Burying Water (3 page)

FIVE

Jesse

then

“Tell me again why I’m
here
tonight?”

Outside of sharing an apartment and working together, I make an effort not to spend my time with Boone, for my sanity and the survival of our living arrangement. We’re just too different. Most days I’d take his bulldog, Licks, over him, and that damn dog ate two pairs of my shoes.

The handful of times we’ve gone out together over the years, it’s been with college friends, the destination local pubs and the odd club. But The Cellar isn’t even a club. It’s a “lounge,” in the underground level of a downtown Portland office building, full of pretentious people in dresses and suits holding martini glasses, while sparkle-framed mirrors and black see-through curtains hang where there aren’t any windows. Slow-paced trance music beats in the background, the kind of music that punk kids listen to at raves after they’ve dropped a hit of Ecstasy. Totally out of place here, and yet no one else has clued in and changed the channel.

Boone leans back in the booth, his eyes roaming over the crowd. “Told you already. Because Rust asked.”

Rust, also known as Boone’s Uncle Rust, also known as the owner of Rust’s Garage, where we work as mechanics. And Rust’s Garage is known around Portland as
the
place to bring your car if you’ve got a problem, you don’t want to pay the inflated prices at the dealership, and you don’t want to get ripped off by some hack with a wrench. It’s not cheap by any means, but Uncle Rust keeps the rates at 10 percent below the dealers’ book price and he keeps highly skilled staff in place.

Except for Boone.

Boone spent the first two months after mechanics school shadowing the others and handing them tools. He’s bitched about it behind closed doors but he bites his tongue around the garage, knowing he has no right to complain. Every other guy there has had to put in at least ten years of legit experience elsewhere and jumped through flaming hoops before being considered. Boone only has a job thanks to nepotism. So do I, technically, because Boone got me in. At least what
I
lack for in years, I more than make up for in skill.

“He could have just come to the shop,” I mutter, tugging at the wide collar of Boone’s gray dress shirt that he made me wear, along with the only pair of black dress pants that I own, which I’ve worn exactly two times—to both of my grandpas’ funerals. I certainly would have stuck out in the faded T-shirt and jeans I had on earlier. Hell, the bouncers wouldn’t even have let me through the doors. I would have been happy with that.

I’m just not a lounge kind of guy.

A server with long, jet-black hair and tanned skin approaches our table, a round serving platter of empty flutes and wineglasses balanced in her hand. Five minutes in this place proved that all the servers are young, thin females, smoking hot, and full of themselves. This one’s no exception. I’d love to see the hiring process.

“Hey, Luke, what brings you up here tonight?” She reaches out with her free hand to adjust a strand of hair that curls out at the nape of his neck.

He throws his arm over the back of the bench, all relaxed-like. He’s a natural at charming women. I don’t get it. I guess maybe his baby-blue eyes camouflage the fact that he can be a dog. That, or they see it and just don’t care. “Just chillin’ for a bit. How’re things with you?”

Her eyes roll over the customers as she says, “Oh, you know.” She taps his watch. “New?”

He twists his wrist to give everyone a better look at the Rolex his uncle just gave him, a proud smile on his face. “Just got it last weekend.” Gesturing my way, he says, “This is my friend Jesse. Jesse, this is Priscilla.”

I manage to pry my eyes off her fake tits and move to her face a second before crystal-blue eyes lined with heavy black makeup flash to me. She offers me a tepid smile with those bright pink-painted lips. “Nice to meet you, Jesse.” Nothing about that sounded sincere.

I’m surprised I even got that much out of her. Must be the clothes. If she saw me on the street tomorrow, I doubt she’d bat an eye my way. It’s not that I’ve ever had trouble attracting girls. Granted, they lately tend to be of the hood-rat variety. The “classy” ones have outgrown their need to rebel against their parents and the smart ones are just plain nervous around me. And girls like this? She’s not the type to be satisfied with a guy who lives under a hood and comes home with grease under his fingernails.

And I have no plans to change.

“The usual, Luke?”

“Yeah, make it two.” He jerks his chin toward me. “And he’s paying.”

I watch her ass sway as she stalks back to the bar with those spikey four-inch heels. While I may not be interested, I can appreciate a tight body when I see one.

“Women here are sweet, huh?” Boone says.

