Football players are assholes. I know; I'm related to their king. My older, and annoyingly overprotective, brother Jake is the star quarterback at Santa Cruz High School. I love him but hate living in his shadow. Everyone worshiping the air he breat...
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After a horrendous, silent ride, Jake and I arrived home to a surprise. And not a good one. "What is that?" I murmured and pressed my nose to the chill of the window.
We leaned over and peered out the windshield at a tow truck backing out of our driveway. Mom and Dad stood on the sidewalk. With his arm slung around her shoulders, he beamed and waved goodbye to the tow truck driver. Mom shook her head with furrowed eyebrows, arms crossed, and her mouth pulled so tight that her lipstick disappeared.
Jake snorted at the pile of rusted metal sitting where his car usually parked. "I think it used to be a car?"
"Or the biggest, rustiest, ugliest garden gnome in the neighborhood." I snickered.
He gave me an unimpressed look. "Guess I'm parking in the street now."
Our doors were an inch open when Dad's voice burst with excitement, "Jake! Ellie! Come see the newest addition to the family!"
"What is it?" I stared at the frame of a car, but it had no windows, doors, or tires. The hunk of metal sat on four cement cinder blocks and wore a color best described as rust. Why was it here? Was Dad having a midlife crisis?
"Jake!" Dad exclaimed and bounced on his feet. "I got us a project car."
"A what?" I shifted my gaze from Dad's heap of yard art junk to Jake's frozen face. A few flickers of dread appeared in his eyes. Good. If his hands were busy working on a car, he would have less opportunity to punch people with them. This wasn't a weekend project.
"Your father got a project car." Mom's dry, monotone voice made me giggle. The corners of her mouth tugged down, and her eyes met mine.
"But you sell cars for a living, not work on them." I stared at Dad. "How did you get it?"
"A customer brought it in for a trade-in." He beamed like we had a new brother or sister. "The dealership couldn't take it, but the customer left it behind on the lot."
"Can't imagine why." My suppressed giggle at the annoyance written all over Mom's face made my shoulders twitch. Her eyebrows squeezed together, and her mouth alternated between a scowl and pressed into a firm line.
"With all your school events, Ellie." Dad tried to blame this recent surprise splurge on me. "We could use another family car."
Woah, wait a minute. That junk heap was for me!? I needed a car, and a used one was fine, but not this. I nudged Jake with my elbow. "Do you know how to build a car from, umm, this?"
"Not that much of one." Two years of auto shop at school and a knack for cars weren't enough to salvage this project. He closed his eyes, threaded a hand through his hair, and rubbed the back of his neck. "Or little, technically."
A smile tugged at my lips. The urge to burst out laughing pitched my shoulders. Instead, I strangled a snort. "Can you sell it for scrap?"
"That's an improvement at this stage," he mumbled. "There's probably squirrels living under the hood."
