Chapter Text
Wile knew the car was going to beat him before the asshole driving it even pulled up to the line.
Not because the car was better.
The car was objectively worse.
He’d seen it up close enough times to know. Old Nissan, paint bleached nearly white across the roof from too many years under the desert sun, rear bumper held on by two factory bolts and what looked suspiciously like a zip tie. Runner had swapped the engine at some point, and done a decent enough job of it but the suspension was still half stock and his rear tires had maybe another two races in them before Wile was personally going to drag him into the garage and replace them.
Not because he cared.
Because getting killed by preventable tire failure was embarrassing.
There was a difference.
“You’re staring again,” Bugs said.
Wile didn’t look away from the windshield. “I’m observing.”
Daffy, sprawled across the hood of Bugs’s Challenger, made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a choke. “Oh, sure,” he said. “Scientifically.”
Wile glanced at him. “Shut up.”
“Can’t.” Daffy grinned. “It’s a medical condition.”
Beside him, Bugs sat with a coffee cup balanced against one knee. He tipped his sunglasses down his nose and looked over at Daffy.
“Think they make a pill for that.”
“Et tu, Brute?”
Runner had pulled into place across from him, window down despite the cold that settled over the desert once the sun disappeared. Music pounded out of the Nissan loud enough to carry across the broad patch of packed dirt where everyone parked between runs. Wile could feel the beat through the ground from where he sat. Runner’s fingers tapped against the top of the steering wheel in time with it.
Then Runner looked over.
And smiled.
That stupid fucking smile.
Wide and bright and delighted, like Wile had shown up specifically to make his night more interesting. Runner lifted two fingers from the wheel in an easy little salute, and when Wile only stared back at him, his grin somehow widened. Wile answered by raising his middle finger. Somebody behind them whooped at that, and Runner broke into laughter, shoulders shaking as he ducked his head.
Wile couldn’t hear it through the engines and the noise of everyone clustered along the roadside but he knew what Runner looked like when he laughed. Eyes squeezed nearly shut, mouth open wide, every bit of it written across his face. Runner never seemed capable of doing anything halfway.
God, he was irritating.
Bugs came up beside Wile’s open window. “You know, most fellas buy flowers.”
Wile turned his head slowly.
“For people they’re obsessed with.” Bugs took a thoughtful sip of coffee.
“I am not obsessed with him.”
“Sure.”
Wile turned to look at him.
Bugs took another sip of coffee. “You only know the condition of his tires, his suspension, his engine swap, and apparently what he had for lunch.”
“I don't know what he had for lunch.”
“Mm-hm.”
Wile rolled the window up.
Bugs laughed anyway and stepped back before the glass could catch him in the face. Wile ignored him, looking across the dirt again only to find Runner still watching, one arm hanging out the open window and his head tipped slightly to the side like he was trying to piece together whatever Bugs had said from across the lot.
Wile held his stare but Runner only lifted his brows, that same infuriating grin still fixed in place. Wile gave him another middle finger for good measure, which somehow seemed to amuse him even more.
Fine. Let him have his fun.
Wile settled back into the seat and tightened his hands around the wheel. He’d spent eleven weeks getting the car ready for tonight, fixing every little thing that had bothered him the last time Runner beat him. The intake had been rebuilt, the ECU recalibrated, most of the rear suspension replaced, and he’d shaved another forty-two pounds off the chassis anywhere he could manage it without doing something stupid.
He knew the road just as well as he knew the car by now, not just the turns but everything around them. The dip halfway through the first straight, the rough patch near the shoulder where the asphalt had started to break apart, the stretch farther down where sand collected overnight and made the outside lane slick if you got careless. He knew the long curve near the end tightened just enough to punish anybody who went into it too fast.
Runner knew the road just as well. The difference was that he took every turn like he could squeeze a little more out of it than anyone else would dare, which was probably why Wile was still watching him when Lola wandered into the space between the cars.
She had a red slushie in one hand and her phone in the other, pink jacket hanging halfway off her shoulders while the little rabbit charm on her case bounced against her wrist. She stopped almost directly in front of Wile’s car without seeming to notice she’d done it and kept scrolling.
Wile stared through the windshield.
