Chrysanthemum

You really don’t know what to expect, following up on Wally’s recommendation. But you’re low on liquid cash and this beater of a car really just needs to survive another few months until you can move into that apartment with Kori walking distance from your work—

Which means that the car needs to survive another few months. Which means you need to go get it fixed. Which means that you need to spend money. Which means—

You sit in your car in nervous repose, taking in the sights that you’ve been brought to. Before this auto shop that seems, by the number of cars that have populated the lot, to be fairly popular.

But as you pull in through the narrow driveway that is provided to you, your surveying glance of the property reveals no workers. No indication of life at Todd and Harper’s Auto Repairs. Course you’d show up just as they hit lunch, during the sweltering heat of your one day off—

Someone taps at your passenger window, and you jump. Nothing in your periphery gave away their approach, nor any indication from your rear mirror as they rounded the corner of your busted-ass hunkajunk car. You roll down the window to get a better look at the flexed bicep and taut torso framed in the window of your car. 

“Hi,” you say, watching as a face leans down, revealing a sharp pair of eyes framed by grease. A decent amount of faded scars litter the landscape of that face, the apples of those cheeks, making jagged descent down the chin. As if it does anything to diminish the idealistic archetype of beauty he portrays. 

“What’s your issue?” The man asks, paired with a gruff voice that seems to belie his appearance. He doesn’t spare the drab interior of the car any sidelong glance, which you’re somewhat grateful for. All he does is stolidly, patiently wait for your response as he props the heft of that arm on the frame of the window. Watching you. 

You remember that you owe this hunk moonlighting as a mechanic an answer. “Honestly, I’m not sure. I’ve been having issues with the brakes—and the engine—” 

You feel some terrible, humiliating heat roiling under the surface of your skin as you continue—“—Honestly, I think it’d be easier if I knew what did work on it.” 

You finally have enough dignity to look askance from those careful, watchful green eyes. The two of you sit in a silence that is neither comfortable nor awkward—but there is an odd tension that seems to creep in heady atmosphere. 

“Pull the car into the garage,” Is all the man says, and then he straightens to full height, that face disappearing beyond your sight. You catch a glimpse of the patch on his coveralls, threaded in fine red stitching. Jason. 

“Alright,” Is all that you numbly manage to make out. You follow directions to steer your crap-mobile into the one available lot of the garage, keeping a weather eye on the dwindling figure that watches you go.

It’s a clean fit into the garage, where the chords of work make themselves louder in cadence; a symphony of whirring gears, fumes and exhaust making belching issue. You park in the spot that he requested and kill the engine, letting it turn over silent. 

Before you have to wonder if you’ll get the jumpscare treatment over in the hangar—another head pops up from the underside of a Volkswagen. With alacrity that contrasts the stiff position he must have been folded up in, he starts making whistling meander over to you, hands stuffed in the confines of his coveralls pockets.

There’s something wantonly cheerful on his face as he closes in on distance to you, letting you see those blue eyes that spark with some unspoken, mellow quality. As you take in that crooked smile that grows as he takes ken of you. 

And then he pauses besides your open driver window, letting you ogle the way that he fills out the coveralls quite nicely. By the flex of his arm, the spread of those thighs: quite nicely, indeed. 

“Hey, stranger.” The redhead says—a quick glance over to his sewn-on patch informs you this is Roy. “What’s your troubles?” 

“Lots,” Comes that familiar gruff voice that seems to thrill through you—you both turn to see Jason approaching, wiping the grease from his hands with a pockmarked rag.

How the fabric seems so small in his hands as he works it over the broad ridge of his knuckles. “Gonna have to check under the hood.” 

“Don’t mind if I do,” Roy says with eager cheer—he turns down to you. “Mind if you step out of the car, uh—?” 

He holds out a hand to you as you pop open the door, offer him the keys into the rough scrape of that turned-up palm. When you share your name with him, the teeth that are in perfect, sparkling interval make display for you. 

“Nice name,” He says, “Suits you real good.” 

“I get that a lot,” you say, feeling like you can return more to form when you’re on better eye level with them. Well, somewhat—Roy scores a couple of inches on you and Jason clears a whole foot.

When Roy rewards you with a broadening smile, Jason lopes off to the car, leaning down with stolid musculature to pop the hood. 

You wonder if there’s a spot where you can go off and languish somewhere, counting the remainder of what dwindling dollars compose your bank account, while they run the diagnostic. But Roy pipes up before you can search for worthy patch of ground to curl up in the fetal position upon. 

“So, how’d you hear about us?” He asks, his eyes gleaming with interest. Like you’re a puzzle that needs to be solved before he can properly divine route to go about with you. 

