“What is it?” he asked.
“It’s Kelly,” I told him. “She says she wants to see me.”
I was grinning so hard my cheeks hurt. I probably could have tried to have a bit more decorum, to play it cool so my older brother wouldn’t immediately latch on to the opportunity to make fun of me. Of course, that was far from happening. Seeing her name on my screen and getting an invitation from her to come see her brightened me up, and there was nothing I could do to cover that. Being the dedicated older brother that he was, Vince immediately jumped on the opportunity to give me a good ribbing.
“Maybe she wants to change your oil,” he said. “Have you gotten a tune-up recently? Did you make an appointment with her to get your system flushed? She could rotate your tires to make sure they wear properly.”
That one made me look at him strangely.
“Do you want to throw a few more mechanic-themed double entendres out there?” I asked.
Vince went back to his jogging in place, looking up and to the diagonal as he made a sound like he was deep in thought.
“Um… something about… filters. I’ll have to think about that one and get back to you.”
“You’re ridiculous,” I told him.
“Are you going to go see her?” he asked.
“Of course I am,” I said as we started jogging again.
“You can take a shower at my place, and make sure you stop by the drugstore on the way,” he said.
“It’s not that kind of visit,” I told him.
“What do you mean it’s not that kind of visit?” he asked. “The girl texted you after work and said she needs you. That doesn’t take a whole lot of reading between the lines to know what she’s saying.”
“She didn’t say she needed me. She said she wanted to see me. We’re just going to talk,” I told him.
“You look pretty perky for a guy who is just going to go talk to a woman he’s obviously into,” my brother teased.
I shrugged. “I’m hoping this means we can talk about a possible future. When she first started working at the complex, we agreed we were just going to keep everything professional, but I can’t do that anymore. I let her know my feelings had changed, and I’ve been taking it really slow with her. She hasn’t given me any real indication of where she is in the whole thing, so maybe this is it. She’s ready to talk about us.”
I waited for some sort of dig or mocking response. Instead, Vince just nodded. There wasn’t a hint of hesitation or discomfort in his expression or posture. He seemed to think it was absolutely fine I wanted to date our mechanic. Either that or he was still contemplating the inappropriate filter joke and hadn’t gotten it worked all the way out yet.
We stayed silent for a few more steps before he glanced over at me.
“So, you’re serious about her?” he asked.
“Yeah, I really am,” I told him. It felt good to admit that, to actually say it out loud and share it with someone other than Colby. I didn’t want to keep it hidden anymore, and I liked being able to say it openly. With a surge of energy, I flashed him a smile. “Race you back!”
I took off running, listening to him shout after me and laughing.
When we got back to Vince’s house, I jumped into the shower. He had clothes waiting for me when I got out. He was slightly taller than me, but it wasn’t enough to make that big of a difference. I was just glad to be wearing fresh clothes rather than showing up at Kelly’s house in the same thing I was wearing at work. Like I usually did, I’d chosen one of the bikes to ride home. It was something I couldn’t do when the weather didn’t cooperate, so I always savored the nights I could just enjoy a ride that didn’t have anything to do with trying to come in first. Racing was a deep love of mine, and I was always excited to get out there and compete, but there was something special about just being able to relax and have fun on the ride.
That’s what I did when I got on the back of my bike and rode toward the address Kelly sent me. It was a bit of a distance from Vince’s house, but that only meant I got more time to enjoy the feeling of the air rushing past me and the world flying by. When I got into the right street, I slowed down so I could find the right building. Soon I noticed Kelly’s Jeep sitting in the driveway of a duplex. Beside it was another car I didn’t recognize. It could have been her neighbor, but there was another driveway on the other side of the building I assumed belonged to whoever lived over there.
Someone else being at her place when she called me over to see her felt off. There was something strange about her reaching out to me the way she did if she wasn’t alone. When I first read the text from her, it seemed like she was excited to see me. But now that I thought about it longer, it seemed more like urgency. She was adamant about me coming over to her place that night rather than us doing anything else or making plans for another night. It made me feel like she really wanted to see me, to get the conversation going, but now I had a sinking feeling.
I parked my bike and walked up to the door. Taking a deep breath, I knocked. Any hope I had for this evening going well disappeared when Kelly came to the door. She was wearing stretch pants and a lightweight, long-sleeved shirt. Her hair was tied up in a messy bun, and she’d washed off the makeup she wore
