Axel somehow managed to make it back without murdering Jenny. After filling up a gas container, successfully filling the car up with it, and driving it to the shop, Axel was finally able to properly inspect it in the garage. He made Jenny sit in the waiting room.

  “Did you get her number?” Ian asked.

  “I’m not dating a woman who doesn’t know what the gas light is.”

  “You just narrowed your dating pool by a lot. Most women don’t know anything about cars.”

  Not only was Axel’s dating pool much narrower than Ian thought, but he was fairly confident that even a 10 year old girl would know what to do if the gas light came on. He was too tired to argue though. “Go back to your car.”

  With Ian occupied, Axel could finally work on Jenny’s car; to see why the check engine light was on to begin with. He probably should have asked her if it had any problems stalling or if the car made any strange sounds. He grabbed a code reader and plugged it into the car. Several codes pointing to a clogged catalytic converter popped up on the screen. That would explain a lot; right down to why Jenny needed gas earlier than anticipated.

  She’d need to get that fixed right away, but the question came down to whether it needed to be repaired, or replaced. Ralph would be happy with either option. Axel drove the car onto the vehicle lift, then raised it to inspect the cat. He removed it to check the inside.

  Definitely clogged. Filled with more oil than Carl’s engine, mixed in with that honeycomb material crap. He looked at the exhaust system and discovered chunks of the material had begun to spread into it. She’d need a new one. The news would make Ralph’s day, though if she were smart, she’d replace the car instead.

  Axel left the garage to explain everything to Ralph. He spotted Jenny in the waiting area flashing him a smile.

  “It’s the cat,” Axel said to Ralph. “A new one is worth more than the car.”

  “No need to tell her that.” Ralph called her over, and she walked up to the desk.

  “You’ll need a new cat,” Ralph said.

  “A new cat?” Jenny tilted her head to the side. “What’s wrong with Whiskers? Is he okay?”

  Axel slapped his hand over his forehead, and glanced at his watch. He still had another hour’s worth of this shit before he could go home. Home to his van in the parking lot.

  “It’s short for catalytic converter,” Ralph patiently explained. “It’s old, clogged, and needs to be replaced.”

  “Oh. That makes more sense.” Jenny twirled her hair with her finger, eyes on Axel. “How long will that take?”

  “A couple hours. We have one in stock.” Axel rubbed the back of his head. “I clock out in an hour, so Ian will have to take over.”

  “Sounds good. Are you free after work?”

  “No.” Before Jenny could say another word, Axel walked back into the garage.

  Luke arrived home with the pizza. His father greeted him at the door, and took the pizzas from him. He smiled at Skye. “How was your first day of school?”

  She stared at him.

  “Tell Grandpa all about it,” Luke said to Skye. “You’re not getting pizza until you do.”

  “It was okay,” Skye said to the floor.

  “Just okay?” Clay asked. “Did you make any friends?”

  “No.”

  “Were any of the kids nice?”

  Skye shrugged as they all headed for the kitchen. Luke had successfully convinced Clay to swap out the bothersome light bulbs with dimmer ones, so the kitchen was no longer a problem for Skye. Or Luke, for that matter. Clay set the boxes out on the kitchen table. Luke went to the fridge and grabbed two bottles of Hendi, and a juice box. He put the juice box in front of Skye, handed a Hendi to Clay, and opened his own bottle. They sat at the table, and dug in. Skye didn’t have any complaints about her pizza, so it was safe to assume that they found a new food she liked.

  Since Skye had actually answered a couple questions, Luke decided to try a few of his own again. “How high can you count?”

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  Skye bit into her pizza without acknowledging the question.

  “Can you count how many slices of pizza you have?”

  She took another bite.

  “Remember the conversation we had earlier?”

  “What conversation?” Clay asked.

  “The teacher told me Skye doesn’t listen to anything she tells her to do.”

  “Really?”

  Luke nodded while wondering why that was so surprising, then realized his father was being sarcastic. He moved on. “So I told Skye we’re going to start punishing her whenever she ignores us, or doesn’t do what we ask.”

  “About time you’ve gotten on board with that.” Clay turned to Skye. “You answer your dad or else you’re sitting in the corner for the rest of the night.”

  “That sounds a little harsh,” Luke said to Clay.

  Skye looked at her pizza slices, and pointed to each one, counting out loud. “1, 2, 3, 4.”

  “Good job,” Luke said, smiling. “Can you count higher than that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How high?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you know how to read?”

  Skye shook her head.

  Luke moved his gaze to his father. “Should she know by now?”

  “Maybe a few words, yeah. But now that you have her in school, she’ll catch up in no time.”

  If she obeyed Luke’s orders, and paid attention to the teacher. Somehow Luke felt it wouldn’t be that easy.