You can’t help but return the smile that rises to your face. “Heard about you from Wally.” 

At this—a muted chuckle from him, shoulders that tremble with mirth he makes some effort to contain on your behalf. From the guts of your car; a groan of mild disdain that echoes from Jason. 

“Wally always sends the lost-cause cases to us.” Roy answers around the handsome curve of his smile. It seems poor assessment of him to say that the smile seems to take a degree of delight in the despair crossing yours. 

You knuckle a hand to your head, make silent prayer to whatever patron saint of automobiles might be listening. Jason continues to advance through his studious inventory of your car’s ailments. 

“I hope my car isn’t a lost cause.” You worry your bottom lip in your teeth. There is audible clunk in hollow reverb in the housing of your car. You try not to wince. 

“Engine doesn’t sound good.” Is all that Jason replies with, which doesn’t particularly inspire you with optimism. 

“Oof.” You return—and then alight on a kernel of knowledge that requires acknowledgement. “Wait, so you two know Wally?” 

“High school friends.” Roy answers with cavalier quality; which, all things considered, does seem to track. Wally is a bastion of the concept ‘social butterfly;’ the circles he runs in vast and deep, admirable and exhausting all in one. 

“He never mention us before?” Roy asks as you consider how delicately to voice that very statement. He doesn’t seem particularly offended by the notion. 

“No—”—You confess with abashed embarrassment that you hope doesn’t register in front of this handsome mechanic—“—Not until he recommended you two for the services.” 

Roy sighs breezily through his nose, a gusty chord of melancholy that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “It’s cause he can’t trust us around his good-looking friends.” 

It’s a two-fold reaction you have; one of that hot flush of appeasement that crawls under the skin, proceeds to fluster and abrade your defenses. And the other: sheer disbelief that your mechanic is trying to so openly flirt with you. 

This is, for lack of better reasoning, what motivates you to play along. 

“Why?” You ask, injecting a degree of playfulness in your voice, shucking a hand on your hip as you regard him. “You two ever get lucky with any of them?”

There’s something in him that appears deeply pleased at the fact that you’ve risen to the challenge. His grin grows conspiratorial. 

“I’ll let you know if it works.” He asserts. Because you permit yourself a giggle—it is clear this is not negation of the offer he’s made you. But you don’t have time to see how he would respond to your volley; Jason’s voice takes reverb to draw your attention. 

“How’d you even get the car over here?” He asks in rather monotone inquisition. It sounds as if it is metallically unspooling itself in your car. In follow-up chorus, there is the trickle of something dripping in arterial fashion. 

You hope it doesn’t show how humiliating this is. “Lots of prayers and candle-lighting.” 

At this, you watch as Jason stands, unfurling himself to full height, working one of those trim hips around the corner of your car. The hood, to your mild bemusement and growing horror, continues to stay open—which does not bode as though this visit will remain temporary. 

Jason pulls up sidelong to his partner-in-crime, again wiping the discharge of wading through your car from his palms. 

And then he confirms your fears, those eyes carefully observant as he watches you. “You’ll have to keep doing that ‘til tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” You repeat, in unappealing echo. You permit the uncouth quality of the word to settle on your tongue, ring sour in your head. “So—what does that mean?”

“Means we’ll have to keep it overnight.” Jason, to his credit, doesn’t mince words as he gives your car one final cursory glance of mutually held distaste. He turns back to you, letting you see the pearled bead of sweat that has traced the circumference of his jaw. God, he’s handsome. 

“Maybe another day.” He concludes, and then nods at you, putting onus of conversation upon you with his next question. “You got a way of getting home?” 

You realize that you have to reply, rather than simply eye up the eye candy that stands in tandem paid before you. It’s a slow locomotion to life as you search for your phone tucked away in your pocket, unlocking a code that you know by heart and sending quick message to necessary cavalry. 

“Uh—”—You offer eloquently—“—My friend Kori can come pick me up. I’ll let her know right now.”

Your thumbs stall on the app as you watch message sent off into the digital ether. There’s something more important burgeoning on the foreground of your mind. It’s clear from how Jason watches you that he already knows what you dread verbalizing aloud. 

“But—”—You look back to your Old Faithful on her last proverbial legs—“—How much is this gonna cost?” 

She’s not much for show. She’s not much of anything. But the delivery of your question makes it clear that she’ll clean you out of house and home without proper enterprising deal made. 

Roy is the one who picks up the torch, piping up with rather sleek quality befitting that smile that suits him so well. His hands slide down to the span of his hips that are delineated in taut definition by the coveralls. Not that you’ve devoted too long to looking. 

