Chapter 7

Saturday afternoon slid over Forks like warm water. The rain had taken a break; clouds held their breath, and the light that made it through felt like somebody had wiped the day clean with the flat of their hand. Charlie declared it a "good day for the garage," which meant he'd stand around drinking coffee and looking useful while I did the work.

The garage smelled right: metal, old oil, a hint of rubber, damp wood. On the left wall, my bikes lined up like a row of stubborn personalities—matte black café build with a hand-stitched seat and low bars; a naked streetfighter with the exhaust tucked tight; an old inline-four I'd rescued from a yard and resuscitated out of pure spite. Chrome flashed here and there like jewelry I actually respected. Tools were laid out in a grid across the workbench because chaos wastes time.

Center stage: the car.

Cherry red that ate the light. 2005 Ferrari F430, bodywork massaged past factory—subtle widebody so clean it could be stock to the untrained eye, lowered stance that made the wheel arches look like they were about to whisper secrets to the tires. Black decal striping that didn't shout; it cut. The rear diffuser had been upgraded; the engine cover's glass threw a small cathedral of reflections onto the ceiling. It was the kind of machine that made neighbors come outside just to pretend they were checking their mail.

Charlie whistled low. "You sure that... belongs here?"

"She likes it here," I said, flicking the hood release. "And she's family."

"Expensive family." He sipped his coffee like it was a seatbelt.

I propped the hood, leaned in. The V8 sat like a crown, clean enough to eat off, lines and harnesses routed the way my hands liked to see them. "We're doing belts, fluids, and I want to re-torque a few things someone pretended to torque. Then I'll take her around the block to keep the seals from sulking."

"You tell your vehicles they're dramatic a lot?" Charlie asked.

"Only when they are." I handed him a flashlight. "Spot me."

He stood at my shoulder, light steady without my having to say a word. We'd learned each other's rhythms a long time ago.

"Did you... build those too?" he asked, chin flicking toward the bikes.

"Most of it," I said. "Saved up, bought junk, made it less junk. Sold two. Kept three."

"Which one's your favorite?"

"They get jealous if I answer that." I grinned into the engine bay. "The café is meaner than she looks, though."

He made a quiet approving sound like good cast-iron. "You planning to drive this—" another chin flick at the Ferrari "—to school?"

"Eventually," I said, casual as I could make it. "Not yet."

"Because you don't want to draw attention." He made it a statement, not a question.

"Because it'll cause... noise." I glanced up. "And because Bella's going to need the truck for a while."

He nodded. "Fair."

The door from the house creaked. Bella leaned in, a hair tie between her teeth, eyes taking in the garage like she was looking at a museum she wasn't sure she should touch. "You're going to make a lot of people at school feel poor."

"I'll share the road," I said.

She circled the Ferrari, careful not to brush it, then stopped to stare through the glass engine cover. "It looks like... a heart."

I liked that. "It is."

She turned to the bikes. "How many jackets do you own that go with these?"

"All of them."

She snorted, tied her hair up, and perched on Charlie's old stool. "Do you need help doing... whatever you're doing?"

"Hand me the 10mm and moral support," I said.

"The what?"

"The little one you can never find when you need it," Charlie offered, already passing me the correct socket.

Bella watched us for a few minutes, chin propped in her palm, legs swinging. "So—" she began, offhand like she wasn't asking for anything important, "—Jessica says people are doing a beach thing again next weekend."

"Good for people," I said, cracking the coolant bleeder. "You going?"

"Maybe."

Charlie raised his mug in a diplomatic nod. "Take a blanket. And a jacket."

We moved through the task list. I was faster with another pair of hands in the room—someone to pass tools, to hold light, to make me say out loud the order my brain was stacking things in. The hum of the house behind us made everything feel less like work and more like a choice.

"Want me to pull the plugs?" Charlie asked, reaching for the tray.

"You just want to say you helped with a Ferrari," I said, but I handed him the tool.

He grinned in a tight, private way that said being a dad with a teenager and a garage was its own championship ring. He handled the plug tool like it owed him rent, careful, slow. The threads squeaked free, each one surrendering with a tiny sigh. I checked the gap and set the old ones in a row.

"You're not... worried?" Bella asked after a while, trying to sound like she was talking about nothing. "About... school stuff."

"About which school stuff?" I asked.