  Axel stopped in the bathroom before leaving work to wash the gunk and grime off his hands, arms and face. He had sent a quick “work today sucks I wish I was with you instead” text to Jake earlier, and Jake invited him over to his house. Axel could take a shower there.

  He just wished he could extend his vents to Sebastian. Sebastian never gave him any advice, like some people did. He’d just listen. And sometimes, he just wanted someone to listen.

  His chest ached. Why did Sebastian have to choose that girl over him? He knew why. He understood why. But… why?

  The first thing Axel did at Jake’s, was use his shower. Jake offered to join him, but Axel turned it down. He felt too dirty even for Jake.

  Once clean, he left the bathroom in only a towel. Jake laid on his bed, and sat up at the sight of Axel. “Damn. Has anyone ever told you how sexy you are?”

  Axel flopped onto the bed on his stomach and groaned into the pillow.

  “Well it’s true.”

  “Two women, in one day!” Axel said into the pillow.

  “Huh?”

  Axel lifted his head. “Two women today practically told me that.”

  Jake grinned and raised his hand up for a high-five. “Nice.”

  “Not nice. Annoying!"

  Flinching, Jake put his hand back down. "Sorry."

  Axel barely acknowledged the apology, and ranted. "I don’t like women. I don’t like when women hit on me. I especially don’t like when women hit on me at work!”

  “To be fair, men hit on women all the time,” Jake said. “Women are always complaining about getting unwanted attention.”

  “I’m not saying that’s okay! None of it is okay. Christ. I’m just trying to do my job. I just want to do my job. But no. I’ve got a married women, standing next to her cursed husband, giving me bedroom eyes. And then, the stupidest girl I have ever met-”

  “Don’t say stupid.”

  Axel stared at Jake. “Huh?”

  “It’s an ableist slur. You shouldn’t use it.”

  Axel buried his face in his hands. This was why he preferred venting to Sebastian. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter.”

  “It’s okay. You can tell me the rest. Just… leave out the ableism.”

  “Fine. This dumb girl-”

  “Dumb is even worse!”

  Axel gaped at Jake. “What word do you want me to use then? Mentally challenged?”

  “Was she actually mentally challenged? Or are you exaggerating?”

  “That’s not the point. Anyways, this girl comes in saying her car broke down a quarter mile away. Batting her eyelashes and thrusting her cleavage in my face. Making me walk all the way to her car to jump start the thing. Which I couldn’t, because it turned out, the car had run out of gas! And she didn’t even know it. The light had even gone on, but she didn’t know what it meant. How do you not know what the gas light is?”

  Jake shrugged. “I don’t know what a gas light is. Is that like the light I get when my car needs to be charged?”

  “Probably.” Axel wasn’t familiar with the ins and outs of electric cars. “When a gas car is almost out of gas, a light comes on next to the gas gauge.”

  “Yeah, that’s similar.”

  “You might never have used a gas car, but even you would know what the light means.” Or so Axel hoped. “I had to walk all the way back to the shop to get gas, and then back to her car to fill it, so we could drive her car to the shop. Because she also said her check engine light had been on for a month. A month!”

  “Check engine light?”

  Right. Electric cars didn’t have engines. “It’s a little light that comes on when there’s something wrong with the engine.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “Not always, but it can be. When it comes on, you’re supposed to take it in to see what the problem is. If you don’t, a small problem can become a big problem. It’s exactly what happened to her.”

  “Ah. I didn’t know that.”

  “You’re from a place where gas cars are illegal. This girl’s from here. She should know better.”

  “Did she say she’s from here?” Jake asked. “Maybe she’s from the ESA and didn’t know either.”

  “Regardless, it turned out she needed a new cat.”

  Jake scratched his head. “The animal?”

  “No.” Axel clenched his jaw. He understood not knowing what it was, but why did so many people think he literally meant the animal? “It’s what we call catalytic converters.”

  “Oh. Is that what makes the engine work?”

  Venting to Jake was not helping him one bit. And he hadn’t even started on the racism he had to put up with. Axel rolled onto his back, rubbing his forehead. “Sure. Anyways, that takes time to replace. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ian is still working on it.”

  “I’m sorry you had a shitty day.” Jake trailed his finger along Axel’s arm. “Want me to fix that?”

  Axel looked at Jake. At some point, he had completely unbuttoned his shirt. He laid on his side, propped up on his arm, shirt sliding off his shoulder. And those God damn glasses. Axel sucked in a breath. Now he remembered why he liked Jake so much. He might have been bad at listening, but he knew how to turn him on. “Please.”

  Jake leaned over and pressed his lips against Axel’s. Axel pulled Jake on top, returning his kisses, doing his best to forget all about his horrible day.