Chapter 23

Gabe filled another helium balloon,and this one expanded into the shape of a wrench. She should’ve appreciated its novelty, but her mind was too occupied with thoughts of Lori to be here, where it should be. She plugged the end of the balloon and wandered over to the reception area to tie it around the scaffolding desk RB had made by hand. It was another thing she should be appreciating. RB had been excited to show it to her, but Gabe couldn’t quite muster the enthusiasm needed.

“Still no response to your text?” Shay asked as she climbed down from hanging the Opening Day banner.

Gabe shook her head. “I haven’t heard from her all weekend. I want to send more. I want to call her. But I’m not being that stalky asshole.”

Shay hoisted herself on top of the desk. “That’s a good decision. You don’t want to blow up her phone when it’s obvious that she needs time to process.”

Gabe tightened the knot in the balloon ribbon, let it go, and watched it float toward the ceiling. “But I can’t just let her go, Shay.” She pulled her phone from the pocket of her cargo pants and stared at a screen void of messages.

Shay gently took the phone from Gabe’s grasp and placed it on the varnished wooden surface. “You’ve got to let Lori have the power, buddy. I get that this emotion shit is all new to you, but you have to let it be and let it hurt. She won’t ignore you forever.” She gestured to the Brewster in the back with the new tarp covering it. “The auction isn’t far away, and then there’s Max.”

Gabe blew out a short breath. “I hope I haven’t fucked that up too. She wasn’t there when I saw Max yesterday. The last time we talked, she said she’d start the adoption process with me and that they wouldn’t go advertise that Max was available. What if she changes her mind?”

Shay wrinkled her nose. “Nah, she’s not that kind of woman. She knows Max is going to be better off living with you, and she wouldn’t sabotage that just to punish you.”

Gabe frowned. “You think she wants to punish me?”

Shay grasped Gabe’s shoulder and squeezed. “I have no idea what Lori wants, but I’m pretty sure she’s not a vindictive woman scorned. She’ll talk to you eventually, and you’ve got to wait patiently—because she’s worth waiting for, right?”

“God, yes.”

“And you’re prepared to wait as long as it takes, right?”

Gabe nodded. “That had been my plan until I found out about the cheating ex. I told you Lori wouldn’t react well to my history with the Nelsons.”

“Maybe it’s that, or maybe she’s so pissed because you didn’t tell her after she’d spilled her guts about the ex-wife. If you remember correctly, I told you to tell her about Cynthia.”

“You also said that I didn’t need to.” Gabe shrugged. She didn’t have Lori’s memory for detail, but she did remember that. “I was too worried that it would ruin the friendship.”

“So it’s out in the open now, and you have to figure a way forward, hopefully together.”

“I guess… For someone who’s never had a serious relationship, you’re pretty good at navigating them.”

“You have to be when you’ve got as many brothers and sisters coming to you for advice as I do.”

Gabe gave a rueful smile. Shay had so many family responsibilities, but she handled them quietly and never made a big deal of any of it. “How is the family?” she asked though Shay often didn’t want to talk about them either.

“Which one?” Shay waved her hand as if flicking the inquiry away. “They’re all…still there. You know what they’re like; they’re still asking for advice and then doing the exact opposite.”

Gabe shook her head. “I don’t know how you keep your patience with them all.”

“Who said I did?” Shay jumped down from the desk. “But what am I going to do? They’re family. For better or for worse, they’re mine.” She motioned across to the back entrance. “Speaking of which, Solo just arrived.”

Gabe clenched her jaw and her fists. She hadn’t heard from Solo after she and Shay had left the restaurant, and Gabe had written and deleted several texts before sending nothing after deciding she’d rather confront her face-to-face.

Shay stepped in front of her. “Solo was a jackass on Saturday, but she was drunk, and she didn’t know anything about Lori’s past or that you hadn’t told Lori about Cynthia.” She took Gabe’s fists and unfurled them. “In her head, it was a compliment.”

Gabe raised her eyebrow. “How was telling everyone that I fucked up my career by fucking the sergeant major’s wife a compliment?”

“Not that bit,” Shay said. “The bit about you being a five-star general. You know she hero-worships you. But we’re a family, Gabe, and every family has at least one mouthy brat. Solo is ours. But she is ours, and we chose her. Remember that.”

Gabe rolled her eyes and nodded. “And every family has a wise woman,” she said and pulled Shay into a full hug. Over her shoulder, Gabe saw Solo offer a weak wave. She released Shay and jutted her chin toward Solo. “I’ll go clear the air then.”

“Good idea. Maybe consider telling her what’s going on with you and find out what’s happening with her too. I think there’s trouble in paradise.”

“You do?” Gabe asked.

Shay laughed gently. “It was obvious, but you were otherwise occupied with Lori and pretty oblivious to everything else going on around you. Which is as it should be when you’re in love.” She patted Gabe’s bicep and headed into the office.

