The Mechanic

-Chapter Five-

Location: Central

"Pary, come on."

Ow.

"Stupid kids... good grief."

Oww.

"Wake up, bro."

I blink, and the hard hand stops slapping my face.

"Can you hear me? How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Twelve," I groan, hoping that he'll stop talking. My head is pounding.

Another voice, and I blink again, trying to clear the fog from my head.

Her face comes into focus first, her blue and brown eyes stayed on me. "He doesn't even have twelve fingers."

My thoughts snap, and red hair is all my mind can come up with. Red hair, a crooked smile, laughing eyes. Freckles. Femi.

Just for a moment, I think I know something. And then, quicker than it came, it's gone.

But she's still staring at me, and she looks bewildered. As though she felt something like I felt. Like she knows something I thought I knew.

Then she blinks, and the moment is over.

Her eyebrows jump. "You're an idiot, you know that?"

"Yep," I sigh, as Matt helps me to my feet.

There's blood all over my hands, all over my shirt, and I realize—after running my fingers over a sore spot on my forehead—it's all over my face, too.

"I look like I've been mauled by a mad dog, don't I?"

Matt chuckles. "More or less."

I take one wobbly step after the other as the three of us make our way to the main road, and I have to keep myself from groaning with every single one.

My knees feel bruised, like I fell on them too hard, and all of the rises and falls of the ground do nothing to make it easier to walk.

Femi steadies me when I almost fall. "Geez. Stop trying to die on me, will you?"

I cough. "Yeah. I'll add it to my to-do list when I get home."

She rolls her eyes, and Matt laughs. I manage to smile, myself.

Why does she have to be so grumpy?

I almost fall into a gutter.

Matt catches my arm, hauling me back to my feet. He grunts. "Why did you have to get heavier?" he teases. "You were so much easier to carry when you were still a squirt."

"You trying to say something?" I chuckle, wincing.

"You're not a toothpick anymore, mostly."

"How kind," I mutter, biting the inside of my cheek.

It's a painful walk to his house—I didn't know that I ran that far, at least a mile—and when we get there, there's very little relief.

Elena puts a hotpack on my knee since she doesn't have any ice on hand. I'm not entirely sure what good that's going to do, but whatever. She seems to know what she's doing, usually, and if she doesn't, no one questions her.

It's agony. Heat doesn't feel good on aches.

She shakes her head, eyeing the gash on my forehead. "Matthew, I told you that you should have went to look for him last night..."

I tune out their conversation and lock my eyes on Femi, who sits in a chair a few feet away, staring at me. She smiles a tiny bit and rolls her eyes. Then she looks back at me, as if to say, "Why are they fussing so much? You're fine."

I wish I could answer the question, myself.

Matt comes up beside me and pats my shoulder. "I'm just glad you're not dead. You ran far enough to wind me, and I was only walking fast."

"I ran far enough to knock myself out," I offer the information like incriminating evidence, but not surprisingly, I can't find it in me to care.

Femi smiles.

Elena just clicks her tongue disapprovingly. "You two are impossible."

"You married me, woman. It's just the way it has to be." But even I can't miss the note of fond tenderness in his voice. That ever-silent, "I love you." Not spoken straight, but rather in tones.

Femi raises one eyebrow at me, her mouth tipped, and glances back at them.

"Can I hold the baby?" she asks softly.

My sister-in-law blinks, looks over at me, then Femi, and nods. "Of course, lovely. Just be careful with her. She's not in the best of moods."

Piper flails her arms as Elena hands her to Femi, but she calms as she's laid on her back over her keeper's knees.

The redhead smiles briefly at me before she dips down and plants a soft kiss on the baby's plump cheek.

Piper giggles.

Elena shakes her head in pleased disbelief. "I don't know how you do it. She loves you more and more every day."

"I try," Femi replies, smiling wryly. "But she loves you more than she loves me. She never cries when you get her out of her crib in the morning. I daresay she likes your face more than mine."

But I know that that isn't true, necessarily. Piper just isn't used to her yet.

With hair like fall leaves and skin incredibly pale, she's strange. She doesn't even have a tan to tame it down, just freckles.

And if I was a liar, I'd say that I didn't find it pretty, in its own way. But she is beautiful, and I can't bring myself to deny the fact.

She hefts the baby into her arms, up onto her shoulder.

Her eyes dart over and catch me looking at her, and I don't find it in me to look away. For a moment, we stare back and forth, neither of us shying from eye contact. Eventually, though, she breaks away, lips parted in a silent breath. And this strange look on her brow, like fear. But not quite—bewilderment. Like earlier. Like the thoughts that overtook us both in that moment when I looked up and saw her.

I look down too, to my lap and my hands that lay folded there.

Spero was right. I've never taken much time to look at my hands, but they're rough. Rough and square, hardened by time and too many hours covered in gasoline. Insensitive because of a lack of human contact. Physical contact.

I catch her looking at me, but this time she looks quickly away like she's ashamed.

Piper whimpers, and Femi pulls her down from her shoulder, setting her back down on her legs. She begins to tickle her, making baby talk and grinning at her with an animated face.

I drag my eyes away to find Matt's. He gives me a look. Pitying, maybe. Why? I don't know.

My knee has started to ache again, and I wiggle my toes, wondering for a moment if that might help somehow.

Piper giggles, and I look back to her and Femi, smiling when I see her blowing raspberries on the baby's chubby belly. She laughs when Piper does, eyes shining.

I can't decide what to think. She's beautiful.

I can't look away. And I know in that very moment that I am undeniably hooked, and I'll never be able to look away again.