Across from him, Runner had noticed her too. He leaned forward just a little, watching with mild curiosity while the bass continued to pound through his stereo.
“Lola,” Bugs called from somewhere behind them.
She looked up immediately. “Yeah?”
“The race.”
Lola blinked, glanced at Wile, then at Runner, then down at the pavement under her shoes like she’d only just remembered what she was standing in the middle of. “Oh. Right.”
She shoved her phone into the back pocket of her shorts and took a long drink from the slushie. Bugs opened his mouth, seemed to think better of it, and let her finish. Wile just stared at her through the windshield. Across the road, Runner had stopped tapping along with the music and was watching her too.
Lola lowered the cup and looked down at her hands. “Which one do I use?”
Bugs frowned. “Which one for what?”
“To start it.”
“Either one.”
Lola looked down at her left hand, then her right. “I don’t know. Last time I used this one, that guy hit a mailbox.”
Bugs glanced at the hand she was holding up. “Pretty sure that wasn’t because of you.”
“Maybe not.” Lola turned her hand over, still looking at it. “My aunt had a weird thing with her left hand, though. She’d point at stuff and then things would happen.”
Daffy lifted his head from the hood of the Challenger. “What kind of things?”
“I don’t know. She pointed at a squirrel once and we never saw it again.”
Daffy frowned. “It ran away.”
Lola looked over at him like he’d said something stupid. “No.”
Bugs took another drink of his coffee. “Use the other hand, Lola.”
She nodded like that settled it, shifted the slushie into her left hand, and raised her right. For a second it looked like they might actually get on with it.
Then she stopped.
Her arm stayed suspended in the air while she stared at her own wrist, brow furrowing like she’d just noticed something deeply concerning.
“Wait.”
Wile let his head fall back against the seat with a long breath through his nose.
Bugs sighed. “What now?”
“I think this is the hand I used when I broke my wrist.”
He looked over at her from beside the Challenger, coffee halfway to his mouth. “That was roller skating.”
Lola shook her head slowly, still examining the hand. “No, that was my ankle. The wrist was when I fell off the roof.”
Daffy pushed himself upright on the hood, suddenly invested. “Why were you on the roof?”
“I was following a cat.”
There was a brief pause.
Daffy frowned. “Why?”
Lola finally looked at him, genuinely puzzled by the question. “Because it was on the roof.”
Wile closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, Bugs was rubbing at the bridge of his nose with two fingers, the kind of weary motion that suggested this was nowhere near the strangest conversation he’d had with her.
“Lola, honey,” he said, “just start the race.”
“Oh. Right.”
She brightened immediately, like the last thirty seconds had already fallen out of her head, took another drink of her slushie, and wandered toward the middle of the road.
Lola kept the cup in one hand while she got herself more or less between the cars, apparently seeing no problem with this arrangement. She looked down the road, then back over her shoulder toward Bugs with the straw still between her lips.
“Do I say something?”
“No,” Bugs called back.
She pulled the straw out of her mouth. “Like, not even good luck?”
“No.”
“What if I want one of them to win?”
“You don’t.”
Lola looked from Wile to Runner, considering that. “I kind of do, though.”
Wile narrowed his eyes.
Bugs followed her gaze. “Which one?” he asked, curiosity unmistakable.
That seemed to stump her. Lola looked at both cars again, frowned to herself, then shrugged. “Nevermind.”
Wile muttered something under his breath and turned his attention back to the road before she found another reason to keep talking. He blipped the throttle, hard enough that the engine snapped through the noise around them, and felt the vibration of it through the seat and into his hands.
Across from him, Runner had finally stopped screwing around, not completely, there was still a smile hanging around the corner of his mouth, because apparently even idling at the line with money on the race wasn’t enough to make him behave like a normal person but he’d settled lower in the seat, one hand high on the wheel, the other ready near the shifter.
Lola took one more drink and then she lifted her free arm.
Wile breathed out slowly and fixed his eyes on the road.
Lola dropped her arm.
Runner moved first.
The Nissan leapt forward hard enough to spit dust from the edge of the pavement, and Wile was after him almost immediately, the clutch catching clean and the rear of the car staying planted exactly the way it had in every test run this week. For half a second he let himself enjoy it. No twitch through the back end, no little correction needed to keep it straight. The car just went where he put it.
