Flying Gold Page 4

  She makes small talk with the tow driver, asking about his toddler and his girlfriend. It takes a minute for me to place him, but then something clicks. “Hey, did we take trig together?”

  “Nah, man. That was my brother.”

  “Oh.” Damn, I could swear it was him. “Sorry.”

  He laughs. “I’m kidding. It was me. I hated that class. I’m just giving you a hard time.”

  Between us, Tiffani laughs.

  “So you have a kid?”

  He nods. “Yeah. Gavin Oliver. He’s eighteen months.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “Thanks, man. What have you been doing since then? Married? Kids?”

  “Neither. I work a lot. And I travel a lot. I, um, I make movies.”

  “You make movies? Like—what’s that mean?”

  “I’m a DP. Cinematographer. I’ve directed a few things too—small budget stuff. I’m working on a Netflix show in Atlanta.”

  “So you’re a cameraman?”

  “No. Well, yeah. But I also supervise my crew, and the light crew. It’s a big job.”

  He glances sideways at me, then cackles. “I’m sure it is.”

  Tiffani covers a smirk with her fingers.

  “Work on anything I’d know?” he asks.

  “Maybe? Did you ever see Self’s Edge?”

  “That serial-killer movie?”

  “It wasn’t a—okay, yes, it was a serial-killer movie. But it was smart—it wasn’t like a slasher film.”

  Tiffani bursts out laughing when I correct myself and admit Jamie’s right, burying her face on Jamie’s shoulder, and some animal emotion I don’t recognize as my own snarls down deep. Jealousy—no, shame. I used to be the guy whose shoulder she would laugh into. And I threw that away. I push back against that feeling, shoving it into a box and locking it down.

  “Anyway,” I say with all the lightness I can muster, “I won an Oscar for my work on that. You know, red carpet, gold statues?”

  “Ooh, you fancy.” Jamie cackles again. “I never saw it. Heard it was good, though.”

  “You see it?” I ask Tiffani.

  “Fuck no. I don’t watch stuff like that. The real world is scary enough.”

  If we were seventeen, I’d ask her what scares her, and I’d listen and try to turn it into something we could laugh at until she wasn’t scared anymore. But it’s hard to feel heroic when you’ve nearly pissed yourself in the passenger seat while she hurtled you around a corner too fast for sanity.

  Thankfully, we pull up in front of the shop a few minutes later, and I escape the overcrowded cab of the truck.

  Tiffani walks me to Luis’s Mazda and presses her hands together. “So, Tegan or Tanner will call and let you know when I know what’s wrong with the car and how much it will cost to fix.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  She starts to walk away, and I want to stop her, but what can I say?

  “Hey, Tiffani? It was really nice to see you.”

  “We aren’t friends, Matt.” She pins me with an unwavering hazel glare. “Don’t make this awkward. I’ll fix your car. But I’m not going for hikes down memory lane with you.”

  I deserve that, so I tell her so.

  Then I watch her tuck her braid away and disappear back into American Heavy Metal.

  Chapter Four

  Tiffani

  I can’t get used to walking into a quiet shop: Duke’s lift empty, the office door closed. I know Tanner’s behind that door, but I give her space. Her fiancé is in the hospital—it’s not like she needs me in her face, being all emo and needy.

  The Chevelle sits on my lift, mocking me. Yesterday I drove fast and talked tough, but today it’s a puzzle I need to solve and I can’t let my feelings get involved.

  I hadn’t expected Matt to accept my anger so easily. To take responsibility. Not that he’s ever denied what he’d done. But his calm apology, his teasing about a douchebag tax, it all seemed so—so grown-up and self-deprecating, and it’s hard to stay mad at someone who is saying all the right things.

  Not that saying the right things was ever his problem. And there’s the anger I need. It stiffens my spine and steels my reserve. I lower the lift to the floor and raise the hood.

  “Tiffani?” Before I can start examining the car, Tanner’s voice sounds behind me.

  “Yeah?” I call over my shoulder, staring down at the engine.

