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And Rivalry Week is coming. “We’ve gotta get these other ones working,” I tell her.

Aro

“I should go in alone.”

Hawke side-eyes me, and I can practically read his train of thought.

I don’t think that’s a good idea. He’ll be nicer if you’re with me.

But I get it.

You don’t want to hide behind your boyfriend. Got to own up, get his respect. Yada, yada, yada…

After all, I did break into Jared’s house, steal his property, and kind of tear apart his town.

Maybe I shouldn’t go in, after all.

But I stop and shake my head. No, I should. He’s related to Hawke. We’ve got to get past it.

Hawke sighs, unhooks his seatbelt, and gives me a tight smile. “I’ll be here if you need me.”

I plant a peck on his cheek and step out of the car, carrying my piece of paper. I head across the lot, glancing over my shoulder and seeing him watching me. I pull open the door to JT Racing.

A roaring engine hits my ears, and I look over to the back corner on the right, a tech working on one suspended in the air at his eye level. I look around, scanning the rest of the area. Employees, two cars sitting front and center with their hoods up, and then the fridge, counter, and offices behind. To the left, a red stairwell leads to an office upstairs, its windows allowing for viewing down into the shop. The floor shines, and of course, I’ve always liked the smell of tires.

A man approaches.

“Is Jared Trent in?” I ask.

He nods, shouting, “Jared?”

I look up and see Trent appear at the top of the stairs. He wipes his hands with a shop towel and starts down, holding my eyes the whole time.

“Everything okay?” he asks.

He probably thinks I harmed his nephew or daughter.

But I nod. “Yes.”

He walks up to me, and I simply hold out my résumé. “You have a part-time position open for an assistant,” I point out.

His eyebrows shoot up. “And you want to work here?”

It’s not a question, just a statement, like he doesn’t believe me.

“I want to work,” I tell him.

Here is as good a place as any.

He stares at me, takes the résumé, and I watch his eyes move over it before he starts laughing. “Debt collection.” He looks up at me and then continues reading. “Sales. Security. Investments… I’ve never seen someone say extortion, fencing, assault, and embezzlement in such nice words before.”

“I’ve got gifts.”

“You do,” he says, reading over the document some more. “Back in the day, we probably would’ve been friends.”

But not now. He’s looking at me with different eyes, and I get that. He has things to lose now, and for a while, I assumed I’d eventually lose anything I did have anyway. Judging from the stories, he lived rather recklessly once upon a time too.

I’ll just lay it out. “I know the job is cake,” I tell him. “Evenings and weekends. Run and get food, make coffee, sort mail, clean up…I don’t care. I’ll be on time, and I’ll do it right the first time you ask.”

“And when someone leaves their wallet laying around?” he asks me. “Or you want to take one of the cars on a joyride one night, or a competitor comes and offers you ten-thousand dollars to steal my passcodes and my plans for my new engine…?”

I look away. Yeah, I get it.

I’m going to run into this problem every time I apply for a job or college or a loan… I have a record, and it’ll be around a while. References will help, but I need to get those.

Which means I need a job.

“I’m not going to steal from you,” I tell him.

He says nothing.

“I like it here,” I explain. “I like my siblings being in this town and with Jax and Juliet. I’m not going to ruin that.”

He cocks his head but remains silent. He hasn’t said no, which means he wants to say yes. He knows as well as I do, we’ll probably run into each other a lot, since I’m dating his nephew, but he doesn’t trust me.

I stare at him, unblinking, as his workers drop tools, slam doors, and shout at each other across the shop behind me. I clear my throat. “There’s a camera on me from the southwest corner, up by the window that’s painted shut with the dead fly stuck to the screen,” I tell him. “Another one at the southeast corner, but I really wouldn’t trust that one, if I were you. It’s blinking red right now which indicates it’s offline.”

His eyes dart up, glancing behind me to the camera that’s dead.

“There are also seven witnesses in the shop, other than you,” I go on, “and while I’m pretty sure Mullet Mike back there is high, since his pupils are as big as black marbles, four of the others made direct eye contact with me when I walked in and will remember they saw me here today.”