“They’re not women. They’re gold-diggers. Entirely different breed.” There was a time when we preferred the same type—local college girls. The kind you might see heading to a nine a.m. class in pajama pants and a messy ponytail; the kind who wear tight T-shirts and cut-off jean shorts and will get stupid-drunk on beer bongs with you before slurring about how hot you are and dragging you to their dorm room. But over the last year, Boone has started hanging out a lot more with his uncle and his tastes have become more refined. Now he prefers the kind of girl who will duck out of bed to fix her makeup before waking him with a morning blow job.

He gives me a “yeah, I know” shrug. “I’ll bet you could hit that for a night, now that you’re not dressed like a gearhead.”

“I
am
a gearhead. And so are you,
Luke
.” I struggle to get that out with a straight face. He hates anyone but women calling him by his first name. And he
despises
being called a gearhead. In truth, he doesn’t exactly fit the model.

I still laugh every time I think about the first day of class. In a sea of Columbia sportswear and baseball caps, Luke Boone stuck out like a shiny new Porsche in a junkyard, strolling in in his pressed pants and dress shirt, the sleeves rolled high enough to properly display his gold watch. That wasn’t a first-day-of-school look, either. That’s how he
always
dresses. The only time he and I ever look like we may tread in the same water is when we’re wearing our navy-blue coveralls at work.

I shake my head for the thousandth time. How did a preppy boy like Luke Boone and me, a guy who’s been questioned for attempted murder, end up sharing an apartment? There are really only two reasons I can come up with: we both live for cars and neither of us gives a fuck about anyone else, including each other.

Boone loves looking at cars, knowing about cars, talking about cars. He sure as hell loves driving them, and fast. But he’s more interested in following in his uncle’s enterprising footsteps than actually getting his hands dirty. Rust actually
made
him take the two-year mechanics program after finishing a four-year bachelor’s degree. He wants the future manager of his garage and whatever else he has in store for Boone—possibly a managerial job at the car sales company he owns—to know the ropes from the ground up. While Boone wasn’t at the top of our mechanics program at college—I was—he’s a natural with people and meticulous about details. He’ll probably do well in an office setting.

I get a middle finger in response before Boone’s attention shifts to the crowd, looking every bit a socialite with money and class, and not the guy who stocks our cupboards with cans of Chef Boyardee and snaps when the DVR messes up and doesn’t record an episode of
American Idol
. What he does have is a rich bachelor uncle who throws him nice things here and there—cash, gift cards to high-end stores, the watch around his wrist, the cufflinks holding his sleeves together. When Boone’s not rolling out of bed to come into the shop, he looks like he’s heading to a photo shoot, dressing in clothes I’d reserve for weddings and gelling his hair—taming those curls into something females can’t help but start playing with.

The guy’s
hair
picks up women.

“Do you
seriously
like this place?” I ask.

“Rust likes it here and I like hanging out with him, so . . . yeah.”

Priscilla comes back with two rocks glasses full of colorless liquid. That was fast. That tells me these aren’t complicated mixes. Her hand settles on my shoulder, giving it a friendly squeeze before a sharp fingernail grazes behind my ear. “Did you want to run a tab?” Of course, now that she knows I’m the one paying, she’s spreading the charm on thick.

“Yup, and you can bring us another round when you have a sec, doll,” Boone answers before I can, a smirk plastered on his face. “Cheers!” He clinks my glass and sucks back his drink.

I follow suit, gritting my teeth against the slight burn of hard liquor. It slides down my throat without too much bite, though, so I’m guessing it’s not the four-bucks-a-shot bar-well vodka. Still, I’d rather just have a beer.

“How can you afford coming to places like this?” I hold up my glass. “Drinking
this.
” Boone makes the same amount as me and it’s nothing to brag about. Sure, our cost of living is low, renting in southeast Portland, but living like Boone isn’t cheap. I don’t even want to think about the bill this asshole’s going to stick me with tonight.

Boone answers with a one-shouldered shrug. “I buy one, two drinks max. Rust always picks up the tab. I’m his favorite nephew.”

“Aren’t you his
only
nephew?”

Another middle finger answers me.

Three vodkas later, I’m feeling tingles coursing through my limbs. Boone slaps the table and slides out of his chair. “Come on. Don’t say anything stupid around these guys, all right?”

