Chapter 122: Fix Date

He dialed the number on his wrist, which Jenna had written in blue pen, and the shop picked up on the sixth ring. A compressor hissed behind a man who sounded interrupted mid-sandwich.

“Calloway Auto.”

“Adrian Hayes. You had a gray Corolla towed in this afternoon. Front end’s bad.”

“The one with the headlight in a bag.” Something crunched. “Yeah. It’s here.”

“I’d like an inspection tomorrow. Ten, if you’ve got it.”

“Ten works. Whatever I tell you tonight is a guess, though. I can’t price what I haven’t opened.”

“That’s fine. Before anything gets approved, I want it itemized. Parts and labor separate.”

A pause, the pause of a man recalibrating a customer. “Most people ask how much.”

“I’m asking how much of what.”

“Ten o’clock,” the man said, with something very close to respect.

Adrian set the phone down. Rose had his keys and the doctor’s instructions, so he booked a ride for 9:40. $11.50. Cheap, for a head injury.

He texted Rose.

Adrian: Inspection at ten tomorrow. Ride booked. Itemized estimate requested.

Rose: Coming over. Also we have a channel.

He looked at the last sentence. She’d attached a reason so he could pretend that was the reason. He appreciated the courtesy and didn’t say so.

She arrived with a canvas tote and a jar of soup, held out the way you hold something you’d rather nobody comment on.

“Don’t,” she said.

“It’s a good jar.”

“It’s a jar.”

He took it. Warm through the glass. Chicken, ginger, something green. He set it on the counter, then moved it three inches to the left, which accomplished nothing and gave his hands a job.

Rose studied the bandage. She peeled one corner with a fingernail, looked underneath with the focus she gave a seam, and pressed it back. He held very still, like a cat at a vet.

“Who told you to take your phone out?” she said.

He hadn’t. It was in his hand, the notes app open, a column he’d been building since the hospital: Radiator? Alignment? Headlight, new or used? Hidden damage?

“Research.”

“You’re pricing your own skull.” She took the phone, turned it face down on the cushion, and didn’t give it back. “The car will still be broken in a week. You get one head.”

She sat beside him, close but not touching, the specific distance she kept when she was deciding whether to be soft. “Eat first. Then work.”

He ate. The soup was ridiculous. It tasted like a hand on his back, which he also didn’t say. He rinsed the jar and set it on the rack, label out, and Rose watched him do it like someone adding a line to a ledger.

She opened her laptop on the coffee table. “Your video.”

Three hundred and twelve views. Eleven comments. At the top, the stranger who’d loved the pause: when’s the next one? Fourteen likes now.

“Fourteen people agree with one person,” Rose said.

“That’s a vote.”

“That’s a petition.” She tapped it. “I don’t want to repeat the auction. Do it twice and it’s a format, and formats belong to Jenna.”

“What do we have? A phone, a mic, two lights, a wall.”

“A commission.” She’d had this ready; he could tell by how carefully she said it. “You and Jenna each hand me one sentence. I paint it in fifteen minutes, no revisions. You defend the brief out loud, with a straight face.”

“You’d do all the work.”

“I’d do the thing I’m good at. You’d do the thing you’re apparently good at.” She glanced at him. “Straight faces.”

“I can supply a wet dog in a library.”

“I’m going to enjoy that.”

“No new equipment,” he said. “Phone, mic, wall. If we need a camera for it, it’s a bad idea.”

“Noted, accountant.”

They sketched it until the light left the window: a loose order, a timer so Jenna couldn’t revise. Somewhere in there Rose’s head ended up on his shoulder, and he stayed put, because moving would have been a comment.

At nine she stood and took the tote. At the door she touched two fingers to the edge of the bandage, light, like checking a canvas was dry.

“Eight hours of sleep. I’ll know.”

“How?”

“I always know.”

The door clicked. The apartment settled, and the only sound was the refrigerator, which had been offering an opinion for a week.

He wrote the questions on a fresh note: cost by line item, new versus used parts, how long, what sat behind the visible damage. Then he opened the other note, the one with Rose’s and Jenna’s numbers. 82. 53. His balance sat at the bottom, $15,593.74, a number that looked comfortable until you remembered comfort was just money you hadn’t spent yet.

His phone buzzed.

