Page 26

The question haunted me, lurking between all my thoughts.

It kept me awake for the last few nights with its eerie presence.

The glow of my phone would cut through the dark while I creeped on Instagram for any clues.

Anything to reveal his true identity. The only thing I found was a nauseating implication.

I’d been spilling my secrets to a stranger.

Embarrassment pulsed through me as I read his messages again and again—before getting ready for work, eating a bowl of cereal, between oil changes.

Every time I tried to reply, my thumb froze over the touchscreen before I could hit send.

I wanted to yell at him for betraying my trust. He’d made me feel like a stupid ass, a fool for asking the real Mason out.

I slowly backspaced my “who the hell are you?” as I made my guesses.

Jonathan with the tattoo? Not likely, given how much he’d cried when I ended things.

Delete. Bailey the skateboarder? He’d kicked me out of his car and told me to fuck all the way off.

Delete. Zach from West Point baseball? Just a one-time thing.

Delete. Damian Jones? He was straight as far as I knew, but something about that night in the hardware store…

A new message came through while I tried to think of who else it could be.

12:23 PM

bedmas_22

Your silence must mean you’re mad.

“Ugh,” I growled, tossing my phone onto the lobby sofa.

My head hurt from trying to think it through.

Somehow my life kept getting messier no matter how much I tried to keep it from falling apart.

Sawyer threatening to kick me out of the QSA, my father’s performative stunt at The Cove, everything I told the fake Mason. All of it was too much to deal with.

I stretched out on the cushions and tried to tune out the TV’s midday news report.

The governor’s newest hate-fueled bill was only making the ache in my head worse.

From my relaxed position, I could see the back wall of the garage.

The painting of Zelda peered at me, like she had been all morning.

Did you ever feel free? I silently pleaded with her for guidance.

“Having a staring contest with her again?”

I leaned my head back and found an upside-down Mom. She had just come inside with our lunch in one hand and the other behind her back. “She’s impossible to beat,” I said, righting myself on the sofa. Impossible to live up to.

“Mmm-hmm,” she said, moving sideways to keep whatever it was she was hiding out of my sight.

“Why are you being sketchy?” I asked, trying to peer around her.

“Because,” she said with a grin, “it’s a surprise.”

“Surprise?” There had been way too many surprises lately. “Is it salt to rub in my wounds?”

“Morbid.” She tsked and rolled her eyes.

“I can’t help that I’m in my sad-boy era.” I’d filled her in on everything about Mason and how I’d asked him out. Almost everything. I couldn’t bring myself to divulge how incredibly stupid I felt for falling for Fake Mason’s lies.

“Maybe a belated birthday present will cheer you up?” She revealed the hidden gift box with a flourish. “It was delayed getting here, but—”

“But nothing.” I cut her off with grabby hands.

She laughed, tossing it to me. The sounds of ripping paper drowned out the news update as I opened it. A lump of thick vibrant-green material fell into my lap. I’d helped Mom out enough growing up to know what it was.

“You got me a mechanic shirt?” I asked, holding it up.

“That’s not the gift,” she said. “Look at the front.”

I turned it around and saw why she was excited, why this had been wrapped as a surprise.

Above the pocket of the button-up was a patch.

Roaring Mechanics spelled out in the same font as the emerald sign out front, and there was cursive beneath it.

“Zeke Chapman,” I read, feeling the embroidered words. “Assistant Mechanic.”

“Do you like it?” Mom was beaming as she waited expectantly. “I thought it was appropriate since you’ve been such a huge help this summer.”

“I love it…” Seeing my name printed like that made something click in my brain, the sum of all the conversations I’d had recently about the future. What do you want to do, Zeke? my father had asked. “Do you think I could do this, like, for real?”

“What do you mean?” She gave me a puzzled look.

I cleared my throat. “I mean if I wanted to go to school for automotive technology, like you?”

“Like me, huh?” She took a seat on the sofa arm, taken aback by the question. “You wanna know if I think you can do this?” I nodded. “Hun, you’re already doing it, and you’re good at it too.”

“You’re not just saying that because you’re my mom?” I teased.

“I probably shouldn’t be saying that, because I’m also the boss,” she replied in kind. “You’ll put me out of a job one day.”

“Never.” I absently rubbed my hand over the embroidered letters of my name. If I could go to school like she had, then I could work here once I graduated and maybe even expand to a new location.

A cool finger reached out and smoothed the wrinkles on my brow. “Stop thinking too much. You don’t have to know what you want to do, and don’t give me that stubborn glare. If you spend too long worried about the future, then you’ll forget to live in the now.”

“I guess.” All my life had been spent preparing for what was next, not examining what was happening right now.

Not what was in the news about the issues facing people like me.

They didn’t teach us that in school; my father didn’t sit me down and tell me how to fight back—just that I should go along with things and accept defeat.