I roll my eyes at him as we abandon our seats and head through the growing crowd, toward the back of the club. The crowd thins the farther we go, until we’ve reached a section with five alcoves and one roped-off area. Very VIP. Boone stops at the last one, a large, round leather booth with dim crystal pendants hanging from above and heavy black curtains around the sides to add to the secluded feeling. Four men are seated within.

“There he is!” Rust slides off the end to throw an arm around Boone’s shoulder. “Thought you weren’t coming tonight.” I’ve met the tall blond man exactly twice before, for two minutes apiece. He’s the money behind the garage but he leaves the actual garage operations to his manager, Steve Miller, a 250-pound man with a long, scruffy beard and abysmal people skills.

Boone jerks his head back the way we came. “Just hanging up front with Jesse for a bit.”

Rust’s sharp blue eyes land on me—the same blue as his nephew’s. He reaches out to offer me a firm handshake, his gold watch catching a glint of light from above. “How are things going at the garage, Jesse?

“So far, so good.”

He gestures at the two empty chairs pulled up to the outside of the booth. “Top-ups?” He reaches for the bottle of vodka—the label in some foreign language with a weird alphabet—that sits in the middle of the table. I can’t say I’ve ever seen an entire bottle of hard liquor sitting on a table at a bar before, but I guess that’s how the rich roll.

And these guys stink of money.

As we take our seats and Rust pours, I scan the three other guys sitting around the table. Two are talking quietly on cell phones. The third, a lean, blond guy with angular features, dressed all in black, in his late thirties by my guess, gives the glass in front of him a hard glare while he rolls what looks to be a wedding band around his ring finger.

Now I know why Boone likes hanging around with these guys. He loves the stink of money.

“From what Miller tells me, my nephew’s not full of shit. Miller’s never seen anyone work so fast before.” Rust pushes my glass—almost overflowing—to me. “And I hear you might have my Corvette running again soon? No one’s been able to get that lemon working.”

I’m unable to smother the proud smile. I’ve been fiddling with engines since I got my first wrench and a dirt bike at nine years old. I used to sit on the bench in the garage and watch my dad work on his ’67 Mustang. The car
I
ended up finishing before he sold it. It was just a hobby to him. To me, it was a calling. The guys in high school shop used to call me the engine whisperer because I can fix anything; it doesn’t matter how complicated or how broken.

Regardless, I try not to act like a douchebag about it, so I play it off with a shrug. “I like classics.”

“Luke was telling me. You’re looking to get a . . .”

“’Sixty-nine Barracuda. Black.” No hesitation with that answer. It’s what I’ve wanted since I was seven years old and saw one race through Main Street back home on rodeo weekend, its black paint glistening after a car wash. It’s what I’ve been saving for. It’s the reason I’m driving a piece of shit now. Another year and it’ll be mine.

“Huh. That’s a good one.” Rust nods slowly, seemingly impressed. He lifts his glass in a toast and then gestures to the man in black across the table. “Well, my business partner here, Viktor, may have some extra work for you.”

I turn to find steely blue eyes already fixed on me from across the table, in a hard face that doesn’t appear accustomed to smiling. He sure as hell isn’t smiling now.

“Yes . . .” This guy, Viktor, pulls out a single cigarette and lighter from his shirt pocket and proceeds to light it up. “Perhaps first you could tell me about yourself. Rust has not shared much.” An accent touches his words, though I can’t identify where it’s from. Either way, he doesn’t sound particularly friendly. He must not be from America. That would explain why he thinks it’s okay to light up in a public establishment. That or he’s just ballsy as fuck.

I shrug. And then I hear my dad’s voice inside my head, ordering me to stop shrugging.
Criminals and half-wits answer with shrugs
. “Not much to tell. I just love working on engines is all.” There’s not much else Rust could tell this guy because there’s not much his nephew knows about me. Despite Boone and I living together and going to school together, we stay out of each other’s personal lives
.
He’s too self-involved to ask and I’m too private to offer. He knows I’m from mid-state but he doesn’t know I’m from a small town northwest of Bend, called Sisters. He knows my parents still live there and he’s overheard enough arguments over the phone to know that our relationship is rocky, but he has no idea that my dad’s the sheriff and my mom is a reputable surgeon. He knows I have a twin sister named Amber who’s a nurse, but I sure as hell am never introducing him to her.