Then he looked up and Runner already had half a car on him.
“Fuck you.” Wile shifted into second and started taking it back.
That was the thing about Runner. Off the line he was always a pain in the ass. The Nissan was lighter than it looked and whatever he’d done under the hood gave it more pull than an old car held together by duct tape and zip ties had any right to have but Wile had spent the better part of three months making sure that wouldn’t be enough tonight.
By the time they hit the shallow dip in the first straight, Runner’s rear quarter had fallen back beside Wile’s door.
Wile glanced over.
Runner caught him looking and lifted his brows, one hand loose on the wheel like he had all the time in the world.
“Watch the road, idiot.”
Runner was already looking forward again and gave no sign he’d heard him. Wile raised his middle finger anyway, keeping it there until Runner caught the gesture in the side mirror.
A second later the Nissan’s horn chirped twice.
Beep-beep.
Wile’s jaw tightened.
He pushed harder on the throttle.
The Nissan stayed beside him for another few seconds, close enough that Wile could see the blue paint flashing at the edge of his vision whenever the road dipped. Runner had stopped looking over now, which somehow made the whole thing even more irritating. He’d gotten his reaction and apparently that was enough for him.
Wile edged ahead before the first real turn.
The road bent left through a stretch of low scrub, the asphalt rougher here where years of heat had split it open and somebody had done a half-assed job patching it back together. Wile knew exactly where the car wanted to shift under him and eased off just enough to keep the rear planted, turning in clean and came out with Runner a quarter of a car's length behind him.
For about three seconds.
Then Runner appeared on his right.
Wile saw the headlights first, sweeping up alongside him, then the hood, then Runner himself as the Nissan crawled forward until they were even again. He had both hands on the wheel now, posture loose but attention fixed ahead and Wile could see the little corrections he was making as the worn suspension worked underneath him.
Runner was pushing the car harder than he should.
Nothing new there.
Wile held his line.
Runner held his.
The next stretch narrowed slightly before opening into a long right and Wile knew Runner would try to take it wide. He always did, he liked carrying too much speed into the first half and trusting himself to sort it out somewhere in the middle.
It was obnoxious.
Worse, it usually worked.
Wile eased onto the brakes where he’d planned to, already setting himself up for the turn, while the Nissan beside him just kept going. Runner was still accelerating when Wile glanced over, eyes fixed on the curve ahead and apparently unconcerned by the rapidly disappearing amount of road between him and it.
“Moron.”
At what had to be the last possible second, the Nissan’s brake lights flared. Runner threw the car into the turn hard enough that the rear swung wide, outside tires skimming the dirty edge of the pavement and kicking up a streak of dust. Wile’s stomach tightened before he could help it, already picturing the tires losing what little grip they had left.
Instead Runner caught it.
The correction wasn’t pretty. The Nissan gave an ugly jerk beneath him, suspension loading up in a way that made Wile wince but Runner straightened it and was back on the throttle before they were even clear of the bend.
Wile swore and followed.
There wasn’t much road left before the course started getting ugly and by then the race had settled into the kind of miserable stalemate that made him want to start throwing things. Runner could get away from him on the straights, Wile could drag it back through the corners, and neither of them had managed to put enough distance between the cars for Wile to stop seeing that battered blue Nissan every time he checked a mirror.
Wile stayed close as the road climbed, the Nissan filling most of the windshield before the pavement hooked sharply left around the rock. He knew this turn well enough to take it without thinking. Brake before the crest, stay tight through the first half, let the car settle before getting back on the throttle.
Runner went in ahead of him and, for once, didn’t make a complete mess of it.
Wile almost resented that.
He tucked in behind the Nissan through the turn, close enough to watch the suspension shift under it as Runner started feeding power back in. The gap between them was barely there now. Another second and Wile would have room to come alongside.
Then there was a sharp crack from somewhere behind him.
For half a heartbeat Wile thought he’d hit something.
The right rear dropped hard and the car lurched sideways.
“Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me!”
The rear swung out before he finished saying it.
Wile fought the wheel and for one wild second the car seemed to listen, straightening just enough to make him think he had it. Then the back end kicked out again, harder this time, and any hope of staying on the road disappeared with it.
