Page 30 of Infatuated as They Come
I blew out a breath of air. “Trust me, I know.”
“I’ve been here for over two hours!” somebody snapped from behind me. “Did you forget?”
I turned around, seeing the way the guy threw his hands up in frustration. Patience wasn’t a thing for people who were waiting on their cars, something that I was hoping would play to my advantage.
“Yes, and your engine is totally busted, so please give us some time,” Audrey said with gritted teeth.
“Kid, I’ll consider you, but you gotta apply online like everyone else,” Jay said. “I appreciate you coming in here. I like the initiative. But me and my wife are gonna go over all the applications together and then we’ll organize interviews.”
“I can work extra hours, extra shifts,” I said. “You look like you could use the help and I’m willing to do it.”
“You’re too young to have this much enthusiasm, which highlights my point: you’re a kid and I can’t risk it.”
“I’m not a kid. I’m nineteen.”
He snorted. “When you get to be my age, you’ll know why that’s so funny. I need help, but I’m not about to let you put your hands all over my customers’ cars. I mean, I gotta reinstall the apex seals on this guy’s RX7.”
“I know how to do that.” I nodded. “You gotta remove the engine, mess with the rotor housing, check the seals, put the new ones in, then rebuild the engine.”
He kept his eyes stuck on mine for a long moment. “You really want this job, huh?”
“More than you realize.”
“You’ve got a record?”
It would have been easy to lie, but I didn’t want that to blow up in my face in the future. “Yeah. A couple misdemeanors and some time in juvie.Nothing serious. Nothing you have to worry about.”
Hitting his pen against the desk some more, Jay looked over to the still growing crowd, and then at his wife, and then back at me. “Look, I’ll think about it, okay? I can’t just give you a job. I still have to call up your references and make sure you’re who you say you are.”
“My girlfriend is rich,” I blurted out. “Like, crazy rich. Fuckin’ Rockefeller rich. Big ass mansion, fancy clothes, prettiest girl in the world, and somehow, some way… she fell in love with me. I don’t know how I managed to pull it off, but I did, and I literally used to live in a trailer park and I haven’t got a lot of money and I can’t give her the world like I want to, but she still wants me and loves me and I love her so much it hurts most of the time. I’m good with cars and I can kinda paint but most artists never make a lot of money from their art and her dad hates me and thinks I’m not good enough for her and probably wants her to marry some rich Wall Street asshole while she goes to college here, but none of those guys are ever gonna love her as much as I do and I’ll fight every last one of ‘em if I have to. So, in summary…” I released a long, deep breath. “I just really, really love my girlfriend and wanna give her everything I can.”
“Aw, he’s in love!” Audrey pouted, her hands on her chest. “Give him the job.”
“What?” Jay snapped.
“Give it to him!”
“Because he’s in love?”
“Yes.” Audrey sighed deeply as she looked at me. “You must really love her.”
Jay held his hands up before pushing them through his short grey hair. “You really want this job?”
I nodded. “Badly.”
“And you’re okay with working long hours? Really early mornings and really late nights if I need you down here?”
“I’m fine with that. I can do that.”
“Maybe we’ll give you a trial run,” he said. “And if you’re good—and that’s a big if—then we’ll keep you.”
“Great.” I stuck my hand out for him. “Thank you.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He shook my hand. “I’ll see you here first thing tomorrow.”
I froze at that. “Wait, tomorrow?”
“We’ll do a trial then.”