  “I’m going over to the hospital to see Duke. We have a tech coming at ten for an interview. I won’t be back in time, can you handle it?”

  “Sure.” Right, I’ve never interviewed anyone, but how hard can that be? I turn around.

  “Thanks a million.” She smiles brightly. “And can you check on the puppies at lunchtime? Brit has an OB appointment, so she can’t.”

  “Uh, yeah, okay.”

  “Great, just take them out to pee and change the pads in the corner if they’re wet. Oh, and if the crate ordered online has arrived, bring it off the porch for me?”

  “You bet.”

  “You’re a lifesaver, thanks.” Duties discharged, she rushes from the shop, leaving me plenty of responsibilities to distract myself from my feelings.

  But first, I call Mac. I call from the shop phone in Tanner’s office, not sure if he’ll pick up if he knows it’s me.

  “MacNamara.” He answers on the third ring, probably thinking it’s Tanner.

  “Mac, it’s Tiffani.”

  “Tiff, hi.” His voice is cautious. “Is everything okay?”

  I squeeze my eyes shut and take a deep breath. “So, I know this isn’t the kind of law you practice—”

  “Tiffani, no.” He sounds as disappointed as my dad would. “What did you do?”

  “I was test-driving a Chevelle. I might have let things get a little out of hand.”

  “Goddamn it.”

  I forge ahead. “If I got a ticket, Tanner would murder me in my sleep.”

  “Yeah, and why would she do that, Tiffani? Maybe because the shop’s insurance will go through the roof?”

  “Maybe?” Definitely. For sure. “So, it would be really great if I didn’t have a ticket, right? Like, if the judge threw it out?”

  “Right.” He sighs heavily. “Who gave you the ticket?”

  “Shane Tucker.”

  “Fucking hell, Tiffani. He pulled you over six months ago and let you off with a warning. How do you think this is going to go?”

  “I’m sorry.” My voice cracks and my nose gets tight with tears of shame. “I really am.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  I let out a sigh of relief. It’s not a promise, but it’s something. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Without that hanging over my head, I feel lighter than air as I turn back to work on the Chevelle.

  The interviewee, Ven, arrives fifteen minutes early, fresh-faced and nervous, his brown hands trembling as he hands over his resume. He’s young—maybe nineteen or twenty—and tall enough I have to crane my neck up to look at him.

  “Hi. I’m Tiffani Ellis.” I gesture him into Tanner’s office and I settle behind the desk. “Thanks for coming in.”

  “Of course.” He sits up straight, shoulders back. “Thanks for inviting me in to interview.”

  “You went to Royal High and you’re currently a student at North Georgia Tech?”

  He nods, offering me a shy smile. “Yes. And I worked three summers at the Jiffy Lube in Jasper. Worked on all kinds of cars, all years.”

  “Do you like the work?”

  He shrugs. “I like cars. I like figuring out how things work, why they don’t. But Jiffy Lube is, like, oil changes and fluid top-offs. Rotating tires. I like a challenge.”

  Well, we could give him that maybe, but not at first. “Wha
t’s your availability for weekends?”

  “I’m free Saturday all day. Sunday after church.”

  I nod. “We’re going to be doing a weekend car clinic. Services, oil changes, tire rotation. It won’t be the classics, though. It’s for everyone—but we’re marketing to women especially, since this is a woman-owned shop.”

  His eyes widen in surprise, then he grins. “Sounds like you want to make money.”

  “We like money.” I grin back. “How do you feel about reporting to a woman?”

  “I’ve been reporting to my mama all my life.” He shrugs. “I don’t feel any kind of way about it. It’s what it is.”

  Good. “The position is part-time at first, and it won’t be much different from what you did at Jiffy Lube, but if it goes well, we can probably find more hours for you by summer.”

  “Does this mean I have the job?”

  What the heck. I like the kid. And Tanner did leave me in charge. “You bet.” I scribble down my email address on one of Tanner’s ubiquitous sticky notes and hand it over. “Send me your measurements for the uniforms. Tanner will call you and let you know when to start.”