"Just... people." She kept her eyes on the stripe of sunlight making its way across the far wall. "The... Cullens."

Charlie's head tilted, small, alert.

"People are people," I said. "They'll be weird until they're not. You want me to say you shouldn't talk to someone?"

Her mouth pressed thin. "No."

"Then I won't."

"Thank you," she said, relief washing some of the stiffness out of her shoulders. "I don't want... rules."

"I'll give you tools," I said, tapping the wrench against my palm. "How to spot a good bolt from a stripped one."

"That's a metaphor."

"Everything's a metaphor if you're insufferable enough." I smiled to make the line land soft.

Charlie finished his plugs with the care of someone doing surgery on a sleeping dragon. When he passed the last one, I leaned in and set the new pieces with a practiced hand, torque wrench clicking to my count. Tight enough. Never over.

"Gaskets are fine," I said. "Whoever did them last time wasn't an amateur."

"High praise," Charlie said.

I shut the hood, wiped my hands, and stepped back to take her in. The red drank the gray day and turned it into something expensive. I could feel the street noticing, even with the door up only halfway.

"What's the decal mean?" Bella asked, pointing at the black slash curving down the fender.

"It means I like trouble." I caught her look. "It means nothing. It looks good."

From the driveway came the low purr of a big, well-kept engine. A silver Jeep rolled slow past the house, then eased to a stop at the curb as if the driver had just remembered something. The engine cut off. The Jeep sat there like it had been built for the purpose of sitting there.

My heart didn't do anything dramatic. It just set itself in a better position.

Rosalie stepped out of the driver's seat like the air had been designed to deliver her. Black jeans, cream sweater that made the day look cheap, hair braided in a way that made other braids reconsider their life choices. She shut the door with a hand that could flatten a man if the man deserved it.

Her eyes went past the house, past us, to the car. Stuck there a second. Then slid to me.

Charlie murmured, "Friend of yours?"

"Working on it," I said under my breath.

She walked up the driveway without asking permission, confidence measured, not loud. People think confidence is noise. Real confidence is quiet and makes other things be quiet around it.

"Hi," she said. Not to Bella, not to Charlie. To me.

"Hey," I said, like I hadn't tuned my entire day to the frequency of this possibility.

Her gaze flicked to the Ferrari again. "You doing belts?"

"Belts, fluids, plugs. Re-torque." I wiped an imaginary smear off the fender. "Somebody lied to this car last time she was on a lift."

Rosalie's mouth did the thing I was already addicted to: a millimeter of approval. "I can hear it in idle sometimes when people cut corners."

"You drive by and diagnose strangers' engines a lot?" I asked.

"If they insult me with their sounds," she said evenly.

Charlie, diplomat of Forks, cleared his throat. "I'm Charlie."

"Rosalie," she said, polite, eyes back to the car before he could read anything off her face.

"And I'm Bella," Bella put in, not quite a challenge, not quite not.

Rosalie spared her a glance that said she had catalogued the name and set it where it belonged. "Hi."

Bella looked like she wasn't sure if she wanted to be offended. I nudged her ankle with my boot.

"Want a look?" I asked Rosalie. "Or are you here to pretend you were just driving by?"

She considered me for a breath. "Both."

I popped the hood again. She stepped beside me, close enough that I could smell her—clean, winter-sharp, like wind and a hint of something floral that didn't apologize for itself. She leaned in without touching anything. Her fingers hovered, then pointed—not quite a touch—at a clamp someone had over-tightened. "That'll bite later."

"I know," I said, and loosened it a half turn, then reset it. "Better?"

She nodded. "Where'd you get the widebody?"

"Came rough. I reworked it." I knelt, traced the fender seam. "Heat, patience, prayers to minor gods."

"Prayers to your own hands," she corrected, and for a second the world got narrower and better.

Behind us, Charlie and Bella slid sideways in the social space like competent stagehands. He stepped toward the bikes. "Rosalie, you into cars long?"

"Always," she said, straightening. "Engines make sense."

"People don't," I said.

Rosalie's eyes returned to mine, a glint of humor like a blade catching sun. "Some do."

"You think you're one of the some?"

"I know what I am."

"I like that."

Bella made a noise like she'd swallowed the wrong way. Charlie discovered the tool chest needed reorganizing.

Rosalie glanced at the lineup of bikes. "Those yours?"

I nodded. "Mostly rescues."

