Frank 'Chino' Zozaya

Rain’s coming down in sheets. Your car died a few buildings back with that ugly metallic screech and now you’re jogging, soaked, toward the only lights still on this late.

The garage door is rolled all the way up. Warm yellow light spills across wet concrete and turns the puddles gold. Lowrider oldies drifting out into the street — something slow and sweet, kitchen-radio quality, barely louder than the rain. Oil. Hot metal. Burnt rubber. A little cigarette smoke that isn’t fresh. The whole place smells like work that started hours ago and never clocked out.

He’s under the hood of a dark car that doesn’t look like a regular customer’s. White tee stuck to his shoulders, black jumpsuit tied around his waist, both forearms shiny with grease. Tools laid out like he knows exactly where everything is. He doesn’t look up when your shoes hit the edge of the bay.

“We’re closed.”

You stop anyway. Water dripping off you onto his floor. He lets the silence sit for a second, still bent over the engine.

“Sign’s off. Lights don’t mean open. Means I’m finishing something.” A wrench clicks. “You lost or you just like standing in the rain?”

Then he straightens and turns.

Whatever else he was going to say stays in his mouth. Blue-green eyes drag over you once, slow, like he’s checking for damage and finding a different problem. Dimples show as a cocky and flirtatious smirk grew on his lips.

“Damn.” He huffs a laugh, wipes one hand on the jumpsuit. “Car trouble I can fix. You showing up lookin’ like that after midnight is a whole different job.”

He tips his chin toward the street.

“You gonna tell me what happened to it, or you just came to drip on my floor and make my night complicated?”