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‘Hey. So … your friend?’ he asked, jerking his chin toward Brooke.

‘My cousin? What about her?’

I cracked open the can, gunshot-loud in the confined space.

‘She knows cars?’

I grinned and sipped the soda. ‘She built that thing.’

‘She built it?’

‘Yeah. Well, she stripped it down and rebuilt the engine from scratch. All the interiors. It was a total wreck and she turned it into …’

I gestured out the dirty waiting room window at the Mustang.

I knew nothing about cars, but even I could tell this one was something special.

It had been a big thing at school, that first day Brooke had pulled up in her new car.

She had the top down, sunglasses on and her hair loose, and every single person in the parking lot stared at her.

It was like a scene in a movie. It hadn’t taken long for the news to spread that Brooke hadn’t gotten the car from her parents or as a gift – she’d actually done the work to restore it herself.

According to the boys in my class, that was hot. I thought it was hot, too.

My new mechanic friend went to the vending machine and punched in a code for a drink of his own.

‘Luca, the guy who’s helping her – he’s a total junkie for vintage cars.’

I grinned at him. ‘This should be fun, then.’

He held out his hand and I shook it. ‘I’m Mikey.’

‘Jenna,’ I said, tripping a little on the name I wasn’t used to yet. Mikey didn’t notice.

‘Pick a song, Jenna,’ Mikey said, gesturing to an iPad mounted on the wall with a handmade sign above it saying JUKEBOX .

They had a music subscription, so I had access to pretty much every pop song ever made. It took me a moment of scrolling to find what I was looking for, then I hit play on ‘Graceland’.

‘Nice,’ Mikey said with a nod. He propped the door of the waiting room open so the music spilled out, gestured for me to follow him into the main part of the garage and hoisted himself up to sit on a long workbench. I put my can down before copying him.

Brooke looked over at me, noticing the music, and grinned.

My stomach fluttered in response, and I knew I was going to chase this feeling – doing things to make her smile, to make her happy.

‘Where are you headed?’ Mikey asked, which was an innocent enough question. It wasn’t his fault it put my hackles up.

‘Denver. For a funeral.’

‘Ah. I’m sorry.’

‘Thanks.’

Our fake funeral cover story didn’t invite people to ask more questions, and while Mikey seemed nice, I wasn’t going to take the risk.

From across the open space I could hear Brooke arguing with Luca as he raised the Mustang up on one of the car lifts.

‘What’s she looking for?’ Mikey asked.

‘I have no idea.’ That was almost the truth. ‘Honestly, I don’t know anything about cars. That’s her department.’

He nodded slowly. ‘Don’t see many girls working on cars. Not around here, anyway.’

‘She’s … special,’ I said, hoping he didn’t see straight through me.

That made him laugh. He gave me a long look out of the corner of his eye. ‘She ain’t your cousin, is she?’ he asked with a gently teasing smile.

I felt myself immediately blush deep red, my cheeks tingling. ‘What are you talking about?’

He laughed again. Not in a mean way. ‘Hey, I don’t look at my cousin the way you look at her. No Midwest jokes. I’ve heard them all.’

‘She’s … not my cousin,’ I admitted, sure that I was still bright red. I could feel the embarrassment crawling up my throat, making me hot and itchy.

He grinned. ‘Oh, you don’t say?’

‘I’m not good with …’ I waved my hand in her direction in a way I hoped would explain everything.

‘Girls?’

‘I’m better with girls than I am with boys.’

That made him laugh again, showing off a gold tooth. I liked Mikey. He was all right.

‘Boys ain’t shit. You’re doing good with her.’

‘I’m not doing anything with her.’ He didn’t need to know how often I daydreamed about doing something with Brooke. That wasn’t relevant right now.

‘For real? Man, that’s a shame,’ he said, sounding sincere.

‘She’s way out of my league. And probably straight.’

‘Only probably?’ he asked with a raised eyebrow.

‘Almost certainly.’

‘Ah, well. She’s a pretty girl. So are you, for what it’s worth.’

‘Now you’re being a creep.’ I barely kept the laughter out of my voice.

‘Nah. Just stating a fact.’

‘Creepy,’ I muttered, and sipped my Sprite to hide my smile. Mikey still noticed, though.

‘Hey, I’m an engaged man,’ he started, then stopped to pull his phone out of his pocket. It lit up with a picture of a beautiful woman with dark, curly hair and freckles, holding a tiny dog. The dog was licking the end of her nose, and she was laughing.

‘Congratulations,’ I said. ‘She’s very pretty.’

‘I agree.’ Mikey finished his soda and burped loudly. ‘Gotta get back to work.’ He hopped down off the workbench. ‘Shoot your shot, Jenna.’