“You’re really set on not going to law school, then?” she asked, opening the takeout bag from the deli down the street.

I looked back down at the shirt and knew without a doubt. “I don’t wanna be anything like him, ” I said, more to myself than her.

“You have nothing to worry about,” she said, handing me my usual muffuletta. “You’re the complete opposite of your father. Just look at what you’ve done with the QSA.”

Dread filled my stomach, chasing away my appetite. I still hadn’t planned for this weekend. And I knew what Sawyer would say if she found out: You’re acting so reckless. I groaned and set my lunch to the side.

“Everything okay with your membership drive?” she asked through a mouthful.

“It will be,” I muttered. Another messy component of my life to worry about.

This weekend had to be huge, bigger and better than before.

If only I could ignore all the other noise in my head long enough to figure it out.

“After I nail down the details for this weekend for…um, another one. I just haven’t had time to think about it yet. ”

She swallowed her bite and studied me. “Why isn’t Sawyer helping you?” she asked.

“Because she’s mad at me for taking charge.” I shot her a sheepish grin. “But someone had to do it.”

“She’s jealous.”

I narrowed my eyes and tilted my head to the side. “Why do you say that?”

“I was once a young woman, ages ago,” she said, wiping grease off her fingers with a napkin, “and it’s not easy to hold your own in a small town.”

“You’re not that old, Mom,” I pointed out. “You’re like…a millennial.”

“So much has changed since I was your age,” she said with a sigh, “but the struggle is still the same. Having to prove yourself is never easy. Sawyer probably had herself all figured out, and then you stepped into the QSA this year. Started trying to fix things, because that’s who you are.

Probably even ran your mouth without considering where she might be coming from. ”

“Wow. I thought this was gonna be a pep talk, but you’re totally burning me.”

“What do the youth say? I’m ‘speaking my truth’?” she asked, ruffling my hair. I gave her a pointed look. “Like when you got that black eye or when you painted that donkey or when…Well, the list goes on and on.”

“Ha. Ha.”

I got what she was saying, but she didn’t know the full story.

How Sawyer had expected me to defer to her because it had always been like that.

No matter how much I’d tried to prove myself, she wouldn’t let me.

Why should I care how much she was struggling with her own stuff if she didn’t care to let me explain mine?

“Speaking of this weekend,” Mom added with a note of bashfulness, “I decided to go on the cabin retreat with the book club on Saturday.”

“Really?” I asked, pulling out of my thoughts.

“You were right. I need to do something for myself,” she said, as though to reassure herself. “Get back to my old girlfriends.”

“I’m proud of you, Mom.” I wasn’t the only one reworking the past, figuring out which pieces of our old life fit into this new one. “You deserve to have fun.”

“Thank you for that.” She spared me an appreciative smile, and then her eyes narrowed. “I’ll be gone overnight,” she began, pointing a finger at me, “and I can’t stop you from having a boy over, so if you do—”

“Mooooom,” I groaned, throwing my head back on the sofa. “That most definitely won’t be happening. Not after…” After embarrassing myself with the real Mason, even more so with the fake one.

She reached out and patted me on the knee. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out like you wanted with Mason.”

“It’s whatever,” I mumbled, even though it wasn’t. “I’m fine.”

“It’s okay if you aren’t.”

But it wasn’t okay. And I didn’t know how to make it okay. Mason wasn’t the problem to solve; it was the stranger who’d let me think they were him.

Sensing I didn’t want to talk about it, she stood. “Well, I have an appointment due in a few,” she said, heading toward the shop. “If you have more staring contests with Zelda back there, don’t get any wild ideas to party like her while I’m gone this weekend.”

I scoffed at her as she disappeared into the garage, then my eyes darted to the painting in her wake. Got any wild ideas for a speakeasy? I silently asked, half joking. But then I sat upright as Mom’s words resonated in my mind.

She would be gone on Saturday, meaning I’d be home alone. With a very large garage that had plenty of room when cars weren’t being serviced. I looked around the lobby, recalling how it’d been transformed into Zelda’s Music Emporium for the opening-night speakeasy…

Here, I decided. Right here would be perfect for Saturday.

I could still remember where we’d hung the decorations and moved the tools to make space.

Roaring Mechanics would be the perfect place for Pride Month to go out with a bang.

I could decorate when she left Saturday and clean up before she got back on Sunday.

Excited and relieved, I grabbed my phone.

The selfie I’d taken awhile back for Mason, Fake Mason, would be perfect for Insta, with the tools spread out around me and grease smudged on my cheek.

“Gettin’ dirty this weekend” would be a great caption…

My thoughts stopped short when I saw the message thread still pulled up.

He’d sent another DM thirteen minutes ago.

bedmas_22

I know you’re not talking to me, but I wanted to give you a heads-up. Mayor Buchanan knows about the underground Pride speakeasies.