“So, what’s the prognosis?” Charlie jokingly asked.

Xavier took wide steps around the red pickup, scanning the truck from top to bottom, wondering if he could buy it instead of Charlie.

It would fetch his hustle good money.

“Nope, it’s for Bella,” Jacob interrupted.

“I didn’t even say anything,” Xavier justified.

“I know that face anywhere,” Jacob shrugged his shoulders. “You were already counting how much money we would make if Charlie didn’t want it.”

“That means it has potential?” Charlie inquired.

“A paint job – your daughter is a purple girl, right? We get some winter tires – I have those in stock. Tune the engine a bit, pad the seats and overlay it with leather coverings,” Xavier slowly nodded his head, envisioning the final product. “And you will have a beauty that would force any girl to love her father.”

“Ha ha…” Billy clapped his hands together. “What did I say, Charlie?”

“Argh…” Charlie groaned. “And how much will this cost me?”

“About a thousand dollars…” Jacob replied.

“Argh…”

This time it was Xavier’s turn to groan because Jacob gave the price of the materials, not the labor.

‘Does he expect us to work for free?’ Xavier internally complained, wondering if he would be able to afford a hotel this weekend.

Sex at home was reserved for truly special girls – like Angela.

“So low?” Charlie was surprised.

“I mean, if you want to pay more, I can—”

“It’s fine…” Jacob quickly interrupted. “It’s for Bella – we don’t charge for family.”

Billy elbowed Charlie. “You should take the price before Xavier opens his mouth and charges you ten times that price – the boy is an evil capitalist in the making.”

“I accept,” Charlie blurted. “How much time do you need to get this done – you do know Bella is coming tomorrow?”

“Gonna take a couple of hours but we can get it done by tomorrow for a small additional fee of five hundred dollars,” Xavier added, unwilling to not make even the smallest profit.

“Totally fine… bill me!” Charlie yelled, quickly departing for his police car before Xavier could add more hidden fees.

At some point, Billy’s wheelchair had also disappeared into the barn, leaving only Jacob and Xavier to their devices.

“You’ll be the starvation of me,” Xavier complained to his new friend.

Though their friendship was only two months old, Jacob and Xavier felt as if they had known each other for much longer. They just had that much in common.

“Your refrigerator stays stocked,” Jacob replied.

“I can’t throw parties if I’m broke…” Xavier argued.

“You mean the parties I never get invited to?” Jacob mocked. “Oh my gosh, how could I?”

“You’re too young,” Xavier justified as he had a thousand times before, slipping into the backseat of his car to grab the materials. “You’re definitely too young to be hitting on Charlie’s daughter.”

“What… how did you?” Jacob was flustered.

“You weren’t even trying to hide it,” Xavier tossed the materials onto the trunk of the car. “Charlie would have noticed too if he wasn’t just as nervous as you when it comes to seeing his daughter.”

“How could you tell Charlie was nervous?” Jacob inquired, removing the materials from the bag one object at a time. “I mean, his face never changes.”

“He wore cologne…” Xavier dropped a bomb, causing Jacob to pause his sorting. “As you know, the last time Charlie wore cologne was when Mrs Wendy got her divorce and called him to escort her husband off the premises.”

“That opportunistic bastard…” Jacob jokingly cursed.

“I agree, haha…” Xavier chuckled.

Everyone in the neighbourhood wanted a chance with Mrs Wendy and her larger-than-average buns. And as it turned out, Charlie was the first to shoot his shot – hopefully, not with an actual gun.

“Time to work…” Jacob suddenly wore a severe expression.

“Time to work…” Xavier agreed, slipping gloves onto his fingers.

The duo sanded paint, especially the rusted areas. Xavier and Jacob applied masking tape to all the crevices. They were keeping the job plain so not much tape was needed.

Jacob covered the car in plastic, and Xavier used a razor to separate large sections of the plastic, ensuring certain parts stuck to the car.

Then, they re-taped everything again.

At this point, thirty minutes had already elapsed and the work hadn’t even started as yet. Jacob and Xavier took cans of self-etching primer, spraying the solution over the entire car.

It was tedious work.

Another hour passed.

The duo sanded the car with a hand pad – of course, Xavier chose to use the wet sand method. A quick brush with wax remover and Jacob and Xavier emptied several cans of acrylic lacquer and 2k Urethane on the truck.

The paint shone a brilliant purple.

“Check the coat…” Xavier instructed.

Jacob hit the light of the barn, turned on a flashlight, and examined the coating of the car, searching for an area where the previous red of the car was faintly discernible.

“Three parts… there, there, and there…” Jacob pointed out.

Xavier sighed, flipped the mask back onto his face, and the duo applied another round of coatings to the faint areas. At this point, three hours had passed and their backs had long started to hurt.

When the duo were satisfied, Xavier relaxed a bit as Jacob applied the clear, giving the truck a brighter, more subtle, gloss. Five hours had passed since they began.

The skies outside were turning dark.

“We need another coating,” Xavier decided.

The duo spent well into the seventh hour applying coatings to their heart’s content, finally ripping the plastic from the car just before midnight.

“Finished!” Jacob groaned, falling into the stack of sponges at the side.

The sleekly painted teal pickup truck appeared as new as if it had been bought the previous day. Even Xavier had to take a second to admire their work.

Out of all the cars they had refurbished, the one job they did for free actually turned out to be their best work yet.