“Well, it’s not like you brought a Rolls in here.” Roy comments in idle bearings. “Why don’t we hose it down and see if we can identify the year by carbon dating first—before we give a price?” 

It’s jaunty enough to reassure you, though you don’t let the tension leach out of your shoulders until Jason decides to make conclusion of the vague statement. 

“Whatever repairs are gonna cost won’t be much,” Jason says, putting careful proprietary hand on it—almost as though he’s worried it’ll collapse should he breathe upon it the wrong way—“—The car’s too old to be worth much even for scrap.” 

You’ll take the insult. Better to be somewhat offended than eating bread for the conceivable future. The grin that you offer back feels a hair more genuine than the one you forced in rictus before. 

“Oh, okay. That—”—You make a shaky sigh that communicates non-verbal volumes—“—That’s a relief.” 

Brass tacks laid down means that Roy senses opportune moment to jump into the fray once more. “And besides, we can work out a payment plan.” 

That smile so wicked and disarming in bearings: you think that you could get used to seeing a sight like that. Especially as he takes cavalier lean upon his cohort, who appears nonplussed at being used as scenery for the occasion. 

“Does a payment plan include giving you my number?” You ask wryly, feeling the instinctive tick of an eyebrow inch up your forehead. 

“Only if you want it to.” Comes easily practiced, charismatic reply. Oh, a Lothario at that as well. You make briefest of looks exchanged with Jason, who appears to bear long-suffering patience paid penitence for some sin in a past life. 

“Does this work on everyone you try it on, Roy?” You ask, feeling the need to cross your arms over the plateau of your chest. Roy plays the innocent, though the way he replies is with glib surety. 

“How’s it working on you?” He asks. An errant lock of red hair darts over those blue eyes seeking supplication from you. 

Jason finally speaks up on your defense, a bastion against horndog flirts that can’t resist a good bite when they see one. 

“You don’t have to humor him.” Jason rumbles against the necessity of your reply. “He can’t help it when he sees a pretty face.”

You’re still reeling from processing the ‘when he sees a pretty face’ that Jason has surrendered for you to pick apart at later interpretation—though you manage well-enough to reply. 

“Maybe I just want to know if he’s genuine or not.” You say, taking aim with your eyes at Roy, who offers his most winning look of virtue your way. Damn if it doesn’t suit him so well. 

Jason makes a noise that you register as a laugh; you exchange viewpoint from his compatriot to him instead, and are regaled with the sight of a smile on his own face. A slow, subtle one that perks up a corner rather than dominates the whole of his expression. But how it adds so much that is missing in the unspoken space of his demeanor. 

“Better luck with me,” Jason offers across the meridian between your both, “If you want honesty.” 

And at this: you can’t contain your laughter. Two for two, with this interesting pair who seems to be both propping up and shooting down their respective shots. 

Especially as Roy finally throws in to better supplement the killing stroke: “Can’t beat an offer like that.” 

“Hmmm.” You say as you size up the two main courses on the menu so eager for you to take a bite. Let it be said that you were not thorough with your choices. “I’ll let you know.” 

There is a ding from your phone that notifies you your friend has arrived in nick of time; you turn to see Kori waving bright-eyed and bushy-tailed from the window of her own functional car. 

And it is this appearance of third party that shifts the weight of atmosphere: the tension dissipates, though the aftertaste that it leaves on the palate of your tongue is something that you want to savor. That you need to consider aroma and bouquet of before you proceed. 

You turn back to them with a look that you hope indicates that this conversation is not over. “Hope I get some good news from you two tomorrow.” 

“Sure thing.” Roy says on behalf of both of them—Jason makes courteous nod before he departs back to his work. “Lookin’ forward to seein’ you.” 

You’re halfway to Kori’s car with a smirk that you can’t resist when Roy calls you back; you turn at the sound of your name. 

“We need your number to make sure to let you know when it’s fixed up,” Roy offers in sheepish manner, as though he hasn’t valiantly fought upon it for other purposes. You pause, slowing your tracks. 

“It’s on the car,” You call back—prompting a look of abject bewilderment from him. “You won’t be able to miss it.” 

You decide to give him a wave that he returns in stymied confusion before retreating back to meet Jason, and you make quick escape into the car.

Hopefully they’ll be able to make out the number that you’ve written into the dust embedded on your rear window. And you also sincerely hope that they’ll be able to make out the message you scribbled underneath it. 

Whichever one of you wants to take me on a date: it’s fair game. Be seein’ you. <3

Banner and divider made by me :)

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