The car tore off the pavement and into the dirt hard enough to knock the breath out of him. For a few seconds Wile had no idea where he was going. The headlights bounced wildly over scrub and rocks while dust swallowed everything beyond them and the wheel jerked uselessly beneath his hands no matter how hard he tried to straighten out.
Something scraped along the passenger side with a noise that made his whole body tense.
“Fuck!”
The car spun once, hit something that sent another ugly jolt through the frame, then finally came to a stop crooked in the dirt.
Wile stayed where he was. The engine was still running, loud in the sudden stillness, and his own breathing sounded worse than it had any right to. He stared through the windshield until the dust started to settle, then slowly loosened his grip on the wheel.
His hands ached from holding on so hard. His shoulder hurt where the seat belt had caught him, and his knee had definitely hit something but when he shifted around everything moved the way it was supposed to.
He was fine.
Probably.
The car, however, was going to ruin his week.
Wile leaned back against the seat and shut his eyes for a second.
Of all the fucking tires.
He’d spent half the night watching Runner abuse his, already deciding exactly how many more races the Nissan had left before somebody needed to intervene, and somehow his own had been the one to give out first.
Bugs could never know that.
Wile let out a short, humorless laugh and killed the engine. The silence that followed made everything feel worse. Now there was nothing to cover the smell of burnt rubber or the little ticks and creaks coming from somewhere underneath the hood.
Wile sat there another few seconds before forcing himself to move. The door opened with a reluctant scrape and he climbed out, only to stop with one hand braced against the roof when the ground seemed to shift underneath him.
“Okay.”
He stayed there until his legs remembered what they were doing. The adrenaline was wearing off badly, leaving his hands shaky and his knees less reliable than he appreciated. Wile took a slow breath, waited for the lightheadedness to pass, then pushed away from the car and made his way around the back.
The tire was worse than he’d expected.
There was barely enough of it left to call a tire, rubber hung in torn strips around the wheel, part of the sidewall completely gone, the rim sitting crooked in the dirt. Wile crouched beside it with a grimace and ran his eyes over the damage without touching anything yet.
“Jesus.”
He looked back toward the road.
In the settling dust he could still make out the path the car had taken after it left the pavement, a long ugly track cut through the shoulder before it veered through the low brush toward where he’d stopped. One side had dug deep enough into the dirt to leave a ridge piled alongside it.
Wile stared at that for a moment.
Then at the car.
Then back at the tracks.
He’d gotten lucky.
Really fucking lucky.
If the wheel had caught instead of sliding or if he’d hit one of the larger rocks scattered another few yards out, the car could have gone over. The realization hit late, after the danger had already passed, leaving nothing behind but a sick twist in his stomach.
Wile stood too quickly and immediately regretted it. He caught himself against the trunk, waited out another brief wave of dizziness, then looked down at the destroyed tire again.
“Perfect.”
He was going to need a tow. The wheel was fucked, the passenger side had picked up a scrape he could see even in the dark, and he still had no idea what damage the underside had taken when he went off the road.
He was bending to get a better look at the rear quarter when light moved across the ground.
Wile straightened.
Headlights swept around the bend and slowed almost immediately.
For a second he assumed it was Bugs. There was no way Runner had noticed he was gone quickly enough to turn around already, and even if he had, he’d been winning. He’d have crossed the finish first, collected the money, been insufferable about it for at least ten minutes.
Then the car came closer.
Blue Nissan.
Wile stared at it. “No.”
The Nissan eased off the pavement and came toward him slowly, tires crunching over gravel as Runner picked his way around the deeper ruts Wile had carved into the shoulder. He stopped several yards back instead of pulling alongside, the car angled just enough that the headlights spread across Wile’s rear quarter and threw the torn-up ground into sharp relief.
Runner left the engine running.
The low vibration carried through the dirt beneath Wile’s shoes, mixed with the heavier thump of the music still playing inside. It sounded ridiculous out here with everything else gone quiet, bass rattling faintly through an open window while Wile stood beside a car that had nearly rolled itself into the desert five minutes ago.
The driver’s door swung open.
“You were winning,” Wile said as Runner climbed out.
Runner didn’t look at him.
