Page 26

I forced myself to refocus on my teacher, who was now explaining that my word order kept favoring English instead of ASL.

And I understood. I really did, but it was still hard to replace one with the other.

My brain wasn’t wired for languages. And it wasn’t that I was messing it up. It was his impatience with me.

The disappointed look when I signed, ‘I lost my phone at the store yesterday,’ hit me. He made me feel like I was never going to get this right. I just needed to remember that his impatience and disappointment weren’t the norm. Dayton was always kind about it. And so was Dax.

I wasn’t a failure. I just needed more time.

Luckily, he called it quits a little early.

Apparently, he had a funeral to attend, which sucked for him but was good news for me because my brain was mush.

I debated canceling on Dax, who had finally managed to convince me to head over to his shop, but I really did not want to be that person.

I was a man of my word, and so I’d suck it up.

Look, this week sucked anyway. Ever since I’d learned that Creek and Bean would be moving out soon, this dark cloud had settled over me.

It would lift again at some point, but I was allowed to be sad about it, right?

Or even pissed off. In fact, Nash had told me as much that same night, stopping by my room.

Being angry was normal, he’d assured me.

Glad to hear there was at least one normal thing in my life.

The drive to Dax’s shop took longer than expected due to heavy traffic, but I finally made it.

When I stepped into the reception area, flashing lights went off everywhere.

Moments later, a guy popped up, dressed in dark-blue oil-stained coveralls, wiping his hands off on a cloth that couldn’t be dirtier if it had been black.

“Hi,” he said. “Can I help you?”

‘I’m a friend of Dax,’ I signed.

He smiled with relief. ‘You Tameron?’

I nodded.

‘I’m Bush. Welcome. Come with me.’

Bush? What kind of name was that? Then again, it wasn’t like Tameron was common and I had any right to criticize. I still wasn’t sure what my parents had been thinking when they named me that. At least it was easy to spell and pronounce.

I followed Bush into the actual shop, and the first thing that struck me was the silence.

Over the years, I’d set foot in plenty of car shops, but there had always been music blaring, sometimes to the point where you could barely communicate.

But here, silence reigned supreme, only interrupted by the occasional clank of tools, the whirr of a screwdriver, or a muttered curse.

I breathed out, then quietly removed my hearing aids. My teacher wanted me to practice, and here was my chance.

Dax was bent over an ancient Subaru, gesturing at a woman sitting behind the wheel to start the engine.

It spluttered to life with enough noise that I could hear it even without my aids, though through a thick layer of cotton.

Dax studied the engine, then gestured for her to turn it off again.

He couldn’t hear it, of course, but my guess was he’d been sensing the vibrations since he’d had both hands flat on the car.

Bush waved at him, and Dax looked up, then spotted me. He waved and immediately came over. This time, I was expecting the hug.

‘Good to see you. Glad you came,’ he signed.

‘Happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me.’

Dax gestured at a corner, where what I surmised to be an old car sat under a tarp. ‘Have a look.’

I carefully took the tarp off, then gasped.

I quickly folded the tarp and handed it to Bush, who watched me with a smile, then slowly walked around the old Ford F-100 pickup.

Oh, she was a beauty, even if she was in pretty bad shape with rust all over and four flat tires.

Mint green, with a short bed and a single cabin, she was from the late seventies, most likely.

Popping the hood, I looked at the engine and whistled between my teeth. Damn, it seemed to be original, with very few parts that looked newer. That would need some serious tuning, but it was in decent shape for a vehicle of that age. Fully restored, she’d be breathtaking.

Dax tapped me on my shoulder. ‘What do you think?’

‘Gorgeous. A lot of work.’

He shrugged. ‘You have time.’

Well, he wasn’t wrong on that one. ‘Is it yours? Or from a client?’

‘She was gifted to me.’

Oh wow. That was quite the gift.

‘You can work on it,’ he continued. ‘I don’t have the time right now. If you want.’

I did want. At least it would give me something to do. Something that required little communication and would allow me to relax. ‘Thank you. I would love that.’

He slapped my shoulder. ‘Perfect. Grab anything you need from the shop. If you need to order parts, tell Bush. He can order for you.’

Five minutes later, I walked around her again, my phone in my hand as I noted everything wrong with her. She needed a lot of work, but she’d be so worth it. A classic fixer-upper. Kinda like me, and despite everything, that thought made me smile.

But I would start with the engine because that was the heart of her. If I couldn’t fix that, it would make no sense to restore her outside beauty. She needed to run before she could look pretty.

‘Do you have plastic bags and stickers?’ I asked Bush.

‘Labels?’ he fingerspelled.

Ah, that was the sign I’d been looking for. I repeated it. ‘Labels.’

‘Sure.’

He took me to a storage room and pointed out where I could find everything. Dax ran a well-organized shop, everything neatly in bins and drawers with printed labels. That would make things considerably easier.

Bush pointed at a notepad on a rolling cart in the storage room. ‘Please note here what you used.’

Easy enough. I grabbed some bags, labels, and a Sharpie and wrote them down on the notepad. I had no doubt I would need more, but this was a good start.

Back at the truck—she needed a name, didn’t she?—I took a lot of pictures and a few videos with my phone, then grabbed a toolset and got to work. I labeled each part of the engine as I took it out and examined it for rust or damage, making notes on my phone of my findings.

Within minutes, I was lost in thought, my mind finding this strange peace as it focused on the task at hand.

At least for a little while, I could forget about everything else.

About Bean and Creek moving out. About Nash moving on.

About me being left behind, struggling to find where I belonged.

I didn’t have answers or solutions for any of those things, but this? This I could do.