That was easy for him to say. He was a decent-looking straight guy who could shoot his shot at a pretty straight girl. My situation wasn’t quite so straightforward.

Ha. Pun intended.

I slid to the floor and picked up my can before wandering over to where Brooke and Luca were arguing loudly. And flirting loudly. I didn’t know you could flirt while arguing, but they were doing a very good job of it.

‘What’s up?’

They both stopped mid-sentence and whipped around to look at me. I sipped my Sprite.

‘Luca is insulting my car,’ Brooke said, putting her hands back on her hips.

I was starting to learn that was Brooke’s argument mode.

‘I’m just saying ,’ he started. ‘If you wanted to build for speed, you should’ve taken out the –’

‘Did you find the thing?’ I asked, before Luca could build up a full head of steam.

‘Not yet,’ Brooke said.

She clicked on a flashlight and started scanning the underside of the car again.

‘Did you check the engine?’ They both looked at me. I shrugged. ‘It could be in the engine.’

Luca raised his eyebrows. ‘If you told me what you were looking for, I could help.’

‘I told you,’ Brooke said. ‘I won’t know what I’m looking for until I find it.’

He huffed at her. ‘All right. Step back.’

We moved out of the way of the lift and Luca brought the car back down. Before he could step in, Brooke popped the hood and surveyed the engine.

Luca whistled between his teeth. ‘Good work.’

How he could tell from just looking at it, I had no idea. I did get the feeling Brooke was enjoying showing off her car, though. I couldn’t blame her for that.

‘There,’ she said, and reached for a small black box, about the size of a credit card.

It took one hard yank to get it off, and Brooke held it up to the light to get a better look at it.

‘Motherfuckers,’ she murmured.

‘A tracker?’ Luca asked.

‘Her ex-boyfriend is following us,’ I said quickly. My heart started beating a little faster, but I didn’t think I was blushing too much. ‘We couldn’t figure out how he knew where we were.’

Luca raised his eyebrows. ‘Do you want me to call the local cops?’

‘No,’ Brooke said, still examining the tracker. It had two metal circles on the back, which I guessed were magnets. ‘We’ll figure this out.’

‘Don’t break it,’ I said quickly, sensing that Brooke was about to let out all her frustration and smash it to pieces. I took it off her, and when Luca held his hand out for it, I gave it to him.

‘Why?’ she asked tightly.

‘Because then he’ll know we found it.’

It took Brooke a moment to process that, then she nodded. ‘Okay. What do you think we should do?’

I glanced over at Luca, wondering if we could trust him. They seemed like decent guys here.

‘If a man comes in …’

He nodded, picking up where I was going. ‘What does he look like?’ he asked, turning the tracker over in his hands.

I ran down the basic description of Chris, not sure if I was feeling vindicated or scared to death.

‘He might be traveling with his sister,’ Brooke added.

I nodded. ‘Right. There could be two of them.’

‘We mostly take care of locals here, or pick up breakdowns along this stretch of highway. If they stop, we’ll notice them.’

‘Thanks,’ Brooke said. ‘Could you tell them …?’

She looked at me and I shrugged, feeling helpless.

‘A lot of folks,’ Luca said casually, ‘head south from here. Through the Navajo reservation, heading toward Albuquerque.’

I glanced at Brooke. ‘We could be going that way. Heading south.’

‘That tracks,’ she agreed.

‘Where are you going?’ Luca asked. ‘I don’t want to accidentally screw you over.’

‘Denver,’ Brooke said, and I guessed that she’d learned enough about him to trust him.

‘Okay. If your ex comes in, I’ll send him south. And I’ll get rid of this, too, in a couple days.’

‘That would be great. Thank you so much,’ she replied.

Brooke reached up to drop the hood back down and stepped away from the car.

‘Thank you,’ I echoed. ‘Really.’

‘What do I owe you?’ Brooke asked. Luca waved her question away.

‘We didn’t do anything.’ He cocked his head to the side. ‘You wouldn’t let us do anything.’

She snorted with laughter. ‘I don’t let just anyone touch my car.’

‘Well, if you ever want a job, I don’t care about the gender of my mechanics.’

I watched the shutters slam down behind Brooke’s eyes, and suddenly she was frosty and reserved.

I could already tell it was going to take me a moment to open her back up again.

Something was definitely going on with her and the Mustang, and I wished I knew her well enough to be able to ask outright.

‘Thanks,’ Brooke said tightly as she climbed into the car.

I lifted my hand in a wave and waited for her to drive out of the garage before getting into the passenger seat.

‘You ready to go?’ Brooke asked, nudging her sunglasses down onto her nose.

‘Yeah. Let’s get moving before they catch up with us.’