  I take him out into the shop, introduce him to Tegan and Tyler. “Ty does our IT stuff, but he also helps Tanner with social media,” I explain as Tyler turns back to his computer. “Our other tech is Duke Wilson. He’s on medical leave for a little bit.”

  “Makayla Wilson’s older brother?”

  “You know Kayla?”

  He nods. “Yeah, she and my sister have been tight for years. Don’t know her brother, though. Hope he’s okay.”

  “He will be.”

  But that afternoon, when Tanner comes back from visiting him in the hospital, I’m not sure I’m going to be.

  “You told him he got the job? Tiffani, I haven’t even met him yet. I have three other applicants for the position.”

  I shut her office door behind me. “I like him. He has the exact kind of experience we need.”

  “So do the three other guys applying for the job. I can’t believe you would just make this decision unilaterally.”

  “Like you decided to change our pay structure? Picked out uniforms? Fucked an employee?”

  “Trust, none of those things were unilateral.” She pulls the pencil out of her hair. “Duke came up with that pay structure. You picked out the color of the coveralls. And I’m pretty sure—” She flushes. “Well, that’s none of your business.”

  “I know the cars. I know techs. He’ll fit in here. Besides, you left me in charge.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  Matt

  “Cut.”

  Jeremy Cutler’s voice echoes through the set, and I stop the camera, stepping back. It’s after six, and Cutler’s been relentless on all of us, making us shoot and reshoot a brutally violent scene. I glance across the set to Elspeth, who lifts one shoulder in a shrug.

  “You okay?” Cutler looms over Hannah, the teenaged actress whose face just filled my viewfinder, and she nods, careful not to smudge the made-up gore on her face as she stands on shaky legs. And they might as well be shaky, she’s been kneeling and fighting off an actor twice her size for most of the last hour as we filmed the murder scene over and over again.

  “It was a lot, but I’m good.” She rolls her shoulders, her neck popping.

  “Good. Go get changed, we’ll see you tomorrow.” Cutler turns to me. “Let’s go over tomorrow’s agenda. I want your thoughts on a couple of things.”

  I glance down at my phone, itching to turn off the do not disturb that’s forwarding my calls to Luis. “Okay, let’s do it.”

  An hour later, I’m finally letting myself out the door of Cutler’s trailer where Luis waits for me, a scribbled note in hand. “The lady from the car shop called—Tegan? She says you need a new ignition coil and to call her back.” He hands over the slip of paper. “You good?”

  “Yeah, thanks. Long day, you know?” I glance at my phone. It’s after seven, which means American Heavy Metal is closed, so I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to call her back. Ignition coil. Tiffani’s hunch had been correct. Smart girl. I can’t help the little surge of warmth that runs through me at that.

  “Boss?” At Luis’s voice, I glance up.

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re grinning at your phone like an idiot.”

  I laugh. “Yeah. Give me a ride home?”

  He drops me off at my apartment, and I fix myself a quick microwave dinner, then call Trent, half hoping he won’t answer, hoping he found a job, even if only for a few days. But he does answer. “Matt? What’s up?”

  “You working?” I ask.

  “Nah. I just left the gym. I have an audition tomorrow, though.”

  “Hey, break a leg.”

  “Thanks, man. It’s something a little different. But it could be good.”

  The phone goes quiet, awkward. It’s not easy to be the friend who becomes successful faster. I don’t like to talk about my work with Trent anymore, because I hate to vent about the sweet gig I’ve got when he’s not working.

  “What’s up? I can see you frowning through the phone.”

  I let my head fall back against the couch. “Cutler’s a fucking dick, dude.”

  “I think you pronounced auteur wrong,” Trent deadpans, and my lips twitch up in a smile. “Eh, you’ve worked with worse. How’s Elspeth doing?”

  “She’s fine, you know Els.”

  “Yeah. She told me about the car.”

  I freeze. Had I really not told him about it? There’s a hurt note in his voice, which makes it clear I fucked this up. “Yeah. A stupid impulse thing. It broke down on me on the drive home.”

