“You should have stayed in college and gotten your BA in English. Clearly you know a lot of pretty words that don’t mean shit when it comes to payday. Purple hair doesn’t sell accounts.”

“Did you read up on how to be this patronizing and insulting, or did you just inherit the ability from Dad and Fee?” PJ was proud her voice didn’t shake. Sometimes it was hard not to react emotionally to this sort of baiting. She knew some of her family discounted her for being different, and it hurt. Because they didn’t take her any more seriously when she did what they expected her to either.

It filled her with futile anger and hurt, but she had gotten pretty good at hiding just how much. “Purple hair sold more than you did last month.” She tipped her chin at the navy blue binder on the corner of her desk. “Fee’s special numbers say so. Now get out of my office. I’m working and I’m no longer interested in helping you with your problem. Handle your own meeting. I’m busy tomorrow, just like I told you.”

He threw his hands up in the air, but he’d been thwarted and she knew he understood that. It was a stupid, petty win, not that it’d stop her from claiming it.

Chapter Three

“Taco Friday is your best idea yet.” Asa filled a plate and moved on down the line of ingredients.

Duke shrugged. “I have them from time to time.”

“They generally involve food or liquor. You’re Shaggy and Scooby rolled into one.”

Duke laughed. “Right on. More evidence of how lucky you are to have me around.”

Asa snorted. But Duke was right. From pretty much the time they’d met in the army, Duke had been his friend. Had his back, in both the metaphysical sense and the physical one. Duke had saved Asa from getting killed more than once.

The lunchroom at Twisted Steel currently held all eleven employees, so it was loud and raucous. Which might also have something to do with the fact that it was Beer and Taco Friday.

It had been a hell of a long last few weeks. They’d pushed one total rebuild out as well as two other smaller jobs. Asa had slept on the couch in his office at least once a week rather than face a drive home after three a.m.

But the work had all been delivered to very happy clients, he was soon to be full of tacos and beer, and all was right with the world.

He and Duke had bought the building the shop sat in five years before, and Asa felt like it was only now truly operating to its full potential. They’d had three employees back then and only used about a quarter of the space. Now they had a showroom, eleven full-time employees, and a host of people they contracted work out to.

There he was, a successful business owner. A homeowner. Asa Barrons, the kid who’d grown up in trailers and shitty public housing apartments in Houston, now had multiple cars, money in the bank, and a life free of chaos and pain.

They had built something together, he and his friend – a business both men could be proud of. It was the ticket out he and Duke had barely known to have dreamed about.

“I’m going to sleep the hell out of a lot of hours,” Asa said, taking several long pulls from his beer once he’d collapsed into a chair and set his food down.

Duke settled in across from him. “No lie. I’ve gotta be back here at ten, though. No way would I miss such a fantastic opportunity.”

“What?”

“I told you about this last week. The pinup calendar shoot? They’re using the showroom and some of the bays,” Duke explained. “Don’t worry; I made sure Casey went over everything they have access to. They won’t get near any work in progress. Plus I’ll be here. Looking at hot women.”

“I probably wasn’t listening.”

“See what happens when you don’t?”

Hot women draped over his machines. Now that was indeed a way to spend a Saturday. He’d planned to come in to catch up on paperwork that next afternoon anyway.

Asa tended to keep in his head, especially when he was in the middle of a project. It’s all he thought of, the need to put his hands on something, to stamp it with his vision, to watch it yield under his will.

“Thanks for the save. Guess I’ll be here at ten instead of noon like I planned.”

“I was thinking of heading out to the track on Sunday. You up for it?”

Duke and Asa had recently started a racing team they co-owned with a group of their friends. It brought Asa to the track a lot, and that’s when he’d discovered how incredible it was to drive the track himself.

“Hell yes.”

Duke tipped his chin. “Fastback?”

On a motorcycle trip down the coast to Los Angeles the summer before, Asa and Duke had found the beat-up shell of a 1968 Fastback and had to have it. They’d spent their spare time since restoring it.

Duke was magic with machines. The best mechanic Asa knew. He’d built the engine they’d wanted as Asa had coaxed all the badass back into the frame.

The result was a growling, hellaciously fast beast.

“Indeed. Depending on the conditions I might take the bike out too.”

“Your mom is going to kill me if you eat pavement, you know that, right?”

Fast and hard was his favorite. Nothing else felt quite like driving very, very fast. He didn’t have the talent to actually make a living racing. His talents lay elsewhere in the car universe. But he had access to a track and lots of fast machines, and he used that every chance he got.

“My mom uses a cane, you big whiner. You can outrun her. Then again, she doesn’t need to catch you. I bet she could throw it and knock you out from ten feet away.” Two years before, his mother had to have her foot amputated after complications from diabetes.