Chapter 6: Headlights

Mateo moved first.

He grabbed my wrist and pulled me off the workbench.

We crossed the dark to the far bay, where his black pickup was parked nose to the wall.

He opened the driver's door with the lights off. The dome light had been dead since he bought it. He'd complained about it all summer.

I had never loved a broken dome light so much in my life.

I went in across the bench seat and he came in after me and pulled the door to without latching it.

We lay down flat across the seat, me underneath, him half on top of me, both of us breathing.

His T-shirt was still somewhere on the garage floor.

The Lexus rolled into the middle bay and stopped.

The engine cut off.

The bay door rumbled back down behind it.

The headlights stayed on.

Through the gap under his truck's dashboard I could see the white glow on the ceiling.

Pilar didn't get out.

I heard her voice instead, through her car window, which must have been down an inch.

She was on the phone.

"She refused. In front of Ruben. Walked out in the middle of dinner like an animal."

A pause.

"No, she won't sign. She'll never sign. She's exactly like the old man."

Mateo's hand found mine on the seat and held it.

"Then we don't need her signature," Pilar said. "That's the beauty of it. The clause says the family votes. Ruben, me and Mateo. Two of three."

A pause.

"Ruben will vote with me. He always votes with me. He hates a fight more than he loves her."

My father.

She was talking about my father like a piece of furniture.

"Mateo?" She laughed. "Mateo will do what's good for Mateo. He always has. I raised him."

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