The Shadow of Stars

Seventeen

hey hey guyssss, this is a friendly reminder to pls pls drop some comments! I'd love to hear all your thoughts, it makes posting these chapters so much more fun for me and it's great to hear what you guys think!

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"Can you hand me the spanner please?" My gaze flicks from the long article I'd buried myself in to stare at the shiny red car. It's an effort to not peel my attention back onto the juicy words. "Athena?"

"Yeah, sure just hold on a moment!" I place my paper down and jump from the large toolbox, my words are almost lost in the loud music that blasts down the alley.

My hands rummage through the draws. Spanner, spanner, spanner. What even is a spanner? "Thea?" He asks again, a tight strain in his voice.

I panic and grab ahold of the first thing I see and rush over to the car, my knees scraping against the concrete floor as I pass the item to Gabe. "Here," I say and his blackened hand takes it as he thanks me. It is only a second later that he wheels himself out from underneath at record speed, a loud bang erupting shortly after his grime covered face comes into view.

He shoots me a look and holds up the spanner. "This," he says, looking at it. "Is a screwdriver, Athena."

My lips stretch into a wince as car parts roll out to crash next to my feet. "That's fixable, right?" I ask, pointing to the mess and he lets out a heavy sigh.

"I guess it's still better than it was at the start of the week," he comments, shrugging before turning to assess the damage. His tight muscles, stretched with whorls of dark ink stretch as he picks up an assortment of... I'm not even going to pretend I know what.

"You know, I've got an idea. It may take a bit of time but it is probably going to be for the best if I ever want to get this into a road safe state."

I stand still as my gut roils, waiting for final the blow to land. This is it, he's going to kick me off the project. I'm quite possibly the worst mechanic assistant to walk the earth, sure, but I do bring Henry around most of the time when he's not debating or baby sitting his siblings. And Henry's helpful.

"What?" My voice is a mere squeak, like my own body rejects the idea of asking. I need this, I need the excuse to run off and occupy myself while Henry is busy. I need a welcome distraction from my parents grim expressions and... and from Micah.

His eyes glitter as his luscious lips stretch over his tawny skin and a pang of grief hits me at the thought I won't see it if I can't hang around.

"That we should maybe try labelling these tools, the essentials anyways—gee Athena you look like I'm telling you that you're cat died, labelling isn't so bad is it?" He asks and I laugh away the anxiety that flutters from my stomach like a storm of butterflies. He'd not getting rid of me

"That's a great idea!" I reply, putting as much enthusiasm into my words as I can. I glance into the toolbox next to me and fish out a large metal item, waving it in the air. "Was this it?" I ask and his pearly teeth gleam as he grins, a faint dimple appearing.

"There you go! Come to think of it," he jumps up to stand next to me and our shoulders brush as he inspects it. "It's looking a little too rusty anyway. We can go get some labelling supplies and a new one of these from the department store, if you don't mind a quick break."

"I really don't think I'm deserving of a break, but I won't object." I smile and he uses and old rag to get rid of the grime before picking up his phone. "How long until you think we will be able to drive it anyway?" I ask as we exit the alley.

"Til she's back in perfect condition? I would guess a few months, I'm funding it out of a small amount I've got saved away, so if that runs out then it could be longer. But depending on what I'm working on we can take her out for a drive whenever. The safety isn't as reliable and the likelihood of breaking down is a tad higher... but it isn't impossible," he responds, sending me a grin that says we will probably be driving it around in that condition.