Pit Crew

*This one came from wanting to write a middle-aged couple who still have it, they just forgot the key in the ignition. Thanks for reading hope the grease and the heat both feel real.*

I was under the #17 chassis with a die grinder in my hand when Andy Sutter hollered from the office door. "Vladek! Suit's here! The suit is HERE!"

"Which suit?" I slid out on the creeper, hair full of metal dust, forty-four years old and sweating through my shop shirt.

"The sponsor suit! The one Richie's been yapping about for three weeks! He's pulling up right now and Richie's been gone twenty minutes already!"

Oh, hell. Marco Ramirez, the rep from Velocity Oil, twenty-eight years old, some kind of marketing genius who wanted to put a "real racing couple" in their campaign. Richie had explained the whole pitch over dinner. Real couple, real story, real love. And my husband had driven off twenty minutes ago to get brake pads, leaving me alone to greet the man with grease on my knuckles and a shop that smelled like cutting fluid and old coffee.

Marco pulled in in a rented Camry, too clean for our gravel lot, and stepped out in a polo shirt with the company logo stitched on the chest. Young guy, friendly, shaking my hand before I could even wipe it. "Vladek Bell? Marco Ramirez. Man, it's so good to finally be here."

"Welcome to Bell & Prescott Fabrication, such as it is," I said, waving at the half-built chassis, the oil stains, the tire pile.

And that's when Richie's truck came flying through the gate, way too fast, spraying gravel. He jumped out with a parts bag in one hand and that big grin he gets, and I swear the man did not break stride. He walked straight up to me, dropped the bag, put his hand on my jaw, and kissed me on the cheek. Right there. In front of the sponsor. Like we do that. Like we've done that any time in the last six months, which, I will note in my own head, we have not.

"There's my guy," Richie said, loud enough for the county to hear.

"Hey, babe," I managed, because what else do you say. My face went hot and it wasn't from the grinder.

Marco lit up with flashing lights and ringing bells. "Oh my gosh, you two! That is EXACTLY the energy! That's it right there!"

Richie picked up his parts bag like nothing happened. "Sorry I'm late, traffic on the county road. Marco, right? Welcome to the madhouse."

We gave him the tour. Andy trailed along, wiping his hands on a rag and smirking at me every time Marco wasn't looking, because Andy has known me twelve years and can read me like a tachometer. Marco asked questions about the chassis, about the circuit, and then, standing by the #17 with his tablet out, he got to the pitch.

"So the campaign is called 'Pit Crew Love,'" he said. "Family-friendly, wholesome, authentic. We want photos of you two at the shop, at the track, domestic stuff. Hand-holding, a kiss on the podium if Richie wins, that kind of thing. The money would cover your season, honestly. Tires, travel, entry fees."

That number got Richie's attention, let me tell you. We've been scraping to make races for two years.

"And all you need from us?" Richie asked.

"Just be yourselves. On camera. Married couple, fourteen years, that's the dream story. Can I ask, when's the anniversary?"

"June," Richie said, quick as a snap, and he was right, which surprised me a little, that he remembered without counting.

Marco took some test shots right then, nothing formal, just us leaning on the #17. "Great. I'll come back Saturday morning for the real shoot. Dress like you dress, be lovey, that's it."

He left. The gravel crunched. Andy looked at Richie, looked at me, and went back to the lathe without a word, which is Andy's way of saying figure your own life out, I'm just here for the pension.

Richie set the brake pads down on the bench. "So. We can do this, right?"

"Can we?" I said. "Richie, we haven't. I mean. Six months, man."

"I know how long it's been, Vladek, I live in the same trailer." He rubbed his jaw, looking at the floor. "But that's the point, isn't it? We act like we're in love for a couple weeks, maybe it rubs off. Like practice. You always say everything's practice."

I did say that. About welding, about driving, about everything except marriage, apparently.

"It's money," I said. "It's a whole season."

"It's a whole season," he agreed.

"Then okay. But Richie, if we're doing this, we actually do it. None of this cheek-kiss-in-public, couch-in-private garbage."

He looked up at me and something moved across his face, quick, like a shadow over the track. "Deal," he said. "Starting tonight. Dinner. Actual plates, not the coffee table."

* * *

Saturday morning came bright and already hot. Marco showed up at eight with a photographer named Deb, a stringy woman with a camera bag and zero patience for small talk. Andy had swept the shop floor for us, the big softie, and even moved the dumpster out of frame.

"Okay," Deb said. "Stand by the car. Closer. Closer than that, you're married, not roommates."

We got close. Richie put his arm around my waist and I put mine around his shoulders and I will admit my heart was doing something, though I'd never say what on the record. Fourteen years and the man still stands a certain way, hip cocked, chin up, like he's reading a corner entry.

"Good," Deb said. "Now a kiss. On the mouth, gentlemen, this isn't the fifties, nobody's fainting."

Richie looked at me. "Okay?" he asked, quiet, just for me. And that little ask did more to me than the whole sponsor meeting had.

"Yeah," I said. "Okay."

So we kissed. Staged, for the camera, three seconds, Deb's shutter going like a sewing machine. But here's what I didn't tell Marco or Deb or Andy: Richie's hand slid around to my lower back, under the hem of my shirt a little, onto bare skin, and he left it there after Deb called cut. And my skin did a thing. A genuine, stupid, twenty-something-year-old flutter, right there in my own dusty garage at eight in the morning.

"More," Deb said. "Laugh together. Talk to each other, ignore me."

So we talked. About the chassis, about the bend in the roll cage I'd been fighting, and Richie laughed at something I said about the parts store guy, and Deb shot the whole time, and his hand never moved off my back. Marco stood there beaming like we'd already won the championship.

"You two are naturals," Marco said. "This is going to be gorgeous."

Naturals. Sure. Except my husband's thumb was moving, slow, back and forth on my spine, and I was pretty sure that wasn't in the campaign brief.

We broke for lunch around noon. Andy brought sandwiches from the gas station, the good ones with the pepperoni, and we sat on the tailgate of Richie's truck. Deb went to shoot the trailer exterior for a "home life" setup later. Andy chewed, watched me sideways, and finally said it.

"You two look different today."

"Different how?" Richie asked, mouth full.

"Like the old days. Before my time even." Andy shrugged, unwrapped his sandwich. "Whatever you're doing, keep doing it."

He went back inside. Richie bumped my shoulder with his. "Hear that? Keep doing it."

"And tonight?" I asked.

"Tonight we practice," he said, and grinned, and God help me, I grinned back.

That night we actually did it. Dinner on plates, at the table, a bagged salad and some brats off the grill. Richie lit the little candle we got for our tenth anniversary and never used, and we ate like civilized people, and then we moved to the couch and it got quiet in that way where you can hear the refrigerator hum.

"So," Richie said. "Practice."

"Practice," I said. "Right."

We sat there like two guys waiting for a bus. Fourteen years married and neither one of us knew how to start leaning on the other. Finally Richie lifted his arm up along the back of the couch, all casual, like a guy in an old movie, and I scooted under it, and it was so dumb and so nice at the same time that I almost laughed.

"Okay, this is fine," he said. "This is easy."

"Sure. Easy."

His thumb started going on my shoulder, same slow back-and-forth as in the shoot, and I could feel my own pulse in my ears.