5
2187 Words
Long Beach California…
Lucas pulled the wrench tight and then wiped the grease from his hands on the shop rag on the floor next to him. He had been rebuilding this Honda CRF450X engine for a week now, and it was starting to look good. He had one when he was a teenager. It had been his first bike and when he found this one he had bought it for the nostalgia. It wasn’t in running order, but it had been a good price. He could have afforded a new one, but he enjoyed working on engines. Besides rebuilding from the ground up allowed him to trick it out.
He was the only one mechanically inclined in his family. Most of them were artists in some medium or another, but Lucas enjoyed the smell of axle grease and the weight of a wrench in his hands. His hands were calloused, and there were often oil stains under his nails. They were the hands of a hardworking man unlike that of anyone else in his family. He came from a long line of musicians and dancers. Even his brothers were into the arts. The visual arts but still art. Lucas was the only one to take a different route in life. He lived for the adrenaline rush and the best way he knew to get it was to defy death. His brothers chased women, but Lucas drove.
He rose from his stool when he heard the freight elevator. He had a guest. Picking up the stereo remote Lucas turned off the music he’d been listening too and walked over to the elevator and lifted the wooden gate as his guest arrived on his floor. Off stepped the most beautiful woman Lucas had ever known.
She was short and nimble with her long dark hair and striking blue eyes. She was an accomplished ballerina even now. He kissed her cheek and hugged her hello. “Evening Mother.” He smiled inviting her in.
“Hello, Lucas.” Eve smiled stepping out into his loft. She looked around with a frown. “When are you going to get a real place?”
“This is a real place.”
“No this is a garage with a mattress. You can do so much better than this.” She said looking him over. He wasn’t expecting anyone, so he had just been putting around in his jeans and not a thing else. She, on the other hand, was dressed in the height of New York fashion as always. She wore a pair of white silk slacks and a silver silk halter top that tied up around her neck. Her dark hair was left loose down her back, and she didn’t look a day over thirty even though she was forty-six. More than once people had mistaken her for his date. A fact that pleased her. “Were you working?” She asked looking over at the engine he had in pieces on the floor in the corner.
“Yes. I was rebuilding the engine for this Honda CRF450X.” He said walking back over to the bike. “It’s looking good don’t you think?”
“I’ll have to take your word for that; this mechanic stuff is all Greek to me.”
“Well, I’m telling you it’s coming along nicely.” He assured her watching her frown at his couch and think about sitting down. There were stains all over the thing from the oil and grease on his jeans and hands. It didn’t bother him, but he could see how it would her in her light-coloured outfit. “Yeah, I wouldn’t sit down if I were you.” He said walking over to the bed and pulling the blanket off he draped it over the couch and then gestured for her to sit down.
She took a seat and crossed one leg over the other and folded her hands in her lap. “I’ve been here for five minutes.” She pointed out.
“Oh yeah.” He headed for the kitchen and took a glass from the dishwasher and a bottle of rum from the cupboard. He came back with a glass of dark rum and handed it to her. “Here you go. So not that I don’t love to see you but what are you doing here?”
“Your Dad and I flew in for Lance’s exhibit, but I thought I would come down to Long Beach and visit you. Are you going to the exhibit?”
“Yeah, I’ll be there. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Lucas and his brothers had always been supportive of one another. They came to his stunts, and he went to their exhibits. It was only fair. Although his stunts were far more exciting than their shows, but he would never tell them that. “So where is Dad?”
“In LA, he had some business with Blue Moon.” The recording label his father owned. He had bought it back when Lucas and Lance were born. It had was motivated by vengeance allowing his father to blackball another musician but, in the end, had turned out to be a profitable acquisition. His father had retired from the stage ten years ago to run Blue Moon Records and Chase Recordings (the chain of international recording studios he had taken over when his father had retired thirty years ago). “He’ll be at the exhibit.”
“Oh, sure you’ll go to Lance’s exhibit but not my shows.” He muttered a little louder than he meant to.
“Lance isn’t likely to kill himself at his exhibits. You know I don’t approve. I didn’t bring you into this world to watch you try and kill yourself on those dangerous machines.”
“It’s not dangerous if you know what you’re doing, and I do. I have a talent for driving like you do for ballet. Why can’t you support me?”
“I will support you when you do something that doesn’t scare me half to death.” She placed the glass on the table and reached for his hand. “Why can’t you do something else?”
He pulled his hand from hers and paced. “Because I don’t know how to do anything else.”
