D always warned me to be careful offering help late at night. I
fumble with my key ring until I’ve got my butterfly knife ready
to snap open in case there’s any sign of trouble.
    Never can be