Page 19 of Touch of Innocence
Sam raised his head, a wild animal scenting danger. A proposal? He didn’t like the sound of that. He could still lose his job. He’d been working hard, but the fact was, he just didn’t get machinery. The cars, the trucks, they didn’t speak to him the same way that they seemed to speak to Mike. And to Gunner, damn him.
“Yeah. I hire you, and you teach the kid how to work,” Mike said, and Sam felt a sick sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as he realized that Mike was talking about him. He’d been working so hard, and yet, he was still justthe kid. Would he ever be anything else to his boss?
It wasn’t fair. Mike was so damn nice to Gunner, giving him chances that he would never give Sam. The two men spoke the same language, and it wasn’t one that Sam spoke himself. Not more than haltingly, anyway. He knew Latin far better than he knew machinery.
Gunner paused, looking thoughtful, and Sam could practically see the calculations going on in his head. Both of the other men turned to look at Sam, who suddenly wished he was a little less tall so that he could more easily slip from view.
He was used to knowing what he was talking about. Ask him about Oscar Wilde, or Mark Twain, or the theory of relativity, and he could give informed opinions. Ask him about cars, and he was an infant. He hated that.
“Okay. I’ll try to teach him some stuff,” Gunner said, and Mike smiled at him and clapped him on the shoulder again. Sam wasn’t sure he cared for feeling like he was being babysat, and he glowered at both of them, but what could he even say?
As much as he hated to admit it, on this subject, they both knew more than him. Despite this having been his job for a couple of years now, Gunner was still better at it, and that stuck uncomfortably like burrs under his clothes, but it was just the truth.
“Good. I’ll pay you, and pay for your parts,” Mike spoke briskly, but Sam saw the relief on his face. This was a good deal for them both, Gunner and Mike. Not such a great deal for Sam, who was pretty sure he was being edged out of his job. How long until Mike decided that he would rather just have Gunner? “You do the work on your bike, and we’ll call it even.”
It was a generous offer, and Gunner would have to be an idiot not to take it. Sam shook his head, closing his eyes briefly as he looked away. He’d been working his hardest, he really had, but he just couldn’t compare.
Just let this job last the summer. That’s all he needed, and then he would be off to school again. If he could just stay on a little longer, a few more months, then Gunner could have the job as far as he was concerned. He would hand it over to him with gleeful relief.
Behind him, Gunner and Mike were shaking hands—Sam was pretty sure. Sealing the deal. Just like that, he and Gunner were both officially employed here, and Sam wanted to rub at his temples. Would have, if he wasn’t keenly aware of the oil which smudged and marred his fingers and hands.
It was weird, though. Even through his own worry and misery, he couldn’t help but be at least a little glad that Gunner was still going to be around. That Gunner had what he needed, a job. Maybe he’d even put down roots here. Maybe …
And that was where Sam needed to stop his train of thoughts, as abruptly as he could, actually doing his best to make it skip the rails and stop cold. Only it didn’t seem to want to do anything of the sort.
Maybe Gunner would stay. When his bike was done, perhaps he would just be content with his job, find a place in town or rent something from Ben and Isaac. Stranger things had happened, right? And when Sam was home from school on breaks, and Gunner was around, anything could happen.
What a mess. Sam barely knew what was going on in his own head, whether to be upset or hopeful, happy or dismayed. It was a mixture of all of those things in there, and he stared down at the scarred counter, at his own dirty hands, and had no idea what to make of any of it.
* * *
Mike left, and it was a relief to Sam. He didn’t want to see the judgment that he was sure was in the other man’s eyes. He was being replaced, that was becoming more and more clear, and Sam wasn’t even sure that he could really blame the other man for it. Either of them.
So he didn’t look at Gunner, either. He wanted to say something. To yell at him, maybe, or to congratulate him on having officially gotten a job. The two opposite desires whirled around in the very pit of his stomach, making him feel a little bit like he might lose his lunch if he opened his mouth at all.
It was far easier to just go to the car that he was supposed to be working on, to try to lose himself in work, as he had so often seen Gunner and Mike do. The car whisperers, who seemed to legitimately like nothing more than to have their heads and hands as deep in an engine as they could get it.
Sam didn’t have that. Sam was never going to have that. He had the idea that, for the first time in his life, this love wasn’t something he could learn in a book. And even the skill for it, while he could pick up some of it, he would never have the natural aptitude for it.
His books had failed him. He just had to hope that he wouldn’t end up losing everything because of it. His mind was distracted as he pushed the jacks up under the car. They would hoist it up so that he could look under it. The man who had dropped this car off had scraped the bottom going over a speed bump too fast. He’d claimed five to ten miles over the speed limit, but Sam was not sure he bought that.
Slipping under, Sam shook his hair out of his face and softly whistled as he looked at the underside of the car. The poor, poor car, which deserved better than what it had gotten. It was obvious that Sam wasn’t a mechanical genius, but he did know that the mangled mass of metal that had been left there wasn’t a good thing.
“What’s going on under there?” Gunner asked, and Sam found, lost in the problem solving, that he could actually just respond to the question like a normal person. No angst, no conflicted feeling, just answering the question.
“There’s no way this guy went over a damn speed bump. It’s a mess down here,” Sam called out. He reached up, brushing his fingers lightly over the metal, which seemed to give a little bit, which was odd. Metal didn’t normally do that.
But it wasn’t the metal. It was structurally sound if torn up a bit. But the whole underside of the car was loose, he realized. Gone over a speed bump? No fucking way.
“I think he tried to go off-roading in this,” Sam said, his voice thick with disbelief. It was just a normal, middle-class car, a sedan, nothing special. But there was dirt in the gouges which marred the metal, and, he realized, even a few small rocks which had been driven in with enough force that they had stuck there.
“Are you shitting me?” Gunner asked, and Sam frowned as there was a strange creak from the abused vehicle. Sam froze as the huge sheet of metal started to tilt strangely, to warp slightly.
“This is gonna cost a fortune to repair, I think,” Sam called. Not that he was an expert, but this wasn’t going to be any sort of quick fix. There was just no way in hell.
“Sam, get out of there,” Gunner’s apparently disembodied head said, and Sam frowned a little bit. There was an urgency to that voice, but Sam was getting a little sick of people assuming that he didn’t know what he was doing. Did Gunner want to double check? Probably, which made Sam feel like he was stupid.
That was probably his least favorite feeling in the world.