He shut the door and stood there for a second, eyes following the long scrape of disturbed dirt from the edge of the pavement toward Wile’s car. His gaze followed the deeper rut where the rear wheel had dug in, across the flattened brush, and finally to the ruined tire.
Wile let him look.
“You were winning,” he said again.
This time Runner looked up.
Wile made sure he had his face before continuing. “Go finish the race.”
Runner’s brows pulled together.
Then he started walking toward him.
Wile watched him come, annoyance sharpening with every step. “I’m serious.”
Runner stepped carefully over one of the ruts, his attention dropping briefly to the ground before coming back to Wile.
“Go.”
Runner shook his head, picking his way carefully around a deep rut in the dirt.
Wile’s mouth tightened. “I’m fine.”
Runner stopped a few feet away. In the wash of the headlights, his blue hair looked even messier than usual beneath the backward red cap, and dust streaked the side of his jeans where he must have brushed against his car. He barely seemed to notice any of it. His attention had already settled on Wile, moving over him slowly enough to make Wile want to tell him to knock it off.
Wile resisted the urge to straighten up.
Runner’s eyes caught on his shoulder. His hands came up between them, brows lifting with the question. “Hit your head?”
“No.”
Runner kept his eyes on him. “Sure?”
“Yes.”
That should have been enough but Runner was still watching him with the same intent expression.
Wile frowned. “What?”
Runner’s hands moved again. “You look bad.”
Wile glanced down at himself. His black shirt was streaked with dirt along one side and there was a fresh scrape across his forearm he hadn’t noticed before. “I just got thrown around inside a car. I’m allowed to look like shit.”
When Wile looked up again, Runner was still watching him but the concern had given way to something more uncertain. His brows had drawn together and his attention stayed fixed on Wile’s mouth, waiting a beat longer than usual while he tried to piece together whatever fragments he’d managed to catch.
Wile knew that look well enough.
He let out a breath and raised his hands. His signing came slowly, each movement deliberate with the slightest pause while he thought through the next sign. He spoke along with it out of habit, voice low and a little rough. “I crashed. Look like shit. Makes sense.”
The confusion cleared almost at once. Runner gave a small nod, the corner of his mouth pulling up slightly but he didn’t linger on it.
Runner moved past him toward the rear of the car, slowing as the ruined wheel came fully into view. For a moment he didn’t say anything at all. He just stood there in the spill of the Nissan’s headlights, taking in the rubber peeled away from the rim, the dirt packed up around the bottom of it.
Wile watched his face change as he took it in.
Runner looked back at him, brows drawn together now. His hands came up. “What happened?”
“Tire blew,” Wile said aloud.
Runner’s eyes flicked back to the wheel.
He stayed there for another moment, staring at the tire with his hands hanging loose at his sides. Then his gaze shifted toward the road, following it until the bend swallowed it from view. The finish was somewhere beyond that, close enough that Runner should have just finished instead of turning back for him.
When he looked back, his expression had changed.
Runner signed, “Race over?”
Wile looked at the car. “Unless you’ve got a spare miracle in your trunk.”
He got halfway through before realizing his hands were still hanging uselessly at his sides. Runner was watching his mouth, but with Wile standing half in shadow that wasn’t going to do much good.
Wile swore under his breath and lifted his hands. There was no chance he knew how to sign spare miracle, and he wasn’t about to stand there fingerspelling the whole damn sentence, so what came out was considerably less elegant.
He kept talking while he signed. “Car’s done. Race over.”
Runner understood that.
His whole face fell.
Wile had expected irritation about having to come back for him, maybe another look at the tire, maybe even a little satisfaction now that there was no question who had made it to the end first. Instead Runner looked genuinely put out, shoulders dropping as he stared at the car like it had personally ruined his evening.
Wile frowned. “What?”
Runner’s hands came up. “That’s it?”
Wile’s brows pulled together. He raised his hands as he answered, the signs moving a little behind his voice. “What do you mean, that’s it?”
Runner pointed back toward the road. “We were still close.”
“So?”
“You could still catch me.”
For a second Wile thought he had misunderstood him.
Then Runner jerked his chin toward the road, hands already moving again. They had still been close. There was more course left. Wile could have caught him again, Runner could have gotten farther ahead, either of them could have screwed up the next turn. He signed faster as he went, irritation loosening his movements until Wile had to concentrate to keep up.