  “Uh huh.” He doesn’t sound surprised. “And your ex-girlfriend is working on it.”

  “Yeah, Tiffani.”

  “Remember freshman year, at Columbia?”

  Where is he going with this? “Yeah, most parts.”

  “You spent the first six months pining over this girl back home. Ani, right? Short for Tiffani?”

  “Our breakup was pretty sudden.”

  “So, you think buying a hot car and letting her fix it up is going to repair whatever fuck up you made ten years ago?”

  “That’s not—Jesus, Trent. You’re as bad as she is. We’re not—it’s not like that.”

  “You stupid motherfucker.” There’s no animosity in his voice. Just pity. “Go ahead and find yourself a therapist, okay? I’m not gonna be there to nurse you through this one.”

  “I told you, it’s not like that.”

  “And you’re a terrible actor.”

  At least he said actor instead of liar. I have to change the subject.

  “Tell me about your audition.” I get comfortable on the sofa, folding a pillow over my lap and propping my feet up on the coffee table. “What kind of gig is it?”

  There’s a long silence. Is he surprised I asked? Have I been that self-centered since coming to Atlanta? “Trent?”

  “I don’t want to get my hopes up too much. But it’s a stand-up gig. A regular Thursday night thing.”

  Trent hasn’t done stand-up in years, but back when we were in school, he was a campus legend, regularly drawing crowds to neighborhood bars on open-mic nights.

  “That’s amazing. Good luck.”

  “Thanks. You know, maybe serious acting wasn’t really my thing. Maybe, being caught up in your orbit, I sort of thought it could be, but it took you leaving for me to realize that isn’t what I want.”

  Ouch. “You know I think comedy is serious acting, right? And I’m happy for you to do what makes you happy.”

  “Yeah, I know. It’s just sometimes, when you go chasing dreams with someone, it turns out you don’t want the same things, and it’s hard to tell the other person. So, I’m sorry, brother. I didn’t want to let
you down.”

  “Jesus, Trent. You never let me down.”

  “Yeah, anyway. Tomorrow. Think good thoughts for me.”

  “You got it, but you don’t need them. You’re gonna be amazing.”

  Chapter Five

  Matt

  Luis pulls up in front of the shop, giving it a bit of a side eye. “I still can’t believe your high school sweetheart runs a car shop that looks like something out of a movie.”

  I look out the window, trying to picture it through the eyes of a stranger. Red awnings, a neon sign—chrome everywhere. A total nostalgia-fest for an era long before Tiffani or I had been born, let alone Luis. It makes me grin. “Maybe someday it will be in one. Thanks for the ride.”

  I step out of the car and wave to Luis as he drives away. The shop door swings open and Tanner steps out, laughing. Her smile falters when she sees me, but then she returns her attention to the blonde woman following her out the door, and I step past them into the shop.

  There’s a buzz of commotion that I don’t remember from the last time I came to pick up my car, the time Tiffani and I went for that terrifying drive. And it’s not just the Ellis family. A young Black guy barely out of high school rolls a tire past me. “Have you been helped?” he calls over his shoulder. “I’ll get Duke for you.”

  Bemused, I step back against the wall and watch as the techs scurry around the shop. Finally, a huge guy with a black eye and a clipboard approaches.

  “What’s your name?” He looks down at the clipboard, then peers at me. “You here for the clinic?”

  “Um, I’m Matt Adams. Here to pick up my Chevelle.”

  He scowls at me. “Figures. I’ll get it.”

  “Wait—I need to talk to Tiffani. I need to—” Apologize again? Thank her?

  “I doubt she has anything to say to you.” He lopes off toward the chaos in the back of the shop, leaving me standing nervously in the doorway. Yikes. He’s probably right. What could Tiffani possibly have to say to me? Another version of her “we’re not friends” speech?

  Still, when the dude with the black eye returns, she’s at his side, wiping her hands on a rag, and she offers me a tight smile. “Matt.”