“That’s not true.” She said coming to her feet. “You are a talented mechanic. You could open a successful garage.”
Lucas laughed. “Oh yeah, a mechanic. That would be living up to the name.”
“It would be safe.”
“I would rather shoot myself in the head. I’m a stunt driver Mom you got to come to terms with that.” He said looking down at those pleading eyes. He hated that he worried her, but he couldn’t spend his life in mediocrity. He was what he was.
“No nice girl is ever going to want to sit on the sidelines and watch you break your neck.”
“Luckily I’m not looking for a nice girl. Why don’t you go meddle in Lance’s life?” The stern look in her bright eyes made Lucas cringe. He may have stepped over the line just then. She was a small woman, but she scared the crap out of him. “I’m sorry.” He caved instantly.
“Don’t you worry about Lance I’ll be paying him a visit as well.” She assured him. “See I don’t like his new girlfriend she’s a hussy and a gold digger and the way he’s going he’ll be walking down the aisle while she’s counting his trust fund.”
He had to admit he didn’t like the model his brother had been seeing either. He’d only met Cindy Ratter once, but she was a soulless succubus that latched on to wealthy influential men like Lance and rode them all the way to wealth and fame. She was only using Lance, and his brother was completely blind to it. Lucas couldn’t fight the smile curving his lips. “Are you going to talk to her?”
A wicked smile graced her pretty face. “If he doesn’t listen to reason she and I will talk.” The last time their mother had talked to a woman Lance was dating she had dumped him like a bad habit, and all it had coast was fifty grand. Their mother had written a check for the woman to disappear. Lance had been so mad he hadn’t spoken to their mother for a month.
Frankly, Lucas thought she had done the right thing. If she could be bought off that easily she was obviously only there for the money and Lance was better off without her. Of course, Lance hadn’t seen it that way. He had been heartbroken and bitter for a long time after that. It surprised him that his brother had even started dating again after that experience.
“Well, then why don’t you put on some clothes and we’ll go out for dinner.” She suggested.
He looked back at his bike and the engine parts strewed around on the floor. He supposed his mother was not going to take no for an answer. Nobody told Eve Sanchez no. He was pretty sure that was one of the things that had attracted his father. That and the strange sense of quiet strength she had, but she would have to be a strong woman to bag and keep his father and to raise five rowdy boys just like him.
Back in his hay day Damien Sanchez and been a hell-raiser and a playboy. He was featured in the scandal sheets more than any other celebrity for his sinful lifestyle. His reputation had gotten so bad the press had dubbed him the Son of Sin. Most people expected the same bad behaviour from his sons but despite how much mischief they got into not one of them could match their father’s notorious reputation.
In all truth, Lucas wasn’t sure how a sinner like his father had ever convinced a saint like his mother to marry him. Eve Sanchez had been an innocent kid, a nice little reverend’s daughter whose only dream was to dance until Damien Sanchez walked into her life and turned it upside down. Lucas wasn’t entirely sure how it went down whenever he asked no one would give him a straight answer, but somehow the two of them wound up married two months later and had been together ever since then.
Lucas sighed. “Alright give me a minute to change.” He said walking over to his closet and fishing through it to find something suitable to wear. Lucas changed out of his jeans and into a pair of black slacks with a white button up s**t, but he left the top three buttons undone and the bottom of his shirt untucked. He stepped into a pair of dress shoes and took his wallet and car keys from the coffee table. “Ok, where do you want to go?”
“Oh, how about that quaint little French place.”
“Ok.”
“But I’m driving.” She said taking out her keys. Lucas rolled his eyes. When would she learn to trust him?
“I can drive.” He argued.
“Yes-yes I know but humour me. I’ll drive.”
Without another word about the matter, Lucas headed down to the street where his mother’s Silver Jaguar was parked. As he opened the doors, he paused. He felt like someone was watching him. Lucas looked around. There were other cars parked on the street, but only one caught his eye. A black Rolls Royce parked in the alley just up the block. He couldn’t see faces, but there were clearly two people sitting in the car.
Lucas shut the door and started toward the alley. “Lucas, what are you doing?” His mother called to him.
“I’ll be right back.” He walked over to the alley, and as he grew closer, he could hear the engine turn over. Suddenly the car pulled out and took off down the road leaving Lucas standing in the street. Maxine had been right they were watching him, and that knowledge annoyed Lucas.
“Lucas?”
“I’m coming.”
- Writer