“Wait—what?” How did Shay know Gabe was in love when she’d only just realized that herself? But Shay didn’t turn around or respond. Of course Shay would know; she knew Gabe better than anyone, even herself sometimes. She looked back across the garage to where Solo was still apparently waiting for permission to enter. “Hey.”

“Morning.” Solo shifted from foot to foot and looked at the ground. “I was expecting a less friendly greeting.”

“Oh, yeah? What were you expecting?”

“A broken nose, maybe? Minimum, a busted lip. Possibly a broken rib or two.”

“I’ll leave that to Tia. I don’t want to be the one setting a bad example for your kids.”

“I’m sorry for shooting my mouth off, Gabe.” Solo ran her hand through her hair and looked up. “I upset everyone and ruined the celebrations.”

Gabe tilted her head slightly. “You definitely did that. I should’ve told you that I hadn’t shared that part of my past with Lori, but you shouldn’t have shared something like that over dinner either.”

Solo frowned. “Why hadn’t you? Told Lori, I mean.” She shrugged. “I know your go-to is Shay, not me.”

Solo sounded more resigned than petulant, so Gabe decided to leave that be. “Lori’s past with her ex is complicated, and I thought that if I told her about Cynthia, she wouldn’t want to be friends, let alone more.” It wasn’t for Gabe to share the details of Lori’s story without her permission. She’d only told Shay because she knew Shay could be discreet, and Gabe needed her advice.

Solo nodded. “Still, I was a drunken asshole, and I’m sorry. Are we good?”

Gabe pulled Solo into a brief bro hug. “We’re good, but what was happening with you that night?”

Solo shook her head and pointed toward the rest of the balloons that needed filling. “That’s not important. Today’s opening day.”

She was clearly aiming for uplifting but missed the mark by a half-mile. Gabe followed her, and they were silent for a while as they worked through the remaining balloons and fixed them up outside.

“Is Janie dropping by today?” Gabe asked. Instead of Solo’s eyes lighting up, they seemed to darken with a tangible sadness, a marked difference to her usual reaction to the mention of her wife.

Solo stuffed her hands in her coveralls and sighed. “I don’t think so. She’s busy with a big case right now. She’s supposed to be in court most of the day.” She tapped her watch. “I haven’t seen RB and Woody. Didn’t they come in with you and Shay?”

“Woody’s upstairs doing some socials, and RB’s gone to Bonnie’s for coffee and bagels,” Gabe said. “Everything’s in place, so you can stop avoiding the issue and save us some time by just telling me what’s going on with you and Janie.”

“She’s…” Solo swallowed hard and turned away. She picked up the helium cannister and put it under the desk then came back around and sat on one of the leather couches in the waiting area.

Gabe joined her and sat beside her. “What’s going on, Solo? Are the kids okay?” She almost laughed at her instant concern for Solo’s family. She was actually beginning to take her auntie role seriously.

“The kids are fine. They’re with the new nanny… But apparently they’re part of the problem.” Solo glanced at her watch as RB came in the side door with a tray of coffees. “We’re opening in five minutes. Let’s put a pin in this and maybe chat at lunch, okay? I’ll be fine.” She stood and headed toward RB with a false grin and a too-cheery greeting.

Gabe rubbed the back of her neck to ease the building tightness. Solo and Janie were supposed to be a paragon of what a good family could look like. If they were floundering, did Gabe really have any hope of building anything with Lori after her own breach of trust? Or maybe it was just that families and relationships were hard, and required work, and could be incredibly difficult to navigate.

Shay emerged from the office holding up the key for the front shutters. “It’s time, my friends,” she said and looked around. “Where’s Woody?”

“Right here.” Woody jogged down the stairs and jumped the last few to hit the ground with a thud. “Free oil changes are live on our socials. Let the mayhem commence.”

Shay unlocked the shutters and hit the button to open them, then stepped back to stand alongside Gabe. The line of cars snaked around the block. Gabe pushed all thoughts of Lori to the back of her mind and grinned, but where Solo’s had been forced, her own was genuine. This was still her dream, and she wasn’t about to ruin it for herself.

The metal shutters rattled noisily against the ground, and Gabe dropped onto one of their waiting room couches, exhausted but elated. Their five bays hadn’t been empty from the moment they opened the shutters to forty-five minutes before closing time, when they’d had to start turning people away. It’d been a great opening day, and it was nice to see Mr. Jones, the old owner, drop by too.

She wiped her greased-up hands on her cargo pants before accepting the ice-cold beer Shay offered her. Woody, RB, and Solo flopped down, and all of them sighed heavily.

“I think I’d forgotten how to work that hard,” RB said. “Pushing paper in an office has made me soft.”

Gabe grinned. Of the five of them, she’d been the only one still used to hard physical work. “But it was mentally tough, wasn’t it?”

RB shrugged. “Only when the applications weren’t successful.”

Woody twisted the cap from her bottle and raised it in the air. “Cheers to us having a successful launch day.”

Their bottles met mid-air, and beer spilled all over the glass-topped engine block table. Solo dropped to her knees and pretended to suck it up.

“That’s so gross,” Woody said. “Aren’t you worried you’ll catch something and give it to the girls?”

