Page 135 of The Friends and Rivals Collection

The second the metal music cranks up, I groan. I know what’s coming.

I shake out my hand, cramped from signing checks at the end of the day, and step out of my office in the back of the shop. When Sam and Mike point at me, gangster style, I roll my eyes.

Sam takes a step forward, fixing me with a mean stare, then Mike joins him, going full peacock as he waves his big arms at the gloriously gleaming white car behind them.

“Yo.” Mike adopts his best street-style voice. “Today, we are going to show you what it takes to restore an old Rolls to sick-as-fuck new.”

“Rolls. That’s Royce to you,” Sam adds, his dark eyes forming slits.

Then they stalk and glower as the screech of the abominable music grows horrifically louder.

I lean against the concrete wall and cross my arms, letting them perform their act for thirty seconds or so, until Mike stabs his thumb on his phone, which has been blasting the music.

If you can call it music. Suffice to say, metal and I don’t get along.

Give me the Stones, Frank Sinatra, or some kick-ass new indie band, and I’m good to go.

“How’d we do?” Mike strokes his auburn goatee. “Think we can audition for Pimp My Big Ass Peacock Ride with Tricked Out Wheels now?”

“Remind me who carries that show? So I will never watch it,” I say.

Sam and Mike are my main builders. When we’re close to finishing a car, they like to pretend they’re on reality TV, especially since those shows have about as much in common with our daily work here in the shop as medical dramas do with life in the ER.

I feel confident in that assessment, since my brother, Chase, tells me that the number of impalements, for instance, he’s seen in his line of work as a doctor is about two, whereas those incidents seem to occur with astonishing regularity on the tube.

Real mechanics are problem solvers. They aren’t preeners who like to carve up metal with big, dangerous shiny objects, wielding chainsaws over their heads as they cackle.

I hired Mike straight out of college, and Sam is attending night school classes, trying to finish up his business degree.

These guys know how to tackle trouble, and they solved a helluva problem on this old Rolls, restoring it to its former glory under my guidance.

Mike runs a hand over the hood, stroking the metal with reverence. “How does she look?”

“Like a fucking dream girl,” I say, admiring the beauty that we’ve worked on the last few weeks.

“Girl?” Sam shoots me a skeptical stare, dragging his hand through dark floppy hair. “Why are cars always feminine?”

Mike answers with a thrust of his hips. “Because when they’re this hot we want to fuck them.”

Okay, maybe my guys aren’t civilized all the time. Maybe not even most of the time, given the way Mike continues to practice his dry hump routine, as if he’s going for a master’s degree in thrusting.

Sam shakes his head. “Mike, I hate to break it to you, but this car is a dude.”

Mike sneers. “No way. She’s too pretty.”

“Nope. This is a total man car. She had a sex change. Just check the lug nuts if you need to be sure.”

As much as their antics amuse me, it’s time to cut them off.

I hold up a hand. “Let’s not play with the lug nuts, the dipstick, or the connecting rod on Livvy Sweetwater’s prized automobile, please.

The woman trusted us with her baby over John Smith Rides.

And I need to deliver this Rolls to her Connecticut estate on Thursday, in all its shining beauty,” I say, since I can only imagine what that sweet, classy dame with her pearl necklace and pillbox hat would say if she heard that Mike wanted to get busy with her vehicle, and that Sam pretended her car was a dude.

“Don’t look at me. I’m not the one trying to screw a car,” Sam says in his most innocent voice. “Also, why don’t you just put it in a trailer?”

I scoff. “You don’t know Livvy.”

“No. I don’t, man. That’s why I’m asking.”

And it’s my job to teach these guys what it takes to be the best. That’s what my mentor, Bob Galloway, did for me. Not only did he teach me how to restore a Bentley and perform surgery on a Bugatti, but he also taught me how to take care of clients, and how to better train the guys who work for me.

“You’re right to ask,” I say. “Let me tell you. Livvy is a long-time client, as you know. And she’s quite particular with her cars.

She has a certain routine she follows every time I finish a car for her.

She likes me to drive her cars to her. Then she invites me in for tea, and over tea I tell her everything about how it felt to drive the car. ”

Mike narrows his eyes. “That sounds weird. Like a fetish.”

“Watch it. Don’t talk about the clients like that. It’s how Livvy likes to do things. She likes to know what to look for when she drives it.” I flick a speck of dust off the hood then swing my gaze to Mike. “You want to move up in the business, right?”