‘Ain’t that a shame…’

“This is why we don’t work for free!” Xavier announced, slouching beside Jacob. “Next time you like a girl, work for free on your own.”

“But Charlie is the one who called you…”

“Do you really think I don’t know who gave him my number?” Xavier quirked his brows. “Besides, I owed the Police Chief one after he got Brandon’s parents to drop the charges.”

“I heard it was brutal…” Jacob was curious. “What exactly did they do for you to lose it like that?”

Xavier shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about it – all it’ll do is get me mad all over again. Then, I’ll have to go look for them for another proper beatdown.”

“I know the feeling,” Jacob murmured.

“In brighter news…” Xavier shrugged his shoulders. “You can take all the credit for this job – maybe that will help you with your crush. We even applied a deeper purple to make it look like teal – Bella likes teal.”

“And how would you know that?” Jacob cast a suspicious gaze in Xavier’s direction.

‘Because it will be the colour of her dress at the prom – at least, it was in the movies…’ Xavier thought, but his mouth said something else. “Because she is all Charlie ever talks about – I know so much and I haven’t even met her yet.”

“I don’t remember much either, but I remembered thinking she is definitely an amazing type of girl…” Jacob wore a slightly dreamy expression.

Xavier wanted to remind the boy that reality hardly matched up with past impressions, but Jacob was at that age where nothing anyone else said mattered.

A silence descended.

“How’s Angela?” Jacob inquired, thinking it was a shame the girl hadn’t come to hang around anymore. “I mean, I liked that she tried to converse with us. That is the type of girl you keep. Remember that time she got crease on her hands trying to jump-start a car?”

“Definitely the type of girl you keep,” Xavier agreed, feeling a pang of pain in his heart. “But I have a surefire way to get her back. Tomorrow, at lunch, I will be breaking out one of my legendary songs to win her back.”

“I don’t think—”

“It will be fine… she loves it when I sing,” Xavier justified.

‘That’s before she found out you sang to any girl whose pants you were trying to get down…’ Jacob remarked internally, and cleverly switched the pace of the conversation. “Wanna swing by the main house to get some food? It’s late but Billy is always ready to cook.”

“I think I am going to swing by Sam for a bit. He is always patrolling this time of the night,” Xavier decided, noting the displeased expression on Jacob’s face. “Don’t judge those guys too harshly. They may look like a gang, but they protect the native community. You will be one of them someday.”

“As if I’ll ever follow Sam after what he did to Leah,” Jacob gagged, tossing a glance of disdain to whatever future Xavier had just described.

Xavier shook his head and didn’t say more.

The reason he liked hanging around Sam and the others was due to their Shapeshifting nature. It allowed Xavier to gauge his strength against a superhuman physique that could heal from almost anything.

Of course, so far, he found that Eternals were about equally matched in strength with the Shapeshifter; though, Ikaris’s physique was an exception.

“See you later,” Xavier rose from the couch.

Jacob also rose and gestured with his fist, matching Xavier's tempo as they gripped each other’s elbows, slid their hands down, and performed a set of complex bumps that ended with a mock explosion.

It was the secret handshake the duo had created a week prior.

۞۞۞

CENTRAL LA PUSH

SAM’S HOUSE

A couple of seconds after Xavier pulled up to the house in his car, a naked figure exited the nearby bushes, almost giving the Eternal a heart attack.

It was hardly the first time Sam had done such a thing, but Xavier had failed to ever get used to it.

“You’re gonna kill me with that someday,” Xavier complained, sliding out of the car. “Ready for another night?”

Sam stared for a couple of seconds, then concentrated his ears to detect if there was any stirring in the bed where Emily slept – there was none.

“You’re always so loud,” Sam turned to walk into the forest. “We have to travel a bit further this time around.”

“You seem reluctant.”

“I am doing this not to help you but to protect everyone from you,” Sam commented, casting a semi-venomous glance back at the following Xavier. “I don’t want a repeat of what happened to that logger when you watched a sad movie!”

Xavier winced, recalling the first time when his Cosmic Beam activated and tore through an unsuspecting logger who was minding his own business.

It became a brawl since Sam was nearby in Werewolf Form – thankfully, the situation ended in a draw. And not because Xavier was holding back since he gave it all he had.

As soon as his body disappeared into the darkness of the trees, Sam leapt ten feet into the air in a single bound, shapeshifting into a midnight-dark werewolf nearly eight feet tall.

“I will never get used to that,” Xavier exhaled a breath of excitement.

GRRRRRRR

“Coming!” Xavier replied.

In the next instant, Xavier slowly floated in the air before becoming a blur that cut through the forest, dodging every single tree in sight. In Xavier’s view, everything was moving at a crawl – everything but Sam who moved at a steady pace.

A couple of minutes later, when the duo were far enough into the forest, Xavier’s eyes started to glow a golden hue – the event of the evening was about to begin.

--------------

JANUARY 18^th 2005 - TUESDAY

FORKS, WASHINGTON

The following morning, Xavier and Sam – exhausted and bruised – leaned against a large tree. The duo were as naked as the day of their birth, and bruises were disappearing at a pace visible to the naked eye.

“We should head back…” Sam spoke first. “Didn’t you say you had to deliver a truck with Jacob today?”

“Yeah…” Xavier groaned. “Tomorrow night again?”

“Not for a while,” Sam shook his head. “Paul says he’s been seeing the signs in Jared, so I will have to deal with that training for a couple of months…”