Page 18 of Shattered Dreams

“Shut up.” He looked at us both. “For real?”

Jeremy tossed a balled-up napkin at him. “See, we were thinking maybe you might wanna be a grease monkey.”

Smiling at us, he asked. “How the hell did you pull that off?”

“Pop did something kind for us. He made sure Ma was set for life and he left us three hooligans some seed money.” Jeremy gave him this big, toothy grin.

“Yours is in the bank, runt.” Ma said as she sat down with us, taking his hand. “You can do what you want with it.”

“Couple things.” He leaned back in his chair. “First. Stop calling me runt. I’m the tallest one here.” He smiled, took a drink of coffee, then continued. “Second, I’d love to.”

“Good. That’s settled.” Ma smiled and gave his hand a squeeze. “Richard has an apartment above the garage. Jeremy still lives here. I’m hoping you’ll stay home for a bit too.”

“How could I not?” He laughed.

“Now that that’s settled, we should have Olivia join us for dinner tonight.” Ma took her hand and wiped tears away. “One of you wanna call the shop and tell her what time to be here?”

He looked at us, confused. “What shop?”

Jeremy gave a shrug. “She’s the desk monkey at our shop, so she tags along with us on nights William works since it’s the norm from when we were kids.”

“Like, you guys mind her being around.” He blew out a breath.

We both shook our heads.

“We asked her not to tell you, thinking it would be a nice surprise. And of course, we don’t mind, Shorty. She was always up our collective asses to learn about cars and hang out. She’s one of us.” I smiled.

“She mentioned a new job in one of her letters, but she didn’t tell me it was with you assholes.”

“Ma, remember, she’s got rehearsal today.” Jeremy looked across and Cooper, taking a long drink of coffee.

Scoffing, I stood and reached into my pocket. “Yeah. I got twenty that says he bails.” I slapped a Jackson on the table.

Nodding, Jeremy reached into his pocket and pulled out a twenty and tossed it on the table. “I’ll take that bet. The guy seems like a pansy, but I don’t think he’d be dumb enough to let go of our Libby.”

“Why on earth would you say that?” Mom handed me the list for the store.

“Ma, you’ve met him. He’s a prick.” Shaking my head, I put my cup in the sink. “She’s different around him. Not as lively. Her hair hasn’t changed colors in the last 4 years she’s dated him. She gave up her sixty-five Mustang that we all worked on because he didn’t like it and felt she needed a car that wasn’t as fast.”

“Are you telling me she’s not driving Ophelia?” Cooper’s jaw dropped.

“Nope.” Jeremy popped the p and joined in the head shaking. “Now she’s driving a nineteen eighty-one piss colored Malibu. It looks like she borrowed her grandma’s car.”

“Shit, that’s not cool. You know even Gran wouldn’t drive that P.O.S.” I piped in.

“That’s still not nice. I’ve only met him a couple times, and he seemed polite.” Mom refilled her cup, then Coop’s, before sitting back down. “You know, Coop, you could probably pop into the rehearsal.”

“Ma! Seriously?” I looked at her as though a second head grew from her shoulder.

Is she fucking with Coop?

“What?” Shrugging innocently, a sly smile crossed her lips. “I was just thinking maybe Coop would want to see her before tomorrow.”

Damn, that was smooth. She just threw down the gauntlet.

“Eh, I think I’ll just hang at home tonight and be your date for the wedding tomorrow.” He shrugged easily, but the look on his face said another story.

Everyone stayed quiet for a minute before I looked at Jeremy. “C’mon, loser. Let’s go hit up the store and shut the shop down right.”

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