Mike nods, looking contrite.

I fix him with an intense stare. “Then rule number one is this: build the best cars possible and never cut corners. Rule number two is respect the client’s choices and wishes. Don’t impose your own.”

“Got it,” Mike says, his tone earnest.

Sam points at my shirt. “Didn’t know you owned a button-down.”

“You know I don’t meet with clients looking like anything but a businessman,” I tell him, peering at myself in the window of Livvy’s car.

Damn, I look like a million bucks. Pressed gray slacks, a crisp navy-blue button-down, and a patterned tie that Mia bought for me last year.

“For the rare occasions when you need to show off your business side,” she’d said, but those occasions aren’t entirely rare.

As the owner of the shop, I’m both the guy who gets dirty under the hood, and the one who cleans up to seal the big, fat deals.

I have a potentially huge one in front of me this afternoon when I see David Winters of Back to the Future fanboy fame in about thirty minutes.

“Is Snow White going to be ready tomorrow?” I point to the fifty-year-old Rolls, using Livvy’s name for her baby, which she bought at auction a few months ago, with my input.

“Absolutely,” Sam says. “A few little details in the morning and we’re good.” He looks at his watch. “I’m outta here, too. No classes tonight, so I have a hot date with the new mechanic from John Smith’s.”

I scowl. “Seriously? You’re seeing someone from our biggest rival?”

“It’s just drinks, and I won’t tell Karen trade secrets over a pale ale,” Sam says.

“Drinks can loosen lips, so be careful,” I say, and that’s another lesson I learned from my mentor. Be careful and watch your back, Bob used to say.

I’m cautious as fuck when it comes to John Smith because we jockey for top billing in this city.

Earlier this year, he won a hotly contested bid to build a custom car for a new late-night talk show host, one I was sure I had in the bag.

That was a tough loss, but then I nabbed a new client in a banker who rolls the dice big time on upgrades to his fleet of sports cars.

Win some, lose some. Even so, it’s best to be cautious when tangoing with the competition.

“Give me some credit,” Sam says indignantly. “I have far more interesting things to discuss on a date than tales from under the hood.”

Mike jumps in. “What do you discuss? Wine? Politics? The state of the world?”

“That and whether cars are guys or girls.”

“And on that note, I’m off to discuss things other than the gender of automobiles with a potential client.

See you cats tomorrow. Have fun tonight, Sam.

” I clap Mike on the back as he yawns, something he’s been doing a lot less of these days.

“Don’t let the baby keep you up too late. Sing him a lullaby.”

Mike’s got a newborn, and the kid just started sleeping through the night, which means Mike has started looking human again, and not like daddy death warmed over.

I head out of the garage and catch an Uber across town. Ironic, isn’t it? But there’s little I like less than driving to appointments in midtown Manhattan. Nothing can make a guy like me hate cars more than New York City gridlock.

As the tiny Honda takes me to my meeting, I catch up on business on my phone—answering emails from clients, returning notes from suppliers, and responding to a request from a scholarship fund I’ve been lucky enough to support in the last few years.

Can I help with a little extra for a promising eighteen-year-old from Kentucky who wants to study engineering in college so he can restore cars?

Hell yeah, I reply. Then I move on to some other notes, making sure the shop runs in tip-top shape.

I didn’t get to where I am by missing opportunities or slacking off.

And I fucking love where I am.

Especially considering that David Winters offers me one helluva golden opportunity thirty minutes later. Turns out the guy who wanted to know about making wings for doors is a producer for a TV network, and they need a new car for a show.

Just my luck.

“Picture this.”

The stocky Creswell Saunders III loosens his bowtie and makes a square with his big hands, like a screenwriter in Los Angeles ready to make his big pitch.

He’s parked next to David Winters on a plush, chocolate-brown couch in a corner office overlooking Times Square, the end-of-the-afternoon sun reflecting off Creswell’s naked skull.

The man is bald, and from the looks of it, he’s bald by choice.

“ Midnight Steel will have a modern-day Magnum PI -type hero. A ladies’ man.

Tom Selleck, but without the ’stache and the too-short shorts. ”

“I always did wonder how those shorts were even remotely comfortable,” I say from my spot in the chair.

Creswell drops his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Confession: they weren’t. I was a huge fan of Magnum PI back in the day. I even begged my mom to buy me a pair of those shorts for Christmas one year.”