“I don’t think I ever quite believed he’d keep his promise. In high school, he had me start working for him and I figured it would be a good way to keep an eye on things. I thought if I was around, he’d stay clean. Fast forward a couple of years, I graduated high school and wanted to go to college. He disagreed. He just wanted me to work for him forever, I guess, and claimed he couldn’t help me pay for school. I still wanted to go, so I took on a mountain of student debt to pay for it. And I still worked for my dad. He wouldn’t really let me quit.
“I thought about doing something else plenty of times, especially after I got my degree. I even got a different job once, but I ended up going back. And I put up with a lot. He was kind of crappy to me and he barely paid me anything. It was stupid of me to stay so long.”
“It wasn’t stupid,” Evan said quietly.
I shrugged. “Anyway, this might not seem relevant, but I’m getting to the point. My friend Simone worked there, too. Our dads were friends when we were young, but her dad died when we were in high school. I think my dad felt like he needed to look out for her—or that’s what I used to think. He gave her a job and I thought of her as my best friend, mostly because we’d known each other since we were little. Although now that I look back on it, she was never much of a friend to me.
“When my dad and I came here, and you said he’d sold you a stolen car, I suspected he’d broken his promise. He denied it, but then I saw he’d been emailing a guy named Felix Orman. Felix was from his criminal days. He’s all kinds of bad news—really scary. There was no reason for my dad to have any contact with him, unless he was doing something illegal.”
“Did you ask him about it?”
“Not right then. I didn’t get the chance. Because that was when I found out my dad was sleeping with my supposed best friend, Simone.”
His eyes widened. “What?”
“I know. It’s as gross as it sounds. He’s known her since she was little, and he still…” I shuddered. “I was at his house and I heard them… you know. I didn’t know who he had up there. He’s been through a lot of women over the years. But then Simone came downstairs.”
“Jesus.”
“That was the day I left—and that’s why I came up with that ridiculous plan to help you buy the Pontiac from Walt Browning so I could use your shop to fix my car. I couldn’t stay there another day. Simone was my roommate and I worked for my dad. I’d have to see them every day if I’d stayed.”
“I would have left, too.”
I met his eyes, grateful that he understood. “Thanks. I’ve second-guessed myself about a million times since I packed up my car and left. But at the same time, how could I have stayed?”
“You couldn’t.”
“No. So obviously you know what happened then. I somehow talked you into a crazy road trip. We got the Pontiac, came back here, and I found out my car needed not only a new clutch, but a new transmission. Which leads me to why I was sleeping in my car.”
“And that’s because…”
“I’m broke.” I spread my hands, palms up. “I wasn’t exactly swimming in money when I left. I’ve been trying to dig my way out from under my student debt, and my dad’s a cheapskate who justified paying me almost nothing by saying he didn’t want his other employees to be jealous or accuse him of nepotism. Really, I think he was just taking advantage of me.”
Evan growled, sending a jolt of heat straight to my core. I shifted in my chair, trying to ignore it.
“So, that’s where I am now. I barely have enough money to feed myself for the next few days, so I figured I’d just sleep in my car for a little while.”
“Why didn’t you ask me if you could stay here?”
I shrugged. “You’ve already put up with me using your shop for longer than we’d agreed to, and let me sleep on your couch. I didn’t want to ask you for anything else.”
“No more sleeping in your car.”
I didn’t even try to argue. “Yeah, that sucked, even