Chloe walked over and set one of the coffees on a relatively clean spot on his red metal workbench. Steam curled up from the small hole in the plastic lid. “Black. No sugar,” she said. “I figured you for a black coffee kind of guy.” Arthur stopped working. He wiped a smudge of oil off his forehead with the back of his wrist, leaving a fresh streak of grime. He looked at the coffee, then at Chloe. “I didn’t ask for a coffee.” “I didn’t ask if you wanted one.” She hopped backwards, sitting on a stack of old tires. She crossed her legs, making herself comfortable.
Arthur let out a long, slow sigh. It was the sound of a man who realized his quiet, invisible existence was officially over. He picked up the Styrofoam cup, his large, calloused hands dwarfing the fragile material. He took a slow sip. “It’s awful,” he said. “It cost me a dollar fifty,” Chloe replied, taking a sip of her own. She winced. It tasted like burnt battery acid. “You get what you pay for.” They sat in silence for a few minutes. The only sound was the pinging of the cooling engine block and the distant muffled sounds of traffic.
“You’re staring at me,” Arthur finally said, not looking up from his coffee. “I’m trying to figure you out,” Chloe said honestly. “There’s nothing to figure out. I fix cars.” “You shattered a man’s facial structure in a quarter of a second, Arthur. And you didn’t even blink.” Arthur’s grip on the cup tightened just a fraction. He set it back down on the workbench. He didn’t look angry, just terribly weary. “You saw something you weren’t supposed to see, Chloe. It’s done. Let it go.” “I can’t.” She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees.
The arrogance that usually laced her voice was completely gone. “I tried to spar today. I froze. All I could think about was how easy it would be for someone who actually knew what they were doing to kill me. All my belts, all my trophies. They felt like participation ribbons.” Arthur turned to fully face her. The yellow light of a single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling cast deep shadows into the lines of his face. He looked ancient. “That’s because you misunderstand the nature of violence,” he said. His gravelly voice was quiet, commanding the dead air of the garage.
