Page 26 of Devilish Ink

I followed her into a tidy, warm space, quite at odds with the dark, cold expanse of the solely inhabited garage.

Kayleigh went through my resume, fingers drumming on the desk.

I glanced through the window at the equipment and tools.

The garage had top-of-the-line stuff. Basically a mechanic’s wet dream.

“You specialise in motorbikes?” Kayleigh asked.

I drew my attention back to her and her splattering of friendly freckles. “That’s right.”

“But you don’t have any specific work in that field?”

It was Groundhog Day all over again.

Except Kayleigh at least seemed like the type to let me down easily.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed the man, Darren, now leaning against the hood of another gutted car. Wiping his hands on a rag and clearly listening, but clearly not intending to seem like he was.

“I’ve got more experience than anyone in this city,” I said, focusing back on Kayleigh. “I never had any teacher. Or textbook. Or really any tools besides the basics. I got motors running because I’m a stubborn son of a bitch. Excuse the language.”

“She’s heard worse.”

I was surprised to find Darren at the door, arms crossed, but there.

“I’m good, and you want me working here, because I always find a way,” I continued, speaking mostly at Kayleigh, but also to Darren. “I don’t stop. I won’t stop. I’ll do whatever it takes.Always.”

Kayleigh drummed her fingers again on the desk, eyes scanning once more what little there was to scan on my resume.

“Any references?” she asked, sounding hopeful. Like she was trying to help me out. Like she really wanted to, if she could.

“Just my family and they won’t exactly give glowing reviews of me.”

Before Kayleigh could dismiss me with a kind frown and an apologetic apology, Darren asked, “Why’s that?”

He’d just finished rubbing the rag over his grease-stained face. Cleaned, or mostly cleaned, he looked almost like a new man. Years younger. Less jaded. Less bitter. His eyes, though, remained the same: sharp, assessing, reserved.

I sighed and decided I had nothing to lose. “One brother disowned me because I didn’t do what I should have done. The other brother disowned me because I came to do what I should have all along.”

Kayleigh glanced over to Darren and gave him the slightest of nods but she remained silent.

Something unsaid had been communicated between them: this was now Darren’s decision. Darren’s alone.

I turned to him. Exhaustion had made me honest.

“Look,” I said. “I’ve not been the brother I wished I could have been. But I’m here in Dublin to try and make things right. To fix what I pray is fixable. I need to explain. Or make him understand. Or, I don’t know, just beg forgiveness. I’m not really sure. I’m not really sure of much these days actually. I just know I have to be here. Trying. Trying and trying. Just like with those motors. Not giving up. Never giving up. Doing whatever it takes. To the end. Whatever that may be.”

Darren looked down at his dirty nails.

The new tattoo on my back ached. I felt Ryleigh as if she were there, pressing her hand against me.

“Please,” I said, all pride gone.

For Rian. For Ryleigh. For me.

I hardly understood the grumble that came from Darren’s mouth.

Before I could ask what the hell he said he was back in the garage, back beneath the undercarriage of the Bronco, clanging echoing in the hollowed space.

---