Zen had another job the next day.
Industrial. Some kind of machine, I did not ask what it did or where it was going. I picked it up, made the drop, collected five thousand dollars, and drove home.
I sat in the driveway and looked at the money for a second. Then I ordered the parts.
* * *
Cold air intake, cat-back exhaust, performance tune, upgraded intercooler. Everything bolt-on. Parts came over two days and I spent the weekend in the driveway working through it.
Last thing was the mid-muffler delete. I was under the car finishing the second cut when I heard footsteps on the sidewalk slow down and stop.
I slid out.
Cassie. Standing at the end of the driveway in sweats, hands in her pockets, looking at the car and then at me.
"You busy today?" she said.
"Give me an hour."
I expected her to leave and come back. Instead she sat down on the curb and started talking. Something about Lexi, something about her mom, something at the mall. I was back under the car within two minutes. I caught maybe half of what she said. She did not seem to need me to catch all of it. She just needed somewhere to put it.
I finished the cut, tightened everything down, slid out, wiped my hands.
Started the car.
The exhaust hit different now. Deeper, louder, a low raspy growl at idle that climbed into something mean when I blipped the throttle. Sound bounced off the house across the street and came back.
Cassie stood up off the curb. Her mouth was open a little.
"Oh my God."
"Yeah."
She walked closer, looked at the car, then at me.
"That is your car?"
"That is my car."
She was smiling. I said come in. She followed me inside.
* * *
House was empty. Mom working, Rue and Gia both out.
Cassie sat on the kitchen counter while I washed my hands. Still going, onto McKay now, about how nobody ever just listened without waiting for their turn.
"You always listen to me," she said. "Even when you don't care."
"Listening is free."
She laughed a little. "That is such a you answer."
Then she asked about the music. I told her the channel was averaging ten thousand streams a month. Pretty much everyone at East Highland had heard something by now. She wanted to know where the songs came from and I said most of it was just whatever was in my head, which was true enough.
She hopped off the counter and came to stand next to me while I dried my hands. Then she was a half step away, looking up at me.
"You are filthy," she said.
"I need a shower."
She did not move. I took her hand and she followed me down the hallway.
* * *
I grabbed clothes from my room. She stood in the doorway while I turned the water on. I undressed. She watched for a second then did the same. I handed her boxers and a shirt for after. She set them on the counter.
We kissed and I lifted her and the water came on over both of us.
Here is the thing about Cassie that I do not think anybody ever really sat with long enough to get.
She was not stupid. She was not shallow. She was a girl who figured out early that being wanted was the closest thing to being safe, and she had been running that equation ever since. Every guy she let in, she gave everything, because halfway never made anyone stay. She had learned that enough times that it was not even a decision anymore. It was just how she moved.
Jordan was easy for her because he did not ask for anything. He listened without needing her to be a specific version of herself. With him it was simple. And simple was the most dangerous thing for someone like Cassie, because simple felt like enough, and enough had a way of becoming everything before you noticed.
I lifted her onto my shoulders with her back against the tile. She put her hands flat on the wall. I took my time. She came with her thighs locked around my head and both hands at the back of my neck.
I laughed and set her down.
She washed my back after without saying anything. Then we got out and she put on the boxers and the shirt and fixed her hair in the mirror.
Walked home like nothing happened.
I ate a bowl of cereal and didn't think too hard about it.
* * *
My phone buzzed an hour later. Gia.
She was already talking when I picked up, voice tight the way she got when she was scared and trying not to sound it.
"There is this guy. He is not leaving us alone. We told him no and he just keeps going."
"Where are you."
She gave me the address. Two streets from her friend place.
"Stay where you are. Do not move. I am coming."
I was in the Scat Pack before she finished saying okay.
* * *
Found them on the corner. Gia and her friend backed against a wall, some guy in front of them not touching anything, just not moving. Seventeen, eighteen. Big enough that he thought that was its own argument.
I parked and got out.
"Gia. Turn around."
She looked at me. Turned around. Her friend too.
The guy looked at me. "Who are you?"
I hit him before he finished asking. He went into the wall and I grabbed his collar and hit him again and he went down. I crouched next to him.
"When a girl tells you no," I said, "that is the end of the conversation. You understand that?"
He did not answer. I hit him once more, not hard, just enough.
"Do you understand that."
He just looked at me i hit him again
"Yeah."
"Good."
I stood up, told Gia and her friend to get in the car, and drove them home.
She did not say anything the whole ride. When I pulled up she got out and stopped at the open door and looked back at me.
"Thanks," she said.
"Do not thank me for that."
She went inside.
I was diagnosed with a lot of things growing up. Depression, anxiety, a couple other labels doctors use when what they mean is that you have something that is not invisible enough to ignore. I was never good at hiding what was wrong with me. Jordan was.
Jordan could look completely fine on the outside while something else ran underneath. That is not something you are born with. It is something you build when you have to, when you grow up watching what happens to the people who do not have it.
The violence was part of that. Not anger exactly. More like a setting. Something needed to happen, he turned it on, it happened, he drove home. No processing, no aftermath. Just done. I used to think that was terrifying. I still do a little. But I also know what it meant that he was in that car the second he heard her voice go tight. Some people protect you with words. Jordan protected you with whatever the situation required. In East Highland, that was sometimes the only kind that held.
END OF CHAPTER EIGHTEEN