Wile caught enough.
He stared at him. “You’re actually pissed off.” His hands went with the words now, which only seemed to make Runner more certain he was finally being understood.
Runner pointed at Wile, then himself, then back toward the road. “Good race. Then nothing.”
“Nothing?” Wile repeated. “You won.”
Runner made a face at that and waved the idea away.
Wile felt his own irritation flare again. “Your car is still running, I ended up over here.” he gestured. “That is a win.”
Runner watched his hands, unimpressed.
Apparently winning only counted if Wile was there to be annoyed about it.
Runner gave the car one last disappointed look, lingering on the ruined wheel like he might somehow bully it back into shape if he stared long enough. Then something in him seemed to give. His shoulders dropped, he blew out a breath Wile couldn’t hear, and with one final irritated flick of his hand toward the tire, he turned and started back toward the Nissan.
Wile watched him go.
There had been no goodbye, no explanation, not even a sign that the conversation was finished. He just picked his way over the churned dirt with his hands shoved briefly into his pockets, apparently assuming Wile would understand whatever decision he had made and fall into line behind him.
Wile stayed exactly where he was.
Runner made it halfway back to the Nissan before he noticed, he slowed glanced over one shoulder, and stopped when he found Wile still standing beside the wreck. For a second he simply stared at him. Then both arms came out in an exaggerated sweep, palms up, his whole body pitching forward with the gesture.
Well?
Wile raised his eyebrows.
Runner pointed emphatically at the Nissan, then at Wile, then swept his hand toward himself in a broad, impatient motion.
Wile raised his eyebrows. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Runner only stared back at him.
Then, apparently deciding Wile was being deliberately difficult, he repeated the gesture, bigger this time.
Wile didn’t move. “No.”
Runner planted both hands on his hips.
Wile almost laughed. Instead he raised his hands and signed with the words. “I’m waiting here.”
Runner shook his head before Wile had fully lowered them. Then he pointed at the wreck, mimed a tow truck with a quick pulling motion, pointed back toward the bend where the finish line waited, and finally jabbed a finger toward the Nissan again.
Wile understood.
He just didn’t like it.
“You want me to get in that thing so we can go back and get a tow.”
Runner nodded, once, decisively.
Wile looked toward the Nissan, where the bass was still pounding hard enough to carry through the dirt beneath his shoes, then back at Runner who answered by sweeping one arm toward the car again, somehow more impatient this time, clearly expecting Wile to start moving already.
For another few seconds Wile stayed where he was mostly because Runner wanted him to move.
Then he looked back at his own car.
There wasn’t much dignity in the situation to salvage, the car wasn’t going anywhere under its own power and standing beside it in the dark wasn’t going to make the tow arrive any faster. The finish was close, Bugs and the others were already there, and Runner had apparently decided he was not leaving without him. Wile could keep arguing until one of them died of old age or he could get the damn tow arranged and come back.
The fact that Runner was right about any part of this made the decision substantially worse.
Wile dragged a hand over his face and pointed at him. “Fine.”
Runner’s posture changed immediately.
“Don’t.”
Whatever pleased little reaction had been forming disappeared behind an exaggerated look of innocence.
He opened the driver’s door and leaned inside for his phone, taking a second to make sure he hadn’t left anything else loose in the cabin. His keys were already in his pocket, the car gave another faint metallic tick as it cooled, and Wile paused with one hand braced against the roof, eyes drifting over the dashboard and out through the windshield at the dark stretch of desert ahead.
He hated leaving it here.
Logically, it made no difference. He would be gone for twenty minutes, maybe less. Nobody was going to come tearing down this road and steal a car with one wheel half destroyed, and even if somebody tried, they weren’t getting far.
Still.
Eleven weeks of work sat crooked in the dirt because of one blown tire.
Wile shut the door harder than he needed to and locked it. When he turned around Runner was still standing exactly where he’d left him, watching from halfway between the cars.
The second Wile started toward him, Runner turned and headed for his car like that settled everything.
That irritated Wile almost enough to stop.
