"Poor little guy. Well, hopefully it's in better hands now." Admittedly, it would be hard for it to be in worse. Five years and no oil change... what had it been running on, thoughts and prayers?
"This looks good. Not perfect, but good enough, and if the client wants a perfect one he can pay to put a new one in. Not that he will, but hey, what do I know about these things?" She'd told him to get a new one and that it would be cheaper in the long run, and if he didn't listen to the advice, then that was a him problem and not a her problem.
"You wanna show me the project some time?" Usually people liked showing off what they were working on, but it was still better to ask than demand. "I like a good train wreck."
Todd laughed again when she said it was good enough. It was about as good as a used timing belt could get. Definitely not something he’d put in the Malibu or Sammy’s Bug, or in the poor Rover, for that matter. But what the client wanted, the client got – and it gave Vik a little extra cash for the trouble.
“I’m definitely not the best person to pick up on it – financially, anyway. Poor girl’s gonna be suffering for a bit longer while I scrape together the funds to make her run right.”
An idea seeded itself into Todd’s head as he said that. He really wasn’t doing as much work at Vik’s anymore; and he wasn’t going to be around for much longer, anyway, if he relapsed. He’d done enough work on Nat’s bikes before Sam found out that the kid would be okay – but the Rover wouldn’t have anyone if he went. Maybe introducing Auraliese to Sam, and to the Rover, would be a smart idea. Have a place for Sammy to send it. Maybe his Malibu, too. God knew she didn’t need to see that after everything was said and done. Sure, Auraliese was basically a stranger, but if she showed interest in the crappy engine it’d be for the best in the long run.
He kept his tone upbeat as he led the way back to the main shop so she could pay for the belt. “I’m doing what I can to make her comfortable in the meantime. I’d love to show her off, if you want a horror story to pass around. You’d just have to come by my place. I really don’t want to put more strain on the engine than I have to.”
"Plenty of people have money and still don't take care of their cars." Some of them were even some of the worst offenders, Auraliese had noticed. She'd gotten the don't you know how much my time is worth speech before plenty of times. It didn't matter how much your consulting rate was, replacing the engine was still gonna take a solid several hours. Conversely, there were plenty of absolutely broke people that put whatever they could towards proper maintenance, usually because they knew they couldn't afford another car if something went wrong.
The invitation was unexpected - unnecessary, too, given that they'd just met, but heck, she wasn't going to turn it down. "I'd love to come take a look some time. As long as that's not gonna be weird for your girlfriend?" He'd mentioned he had one, after all, and sometimes people got weird with that.
Of course people got weird with a lot of things, so maybe she should have asked him if he was going to kill her and bury her body in the woods, but... eh, that was just getting too far-fetched, and if you got paranoid about stuff like that, you never did anything fun. Potentially jealous girlfriend was a much more likely and tangible scenario, even if she was getting the vibe that both she and Todd were only gonna be there for the transmission talk.
“True, that’s true.” He smiled a little as he turned to lead the way back through the garage to the shop, to ring her out. There’d been plenty of arguments in every garage he’d worked at about cost, mostly with people who shouldn’t’ve had to haggle.
He didn’t let his face change, but there was a pause when Auraliese remembered he had a girlfriend. He didn’t let his heart ache as he thought about the last time he brought someone home. He didn’t let his heart ache with the knowledge that, even though he’d just rescued her from Slate, Sammy would kill him. Sooner, rather than later. He didn’t think about how that was why he wanted Auraliese to look at the Rover in the first place.
“She won’t mind.” It shouldn’t seem like more than the normal amount of ‘considering my girlfriend’s reactions to bringing another mechanic back’ thinking time. “I’ll get you my number, and if you call ahead, I’ll give Sam a heads up. She’ll be fine if she knows it’s work stuff – and she knows nothing about cars, but she’s seen this one. She’d understand.”
Probably wouldn’t hurt to introduce them, anyway, in case Sam wanted to sell it to someone who wanted it for more than scrap. And the Malibu, too, though that car still had a lot of value. She’d probably find someone else to use that.
God, he was depressing. The Rover talk was supposed to take his mind off of Sammy. Now he found himself in a pit, and sinking faster by the second. His face didn’t reflect it, aside, maybe, from a faint sadness in his eyes, but he’d need a customer who needed something fixed, and soon. He needed to actually stop thinking for a while.
Auraliese followed Todd back to the shop front, bringing the belt with her and setting it down long enough to put the charge for it on her work-stuff card. Todd said the girlfriend wouldn't mind about her taking a look at the poor doomed vehicle, and Auraliese decided he seemed believable enough on that, especially if he was offering to introduce them. He'd been a bit quiet for just a moment there, but... oh, it was probably nothing. She wasn't going to be one of those people who read things into every little silence. You could go crazy that way. Besides, if someone wanted her to know something, they could tell her like a grown up, and otherwise she could mind her own business.
She took a moment more to trade numbers, for future reference of visiting his Range Rover or possibly just having one more person on her contacts list who would understand when she called to complain about the latest guy who'd taken an auto shop class once in high school and decided he knew everything about cars and she was Doing It Wrong. Y'know. Tuesdays.
"Thanks for this," she told him, a hand raising the timing belt in a gesture somewhere between acknowledgement of its receipt and farewell. "And feel free to stop by the shop some time if you wanna. I promise I won't bite."
