Chapter 376: Hot Boy

Hector stood near the back of the crowd with two different feelings fighting inside him.

One was simple. Collect the Silvia, get it repaired, put the damage right, and keep the car he had built years of work into. The other was greedier. Rechelle had the best collection on this side of the city. Rare pieces. Loud builds. Cars most people in the lot would never touch in their lifetime. She was the richest one here and everybody knew it. If she offered a trade, he could walk away with something stronger than what he had brought that morning.

But the Silvia still sat under his skin.

It was his. Scraped up now, hurt along the flank, but still his. That made the choice heavier than it should have been.

Up front, Rechelle finally loosened her hold on Lucas.

The long hug had done what she needed. She had felt him solid and alive under her arms, kissed him in front of everyone, and now the rest of the lot was pressing in whether she liked it or not. Girls were watching him like they had already decided he belonged to the morning, some pulling their tops lower so more of their breasts showed, some pushing their chests forward while angling closer, the hunger in the air open and shameless.

If she stayed glued to him she still had Hector and the damaged car to deal with. If she stepped away for even a minute, the whole front of the lot looked ready to move.

She was still a woman. She saw it clearly.

She leaned in close to his ear.

"I’m coming," she said. "I need to talk to Hector."

Lucas gave a small nod. Nothing more.

Rechelle stepped away from the Silvia, and the second her body left his the energy at the front shifted. Girls who had been waiting for space started to lean in, the blonde especially. Rechelle felt it, turned back once with a hard look that froze a few of them mid-step, then kept walking toward Hector at the edge of the crowd.

That was all the opening the blonde needed.

She appeared almost at once, smoking hot under the sun. Singlet still pulled high, midriff bare, the short hem of her bottoms doing nothing to hide the lower curve of her ass when she walked. She had fixed herself for this exact moment and she was not wasting it.

Lucas was resting against the black Silvia like the race had only mildly inconvenienced him. One foot on the ground. The other kicked up against the open door frame. Arms loose. Posture easy. He looked like a man who had somewhere better to be and was only still here out of mild curiosity.

The blonde closed the distance without hesitation.

She stepped in near enough that her chest almost filled the space between them, using the soft press of her body to block his view of the rest of the lot for a second.

"Hey, hot boy," she said, voice low and playful. "You always finish races like that, or was today special for me?"

Lucas looked at her.

He did not step back. He did not lean in either. He just let the moment sit there, calm eyes moving over her face like he was deciding whether the conversation was worth the energy.

She smiled wider, taking the lack of rejection as room to work.

"I’m serious," she added. "You looked too good out there. A little dangerous. I like that."

Still no real answer from him. Just that same easy quiet, the kind that made people talk more to fill it.

The blonde took the hint in her own way. She slipped a folded scrap of paper into the front pocket of his pants with one smooth move, fingers brushing the fabric just long enough to make the contact deliberate.

"For later," she said. "If you get bored of all this noise."

Then she turned and walked off, hips easy, already throwing one last look over her shoulder. Behind her, the other girls were still eyeing him like the chance had not fully closed. None of them moved as boldly as she had, but the attention stayed locked on him all the same.

Across the lot, Rechelle and Hector had already started talking.

Hector kept glancing past her toward the scraped Silvia, then back to her face. The two options were still sitting in his chest. Repair what was his, or reach into her collection and take something better. In the end the practical side won, but not cleanly.

"I’ll go through your collection," he said. "Pick any car I like. You keep the Silvia."

Rechelle did not argue. She had expected something close to that the moment the flank got torn up.

"Fine," she said. "Bring your car when you come for the exchange. I want to see what you’re leaving behind before you start walking my garage."

Hector nodded once. The deal sat between them, unfinished in feeling but clear enough in words. Rechelle was already turning back toward Lucas when a new movement at the far edge of the track pulled a few distracted eyes for half a second.

Buster had appeared.

He had walked the rest of the distance on foot, dragging himself across every hard stretch of scarred asphalt while the lot celebrated without him. By the time he reached the edge of the crowd he looked wrecked. Blood still marked one side of his face, darker now where it had dried into an ugly crust, and the sight of it only made people turn away faster. There was nothing impressive left in the way he stood. No champion posture. No leftover threat. Just a man whose own lot had already replaced him before he even finished limping back.

He stopped at the edge of the crowd and waited for someone to notice.

All eyes stayed on Lucas.

Somebody laughed near the front. Somebody else lifted a phone higher to catch the outsider by the black Silvia. Not one person looked over and said his name.

Nobody gave a fuck about Buster.

He stood there with the sun on his ruined shirt, blood taste still in his mouth, weight shifting on the bad leg like the ground itself wanted him down. Close enough to collapse on the spot if anyone put a hand out.

No one did.

He had come all that way on foot for an audience that had already moved on.