Instead, he kept moving. His knee had started protesting every time he stepped wrong in the churned dirt and at this point he was more tired of standing out there than he was committed to making Runner work harder for the victory. He picked his way around the deeper ruts with his phone shoved into his pocket and his keys clenched in one hand, reaching the Nissan a few steps behind.
By then the driver’s door was already open.
He slowed beside the passenger side, looking through the window for a second longer than necessary. Across the roof, Runner noticed the hesitation and leaned back just enough to catch his eye before glancing pointedly at the unopened door beside him.
Wile followed the look, then looked back. “Yeah, I know.”
One eyebrow lifted.
Wile yanked the passenger door open and the bass hit him full in the chest, trapped inside the little cabin until it seemed to shake through the seats and floorboards. He stopped with one hand still on the door, feeling the beat thud up through his palm as he stared into the car.
Runner glanced over as Wile leaned into the car, took one look at his face, and immediately looked pleased with himself.
Wile pointed at the stereo. “Turn that shit down.”
The smile widened.
“I’m serious.”
Runner held Wile’s stare for another second, then ducked fully into the driver’s seat with the air of somebody making a tremendous personal sacrifice. He reached for the stereo and rested two fingers on the volume knob, pausing there just long enough to make sure Wile was watching.
Then he turned it down.
One click.
Wile stared at him.
Runner glanced over.
Another click.
The bass barely changed.
Wile pointed at the stereo again.
Runner sighed so dramatically Wile could see his whole chest rise with it, then slowly twisted the knob down several more notches, watching the display like every number he passed was costing him something. By the time the music had dropped to something that no longer rattled the door against Wile’s hand, Runner was slumped back in the seat looking personally betrayed.
Wile leaned farther into the cabin. “You’ll survive.”
Runner looked at him with deep skepticism.
“Get over it.”
That earned him a small, wounded shake of the head before Runner turned forward again, one hand settling on the wheel.
Only then did Wile finally climb in, lowering himself carefully into the passenger seat and pulling the door shut behind him. The music was still louder than he would have chosen, but at least it wasn’t trying to rearrange his organs anymore.
Beside him, Runner reached over and nudged the volume up one click.
Wile immediately looked at him.
Runner kept his eyes on the windshield.
Wile reached over and turned it back down.
Runner’s head turned toward him so fast Wile almost laughed.
Instead of reaching for the stereo again, he signed something Wile had never seen before, fast enough that by the time Wile realized he didn’t know it, Runner was already dropping his hand back to the shifter.
“Was that an insult?”
He didn’t answer, but the smile Runner was biting back made it pretty clear Wile had guessed right.
“Great. I’m looking that one up later,” Wile muttered to himself, settling deeper into the seat and shifting his leg until he found an angle that didn’t make his knee throb quite so insistently.
Runner glanced over at him before putting the Nissan in gear. The car lurched forward over the torn-up shoulder, every dip and rut coming straight through the suspension, Wile caught himself against the door when one wheel dropped harder than the others. His knee complaining immediately.
“Jesus.”
Runner kept his attention on getting them back to the road, easing around the worst of the ruts until the tires finally found asphalt again. The change was immediate, the ride smoothed out beneath them, steering settled, and a second later Runner was hitting the gas last ten minutes had barely happened.
Wile turned his head toward the side mirror.
His car was still there.
From this distance it looked smaller somehow, crooked in the dirt with the ruined wheel sunk low. Eleven weeks of work sitting useless beside the road while Wile rode away in the passenger seat of the Nissan he’d spent years swearing he would never get into.
He kept watching until the road bent and the car slipped out of sight.
It was probably for the best, if he kept looking at it he was going to start doing math in his head and he was in no mood to calculate exactly how much tonight had just cost him.
He let his head rest against the seat instead and stared through the windshield, already sorting through what needed to happen next. Tow. Garage. Get the wheel off. Check the underside. Find out whether the scrape looked worse than it was. Figure out how to survive Bugs finding out whose tire had actually blown first.
Beside him, Runner’s hand crept toward the stereo.
Wile caught his wrist without looking over.
There was a brief pause.
Then Runner started laughing.
Wile could feel it through the movement of his arm before he glanced sideways and saw Runner’s shoulders shaking, his face bright with the effort of trying not to make it obvious.
“I fucking hate you.”
Runner only laughed harder and pulled them into the next turn.