"Good lines." She tipped her chin at the streetfighter. "That one looks like it starts fights in bars."

"She does." I wiped my hands and tossed the rag into the bin. "You two want coffee?" I asked over my shoulder to Charlie and Bella.

"Sure," Charlie said, understanding he was being given an exit. "C'mon, Bells."

Bella pointed at her eyes and then at mine—I am watching you—and went inside with him.

The garage settled. The day seemed to draw in closer to listen.

"You going to drive it to school," Rosalie asked, "or is this just for your mirror?"

"Later," I said. "Not yet."

"Because... noise."

"Because some boys think their trucks mean something about them." I leaned on the fender. "I don't want to make it harder for my sister to breathe."

Rosalie's gaze flicked toward the house, then back. "You care about her."

"She's my person." I shrugged one shoulder. "People forget family can be a choice even when it's blood."

She stood there, the quiet coiled grace of her making the space feel almost honest. "You didn't grow up here."

"Not really."

"I can tell." Not cruel. Just exact.

"You?" I asked.

"I've been here long enough for people to think they know me." A beat. "They don't."

"I figured."

She looked at me fully then, unblinking. "What are you doing here, Aspen?"

"Fixing a car."

"That's not what I asked."

I smiled. "Deciding where to put my weight."

She accepted that. Or accepted that was all I'd give. "Your torque is clean," she said, which, coming from her, sounded a lot like I respect the way your hands think.

"Thank you."

The silver Jeep's engine woke with a twist of her wrist. She didn't get in yet. "There's a stretch of road near the ridge that makes a decent test loop," she said, eyes on the Ferrari again. "Less traffic."

"I know it."

She nodded. "See you around."

"Rosalie," I said, just to say it.

She left like she'd rehearsed it. The Jeep rolled out without a squeak. The street forgot it had been holding its breath.

Inside the house, the kettle clicked off. Bella reappeared with two mugs and a look like she had three questions and had decided to ask none. Charlie handed me a socket he knew I didn't need.

"Friend," he said.

"Potential," I corrected, then softened my mouth into a grin so he'd know it wasn't danger.

Bella sipped. "She's... intense."

"She's precise," I said.

"Same thing."

"Not always."

I lowered the hood again, this time for real, and slid into the driver's seat. The cabin smelled like leather and a little like lightning. I turned the key and the engine answered—not loud, not yet, just a promise spoken low. The idle sat exactly where it should. I listened with my whole body. Nothing rattled, nothing lied. Good.

"Going around the block," I said.

Charlie took a step back like a man about to watch fireworks and pretending he didn't care for them. Bella's eyes were on the red like it might take off without me.

I eased the car into gear and out onto the street, polite until the second corner, where the road opened and the houses dropped back. A firm press and the V8 cleared its throat, then sang—clean, rising, the kind of sound that makes your bones think about dancing. I didn't push her hard. I just let her remember who she was. The world blurred a little at the edges. Every shift slotted in like an answer key.

On the ridge turn, the trees made a tunnel. Sun touched down in coins across the asphalt. The steering told the truth. No pull. No weirdness on load. The brakes bit with gratitude instead of panic. Perfect.

When I rolled back into the driveway, I was smiling without meaning to. Charlie's eyebrows had climbed a millimeter; Bella looked like her heartbeat had moved into the visible spectrum.

"Well?" she asked.

"She forgave me," I said, cutting the engine. The sudden quiet felt bigger than the noise had. "For whoever touched her last."

Charlie whistled the same soft note from earlier. "So you're keeping her?"

"Obviously. And only I drive her." I stepped out, closing the door with a sound that was half promise, half warning to the universe. "She doesn't share."

Bella smirked. "Possessive much?"

"Of my cars? Absolutely." I locked the Ferrari and covered her with the custom black tarp I'd stitched myself, the cherry red disappearing under the fabric like a secret. "She'll stay put until you've got school handled. I'll ride with you in the truck for now."

Bella blinked. "Wait—you're saying you're riding shotgun?"

"Shotgun, navigation, playlist control." I wiped my hands. "You're not getting rid of me that easy."

Charlie's mouth twitched, like he liked the idea more than he'd admit. "Pizza tonight?"

"Twist my arm," I said.

We headed in, the garage lights clicking off one by one behind me. As the door settled shut, the Ferrari sat quiet under her cover, patient. She'd wait. Predators don't hurry.