[Pending Opportunity: Corolla Repair]

[Status: Awaiting verified estimate]

It had been there since the crash, patient as a bill. He didn’t decide anything off it. A number without a source was just a mood.

The ride dropped him at Calloway’s at 9:52, in a lot where cars waited for opinions. In daylight, the Corolla looked like it had lost an argument with a building and chosen violence.

“Hayes?” A broad man in a stained polo, mid-forties, a pen behind each ear. Dom. He walked once around the car without speaking, then crouched at the front. “Come here.”

Adrian crouched. Dom pointed a flashlight beneath the bumper. “That’s your radiator support. Bent. It’s what’s pushing the headlight out of true. Radiator’s cracked, so you’ll run hot inside a week. Alignment’s off. That’s essential.” He moved the flashlight. “That dent in the bumper cover, the scratched paint? Cosmetic. The car runs without it.”

“What does essential cost?”

“New headlight assembly, four-eighty. Support straightened and braced, four-sixty. Radiator, three-ninety. Alignment, one-twenty. Fourteen-fifty.” He held up a hand. “Cosmetic is another six-forty.”

“New headlight?”

“I can find used. A yard I trust. Hundred and forty.”

“Will it match?”

“Same model year, same housing. You’d need a stranger’s eyes to see it.”

“Does skipping the cosmetic work hurt resale?”

“Does the car have resale?”

“It has loyalty,” Adrian said.

Dom almost smiled. “Labor’s labor. I won’t bend that.”

“Boss?”

A voice from the office door. A lean guy in a gray shop hoodie, a coffee in one hand and a folder in the other. It took a second for the face to catch: dragging a blanket off a stack, nodding without breaking stride.

“Tim,” Adrian said. “Mattress.”

“Stairs.” Tim lit up. “Marcus still calls you nepo baby.”

“Tell him the allowance got cancelled.”

“I’ll tell him. He’ll be thrilled.” Tim jerked a thumb. “Dom’s my brother. I do his books Tuesdays when we’re not moving people’s lives.” He winced at the Corolla like it was a friend. “That’s yours? Oh, man.”

They talked another minute: the stairs, the fridge, Marcus’s back. Then Tim said, to his brother, “He’s the one who carried the low end of the couch. Didn’t make us do the whole thing.”

Dom looked at Adrian properly. “Inspection’s eighty-five. I’ll waive it. Your car’s been in my lot overnight anyway.”

“It’s not charity. Referrals eat. Tim vouches, I notice.” He tore the top sheet from his clipboard. “The used headlight stays. Cuts three-forty.”

Adrian did the subtraction once. $1,110. It was a good number with a believable reason attached, which was the only kind he trusted.

“Thursday,” Dom said. “Parts arrive Wednesday. Don’t drive it until I say.”

“I wasn’t planning to.”

Dom printed the estimate on a machine that groaned like it resented the request. Adrian read every line before signing. Essential: $1,110.00. Cosmetic: $640.00, declined.

He signed the first line and left the second blank. His phone buzzed before the pen left the paper.

[Pending Opportunity: Corolla Repair]

[Estimate verified: $1,110.00]

[Evaluating…]

[Expenditure recorded. No eligible recipient identified.]

[Opportunity remains open.]

It hadn’t guaranteed a thing. It hadn’t named anyone. It was just open, like a door propped with a shoe.

Behind him, Dom was already under the Corolla’s hood, flashlight clenched in his teeth. He pulled out, frowned, and held up a hand. “Hayes. Come look.”

Adrian walked back. Dom put the beam on the radiator support, on a thick, lumpy bead of metal near the corner.

“That’s not from your barrier. That’s an old weld. Somebody fixed this support before and did it badly.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning your crash found a weak spot someone already left. Redo it right, three-eighty, or brace over it and say I did.” He switched off the flashlight. “I’d redo it.”

$1,490 total: $1,110 plus a stranger’s old mistake. The previous owner hadn’t mentioned it, and Adrian had never asked.

“Show me,” he said.

Dom showed him. The bead looked like a caterpillar that had been through something. Adrian studied it, then the estimate in his hand.

“Add it.”

“You sure?”

“I’d rather pay once.”

Dom wrote it in. Tim gave him a small, unhurried nod from the counter.

That probably wasn’t a good sign.