Page 2 of Feint

I probably wasn’t fooling him. This was the sixth time I had run late to work this month. It would most definitely happen again. And if anything, Dad was just glad to see me happy again. I didn’t like lying to Dad about why I was late. But after AJ, I didn’t think I was ready to tell anyone about Kordell yet. Well… Jayden knew. But I had asked him not to say anything to Mom and Dad because I wanted to tell them when I was ready to.

It was funny; just like with AJ, Jayden and Kordell also didn’t seem to like each other much, but they respected each other in a weird way. I’d tried to ask Jayden about it once, but all he’d said was that it was a club thing and I didn’t need to worry about it. I hated it when he couldn’t be honest with me, and then when I brought it up to Kordell, he’d said that my brother drove the wrong kind of bikes. So, I’d let them keep their stupid biker-guy secrets.

I set my cup down on my workbench and grabbed the tablet to see what I wanted to start with first—a Tesla that wanted a metallic wrap, a truck that needed some powder-coated chameleon rims, a classic car that needed to be painted soft pink… or the lowrider that I’d been working on pinstriping for a few weeks now. I’d start with the rims. Those could dry as I got one of the other cars prepped.

I grabbed a set of keys off the key holder by the door and pulled in a pretty black Ram truck. I drove it over a lift. I exited and pressed the button, which lifted it a foot off the ground, and then got to work, taking off the tires. I popped the rims out and cleaned them, making sure there wasn’t a speck of dirt on thembefore I set them on hooks in the spray booth. Chameleon paint and custom wraps were something newer I’d brought into the shop. I had noticed it was becoming a trend instead of painting cars, so I’d convinced Dad to invest into getting twenty colors in stock. So far, they were flying off the shelves, especially with the younger crowd.

An hour later, the rims were drying while I prepped an old, classic 1958 Chevy Impala. I wore a pair of coveralls, safety goggles, a hat, and started up the sander. I tried to get all the old paint and some little rust areas cleaned off. Sanding was my least favorite part of the paint process. I planned to talk to Dad about hiring someone else to help with this part because while I knew it was important for me to know how to do every aspect, that didn’t mean I couldn’t hire someone to do the less fun parts for me since I did know how to do it.

Once I was done with that, I changed out of the hot coveralls and hung those up. I checked my phone while walking over to take the rims out. I read my messages.

Kordell

Hey, mama, can’t make it for lunch. Have some things I gotta handle. Don't think I won’t make up for it in a couple of days. ;)

A couple of days? Aw, that meant he was going to be out of town again. He had been doing that more and more lately. But he always texted me every day he was gone, so I never worried about him disappearing. Not like AJ had. I stopped walking and wrote my reply to him.

Rosalie

That sucks. I was looking forward to seeing you later. How many days are you going to be gone, do you think? Where are you going this time?

Kordell usually didn’t tell me exactly where he was going, but told me which direction out of town he was heading. As I waited for his reply, I quickly checked my other messages.

Jayden

You should come over to chill sometime soon. Have someone I want you to meet.

Ahh, I’d wondered if he was going to text me today. Last night, when I had come home, I saw Jayden sitting in a new-looking white Ferrari convertible in his driveway. To my shock, he had his tongue down the throat of a woman who wasnotBonnie, his girlfriend. She sat on his lap, her shirt pulled down and her bra showing completely. And speaking of Bonnie, her bike was nowhere to be seen, so I didn’t know what was going on there, but he totally had some explaining to do. But the woman on top of Jayden had seen me, then leaned down and said something in his ear, and he’d glanced back at me before I hurried into my house.

I kept checking the rest of my messages.

Mom

Rosalie, don’t forget you were going to swing by on Friday to pick up my Navigator to drive to the shop for me.

Hank Jr.

Yo! We still getting together this weekend to check out that new set of roads they put in toward the hills?

I made a note to reply to all of them when I went to lunch and tucked my phone back into my pocket. Kordell might not be able to reply for a while—it was harder to check your phone when you were flying down the freeway on a motorcycle. I’d found that out the hard way when I was riding with him and tried to grab my phone for a photo and it went flying. Thank God I had everything backed up on the cloud. I had to get a new phone that day. I giggled to myself as I remembered the moment. I had literally started to panic, for more reasons than Kordell knew—losing that phone was my only hope of ever contacting AJ again, if he ever turned on his old number.

I shook my head.Snap out of it, Rosalie!

No sense in constantly thinking about him. Not like he was ever going to come back—at least, the odds were probably not that great.

So, instead of sitting here and waiting, I was going to live my life. Do whatever made me happy, and right now, that looked a lot like painting that classic a pretty pastel pink!

I ended up getting the rims done, the pink classic car painted, and instead of doing the wrap today, I decided to get right into doing more of the pinstriping of the lowrider. She was beautiful and getting close to being done. It was a complete labor of love, my biggest detail job yet. Once Dad was sure I was getting the hang of it without help, he let me go crazy without him checking in. He said he wanted to be as surprised as the owner when they came to pick it up.

Kind of wild that a year ago, I was still learning the ropes, and now, I ran this side of the custom shop that Dad owned. It wasstill crazy to me. And I didn’t ever want to let Dad down. He had worked so hard since before Jayden and I had been born to build up his business.

As the minutes ticked by, I found my rhythm with the silky brushstrokes, seeing the design come to life as I worked.

A knock on the paint bay wall had me look over in that direction, and I saw Dad wave bye. I waved back and then checked the clock.

Oh my gosh! It’s been five hours already?!

I took in the work I’d done tonight. Time to find a good stopping point. Once I did, I got back to it. My brush flowed from dipping into the paint and then seamlessly dragging along the car’s side. I finished the section I was working on and called it quits for the night. Almost done with the first side, and then it would be time to finish the second. The hood and trunk and all the engine details were done already. I should be able to finish it in time if I pulled a few more days like today.