Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100550 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100550 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
“Then, yes. Definitely. Mr. Ivey told me the first day we got here that I could use his workshop, but I haven’t really had any materials to work with.” His hands twitched like he was fighting off a compulsion to weld something right this minute.
I felt one corner of my mouth go up. “And you can’t go a week without sculpting?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes. It’s kind of an emotional release for me. When I’m stressed or… whatever, I pour it all into the work.”
I was almost sad that we pulled up in front of Thicket Salvage two seconds later, because I had so many follow-up questions, like what had made him “stressed or whatever” here in the Thicket, and whether it maybe involved me.
From the street, the junkyard looked like the entrance to most any other farm in the area; it just so happened that this farm grew a crop of rusted-out tractor parts. The property had a white clapboard house with a green lawn and a wide front porch to the left. Off to the right was a driveway that led to a heavy orange fence.
A sign on the fence read “Honk for Service,” so I did, and a few minutes later, the world’s tallest man stepped out of the house, wiping his hands on a dish towel. His longish dark hair was slicked back, and every visible inch of the skin on his hands, arms, and neck was covered in black tattoos.
“Help you?” he asked in a deep growl.
“Yeah, hey. I’m Brooks Johnson. This is Mal Forrester. I grew up around here back when Mr. Yancey ran this place, and I wondered if we could poke around?”
The guy leaned his hands on the open window frame and eyed me up and down, his gaze catching on the Licking Thicket emblazoned on the front of my shirt. He didn’t seem impressed.
“You need a specific replacement part?” His mocking tone indicated how unlikely he thought that was.
“No. We—”
“I do metal sculpture with found objects,” Mal piped up. “I really won’t know what I’m looking for until I find it and inspiration hits.”
The man’s gaze sharpened, and he gave Mal the same up-and-down look he’d given me, but somehow with Mal, he managed to make it smolder. “You’re the artist from LA who’s staying at the Ivey place and has a booth at the fair tomorrow.” It wasn’t a question.
Mal’s surprise was palpable. “I… yeah. That’s me.”
“My aunt was telling me all about it, ’cause she knows I find that shit fascinating. I’ll be in town tomorrow. Maybe you can show me some of your stuff?”
“Oh. I. Wow. Thanks. That’s…” Mal blushed—fucking blushed—a deep pink. “Cool. Definitely.”
“I’m Diesel Church.” The guy gave us… but mostly Mal… a chin-lift. “Let me know if I can help you in there, okay?”
He pushed a button that made the gate retract, and I drove through without saying a word.
“Diesel Church,” I scoffed under my breath. “Fucking porn star name.”
Mal whacked my arm. “The hell is wrong with you? He was nice!”
“He wasn’t nice, he was flirting. It’s different.”
Aaaaand apparently I was ready to give Paul lessons in acting like a caveman. Fuck.
“Since when is flirting a crime? I’m not doing anything with him. I’m with Ava. Obviously.”
Ava. Obviously. Right.
I parked the truck in the dubious shade of a garage and jumped down. Further back in the yard, there were rows upon rows of cars in neat lines. To the left was the farm equipment.
I grabbed my dad’s tool kit from the back of the truck. “Unless someone got the notion to move a field of tractors in the last decade, you might wanna head that way.” I pointed left. “But I’ll follow wherever you go. If we see something big, we can get the truck. Or if you see something really big, Diesel can get the wrecker. You know, there’s a kind of order to—”
“Brooks.” Mal put a hand on my arm and tucked his tongue into his cheek, his blue eyes dancing. “I appreciate how perfectly, perfectly knowledgeable you are about junkyards, but you remember the part where I told you I grew up on one, right? They all kinda work the same way.”
I felt my own cheeks flame and stood straighter. “Right. Well, I can wait here, then, if you—”
But Mal just grabbed my wrist and towed me toward the farm equipment, cutting off whatever bullshit I was about to spout. Just being around the man was like riding a Tilt-A-Whirl, horrible and exhilarating and wonderful.
We strolled down a John Deere graveyard in companionable silence for a little while. Every few paces, Mal would inspect a piece of equipment older than the two of us put together. At one point, after he’d climbed up on a riding mower and spent a little longer than usual examining the seat, he gestured toward the tool bag wordlessly. I knew enough about tractors to hand him a screwdriver. When he’d gone to town on some radiator parts, I’d gotten out the channel lock. It fascinated me how confident and capable he was in this environment, and it was hot as fuck being his assistant.