Solo got up and sat back on a couch. “I didn’t do it for real, Woody.”

Woody laughed. “You say that like you haven’t done the exact same thing a hundred times before.”

Solo shrugged. “That was before I had kids to keep safe.” She took a long pull on her beer and sighed.

Gabe shared a worried glance with Shay. They’d been too busy to have lunch together, so she hadn’t gotten the chance to pull the pin out and chat with Solo.

RB tapped the screen of her iPad. “D’you want the stats?”

“Sure.” Gabe relaxed back into the sofa, not sure if she’d be able to get up again. Maybe she could just sleep here tonight.

“We did 102 oil changes and used 597 liters of oil.”

“Jesus,” Shay said. “That’s $5,060.22 worth of work. Thank God Janie bankrolled that initiative.”

Gabe didn’t miss Solo’s jaw tighten at the mention of her wife again. What the hell was going on there? “You did that math quick.”

Shay held up her bottle. “A couple more of these, and it might’ve taken me a few seconds longer.”

Gabe and the rest of them laughed.

“So, fifty-four percent of clients today came in with the QR code from our social posts,” RB said, “thirty-five percent were from Mr. Jones’ client base, and the rest were passing drive-ins.”

“That’s pretty damn good, right?” Gabe asked and put her feet up on the table, avoiding the pool of beer.

“It’s better than that,” RB said. “Even if we only retain twenty percent of those clients for the first six months of business, we’d be doing great.”

“I’d like to propose a toast,” Gabe said. “I want to say thanks. RB, Woody, and Shay—you pulled up your lives on a dime to relocate here for this, and Solo, you convinced your wife to put in the lion’s share of financial backing. We used to sit around an oil drum in the desert, drinking beer and dreaming about this day, and I can’t believe it’s finally here.” She fiddled with the label on her beer to give her bubbling emotions time to settle. “Not only did we make it happen, but we also made it a huge success, according to our stats guru and our aching bodies.” She glanced beyond her gathered friends to the Brewster in the far corner of the garage. “And then there’s that little project in the back…”

“I’m nearly finished editing the video of the whole restoration.” Woody shook her head. “It’s going to be better than I thought it was, even after I take out all the conversations that shouldn’t go beyond this shop. When it’s ready, I’ll put it on a flash drive for Lori, and I’ll put snippets up on the website to create more interest for the auction.” She looked at Gabe. “Should I send it to her? Or will you take it personally?”

Gabe’s elation drained out of her work boots. “I can’t answer that right now,” she said and sighed deeply.

“Yes, you can.”

Gabe snapped her head around so fast that she almost wrenched her neck. “Lori?” She jumped up from the sofa and half-jogged toward the side entrance where Lori was waiting awkwardly in the door jamb. “Come in.”

Lori shook her head. “You come out.”

Gabe glanced over her shoulder, and Shay shooed her away, mouthing, “Go.”

Lori turned, and Gabe followed her outside. A hundred things ran through her mind, all competing to get out of her mouth first. In the end, she remembered what Shay had said about letting Lori have the power, so she said none of them.

Lori had parked her car in the alleyway, and she sat on the hood.

Gabe waited for her to say something, to yell at her for betraying her trust, or to calmly tell her to stop texting and that they were no longer friends. But Lori simply stared at her, saying nothing at all.

“You should bring your car around front so I can check it. The Bolts had a run of bad axles, and they can catch fire,” Gabe said after the silence had become unbearable.

“You should get in my car so I can take you somewhere to talk.” Lori pushed off the car and got in.

Gabe bit the inside of her lip. Lori was even sexier when she was angry, and her command pushed buttons Gabe didn’t know she had. She took a step forward obediently then remembered she’d spent the day under twenty or so dirty cars. She motioned toward her greased-up pants. “I probably shouldn’t sit in your car like this.”

“I’ve covered the seat with an old blanket,” Lori said. “Just get in and shut up before I change my mind and drive away alone.”

Gabe rushed around the snub-nose hood and jumped in the passenger side without having to be told a third time. She didn’t question where they were going; it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that Lori wasn’t ignoring her anymore. The atmosphere was about as ominous as she imagined a court-martial would be, but she also had a sense of hope. She was sure that the way Lori had looked her over was sexually loaded; there’d been a glint in her eye, and her lips had twitched slightly. Under the intense scrutiny, Gabe had twitched in an entirely different place.

Lori drove in silence through the evening traffic and swung into the underground parking lot of the Hotel Quantum. “Don’t get any ideas,” she said as she switched off the engine. “I just want somewhere private to talk, and somewhere I can walk away from at any time.”

“Okay.” It made sense, of course, but the explanation didn’t keep Gabe’s hope from kicking into overdrive. If Lori would just hear her out, if she could explain what she’d done, and if Lori could be open-minded enough, maybe Gabe would be able to convince Lori that she could trust her, that she would hold her heart as tenderly as if it were her own.

An unwelcome saying from her father slipped into her mind. If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, then we’d never go hungry…