Page 104 of Wanted
The moment he slid into the driver’s seat of their junky car, he picked Knox’s number and waited in complete silence. He hadn’t been hopeful on the way here, but right now, there was a radiance to his emotions, and there was only one person he longed to share it with.
“I got a job,” he said as soon as Knox picked up.
Knox whistled and laughed. “Look at you, Little Spoon! I’m impressed.”
The praise gave Liv wings. He shifted, sitting with his knees facing the stick, and exhaled, watching the glow of the party at the biker bar while Knox’s melodic voice sung into his ear. “Aaand, I’m also doing the race in December.”
This time the enthusiasm wasn’t instant. “Are you sure? Did you find out something more about it?”
Liv sighed. “Yeah. Big prize pot. Blizzard is supposedly coming.”
“Fuuuck… He’s an aggressive driver, Liv. How big is the prize pot?”
“He wouldn’t have come for scraps, that’s for sure,” Liv muttered, wondering how fast the frost would come. Because if he was to do this, he needed to practice dealing with icy roads. Something he’d never experienced.
Knox sighed. “We don’t even have the right kind of car, Liv. I was thinking about it, to be honest. Maybe we’ll be able to work it out by next year?”
The corners of Liv’s mouth dropped, and as he leaned against the seat, something bothered him, like a grain of sand inside the shoe. “We can prepare a car. There’s more than enough time,” he said, reaching to his back, seeking the cause of his discomfort.
“It’s just… it’s dangerous, Liv.”
“So is you waiting for the surgery for any longer than necessary,” Liv said, frowning when he felt a rip in the fabric, and then touched something hard. Glass?
Goddamn it.
He pushed the phone between his shoulder and ear but pulled the jacket off, watching the smokers laugh at a joke he wasn’t a part of.
In his former life, he’d been a part of every joke, one way or another, so being back here, as just an observer, made him feel… lonely despite Knox waiting for him at the junkyard. “But… I also kinda feel like this is the moment to establish ourselves here. If we wait too long, people will already have an idea about who we are. And I don’t like being a nobody.”
“Liv. You’re not. You’re good at so many things. And getting to know people? Shit… It’s been so crazy since we left California, it wasn’t even on my radar.”
Well, it was on Liv’s.
He thrived on attention, and back when his mom passed out on the sofa with a needle in her arm and Dad was away doing God-knows-what, clowning around was what made others notice him. Life felt somehow hollow without more people in it, no matter how much Liv needed Knox and how much he enjoyed getting to know their new buddies at the junkyard.
He needed to beseen, appreciated, even hated, but he needed people to know of him.
“I felt transparent when I came in today. People looked my way and then ignored me for the most part. Like I didn’t fully exist anymore,” Liv said, removing the jacket. “Back home, I was someone people wanted to be around. Who they respected. And here, nobody knows I’m good with cars, or that I can juggle bottles when I’m drunk, and that I’m great at racing. It’s pissing me off,” he muttered before rubbing his face when he turned the jacket and saw a piece of glass tangled into the fabric at the torn back. When he’d fought Cyborg, people must have seen them from afar, yet no one came to help him out or even question what was going on.
“Oh, Liv… I get it. It’s tough being in a new place. On the other hand, we also don’t have the baggage of people knowing how we grew up or who our shitty parents are. You’re the hot, new mysterious guy, and at that race, you’ll be the underdog who wins out of the blue. People will remember that. We’ll sort out the car, and I’ll be double-checking everything from brakes to engine.”
Funny that Liv’s insecurities were what changed Knox’s mind, not the fact that he needed that fucking surgery. But Liv would take it and play up his discomfort if it made Knox compliant. He’d do whatever it took to make Knox better. “Of course I’ll win. With you cheering me on? Easy.”
Knox laughed. “You think Frank will be pissed off we’re doing this?”
Liv shrugged, pulling out the two shards tangled in the fabric, and he tossed them to the back of the vehicle. “I’m my own man.”
“Yeah, and Frank is the man we’ll be buying a new car off.”
Liv shut his eyes, counting to five. He hated it when Knox confronted him with reality, and he really didn’t want to think about it right now.
“Knox? Don’t be mad. I ruined your jacket. Ripped it at the back.”
“No! What did you do?”
Liv sighed, looking at the slashed fabric. He wasn’t about to tell Knox about his fight with Cyborg, because the less that man was on Knox’s mind, the better. “I slipped and fell over on a broken bottle.”
“What the fuck? Are you okay?”
