“Did you just ask me out on a date?”

My cheeks warm and suddenly I want to yank this bow tie off my neck. Or maybe I want to yank the bow tie off his neck. “Oh,” I manage to say. “If I ask you on a date, you’ll know.”

Ms. Laverne pulls up next, cutting right through the tension vibrating between us. After I help her out of the car, she hands me her purse to hold while she unties the silk scarf wrapped around her head. “Couldn’t risk messing up my new do.” She holds a hand out to display a warm-blond curly wig.

“Stunning,” I tell her. “Absolutely stunning.”

She clears her throat. “Thank you, thank you. I thought I might get you to weigh in on a couple of styles I was considering, but I haven’t seen you in my office too much lately.”

“I’m so sorry,” I tell her. I really am. Gossiping with Ms. Laverne is always one of the best parts of my week. “I’ve been really busy with prom court.”

“No, no, no,” she says. “It’s a good sign. You’ve got your wings! Finally!”

“What do you mean?”

She takes her purse back and digs out her keys for me to take. “Baby, any time someone is in my office it’s because they’re sick or they’re hiding, and it’s usually the latter. I’m glad to see you’re not hiding.”

I take the keys from her and give her a slight smile. I feel pretty uneasy having this conversation with Tucker so close by. “Thanks,” I say quietly.

“Do me a favor and roll up the windows if you see any stormy-lookin’ clouds.”

“Yes, ma’am!” I call after her as she heads into the building.

The next hour is a flurry of teachers and organizing the faculty parking lot and writing down makes and models and making notes like whose driver’s side door needs jiggling and whose brake sticks and whose radio won’t turn off once it turns on.

But finally the last bell of first period rings and the whole parking lot looks like the rapture just happened and the only two people left on Earth are me and Tucker.

“Man,” he says, looking over the coffee station. “Those teachers demolished the doughnuts.”

“It’s scientifically impossible to say no to free doughnuts.”

Tucker surveys the lot. “We’re going to have to divide and conquer. I’ll show you how to do the first few and after that we’ll split up. I’ll give you similar cars so you’re not hunting for oil filters.”

We start with Mr. Higgins’s car. I help Tucker jack the car (something I’ve done before) so that we can both crawl under.

With the light of his cell phone, Tucker points to a nut. “You see this thing?”

I nod, wiping back a bead of sweat and immediately regretting my decision to agree to this.

He positions a pan between us. “First thing we do is empty out the old oil.” With a gloved hand, he unscrews the nut and oil spills out over his hand and into the pan, splattering on both of us.

“Seriously?” I ask, motioning down to my coveralls.

“I told you white wasn’t the best choice.”

“Hmph. Well, at least we’ll wear the evidence of our labors.”

“So we let this drain and then screw this guy back in, then we go back up top to put in some new oil.”

“That’s it?” I ask.

“Pretty much.”

The oil drains and we both shimmy out from under the car. As Tucker pours in the oil, he explains that every car will take a certain kind of oil, and using the labels on the engine and on the bottles of oil, he shows me how to figure out which car gets which oil.

“You bought all this oil?” I ask, wondering how much he must have spent.

He shrugs. “I wanted our project to be special,” he says. “I know changing oil sounds like a stupid idea, but there’s nothing people hate more than going in and having their car worked on. Especially teachers who only have weekends off. I thought we might stand out. Besides, I think you’ve got an actual shot at this thing.”

I laugh. “Is that some kind of joke?”

“Waylon,” he says. “I’m serious. You could win. I’m not saying, like, right now at this very moment, but if we win over some teachers and make waves with our legacy project, you could get some people behind you in a major way.”

I roll my eyes, but oh my God the Julie Andrews spinning feelings are kicking into overdrive. “This town is not ready for me to be their prom queen.”

“What do you mean when you say this town?”

“You know what I mean. These people. This place. Sure, there are handfuls of great people, but most of these people are small-minded losers.”

He leans on the hood of Mr. Higgins’s car—something I’m sure Mr. Higgins would not appreciate. “Maybe you should give people a chance to surprise you. Have you ever thought that maybe you’re using this town as an excuse to not put yourself out there?”

“What are you talking about?” Defensiveness builds in my voice. Goodbye, Julie Andrews.

“Maybe you should turn your volume up to ten and see if these people can handle you. Maybe you’re not giving them a fair shot at accepting you. Go full Waylon on this town. That’s how you win this thing. I saw you on Saturday night.”

“I’m full Waylon, thank you very much.” I dig my toe into the cracked pavement until a small bit of gravel loosens. “But what would that even look like? To go full Waylon.”

He shrugs. “Do the prom court panel in drag. Dress for school like you dressed at the Hideaway. You looked like a totally different person that night.”

My cheeks flush and my heart thuds against the wall of my chest.

I follow him to the next vehicle, which is a truck and doesn’t require a jack, so we both shimmy under, and this time I unscrew the nut and drain the oil.

I groan as the oil spills over my hand.

“That’s it,” he says. “Waylon Brewer getting messy.”

“Literally the opposite of everything I aspire to.”

As we’re standing up, I point to Mr. Higgins’s car. “Why do we men always name our cars and boats and inanimate objects after women? Beulah, Xena, Delilah.”

“Well, I can tell you what my mama would have said about that. She always said men made their objects women because the only thing we teach boys about girls is that they’re objects.”

I nod thoughtfully. “I think your mom was onto something. Lucky for Beulah, I would never objectify a woman.”

We take on the next car, an old minivan with wood paneling.

“I’ll take this one,” Tucker says. “These older cars can be tricky.”

“I won’t argue you on that,” I say.

While he’s cranking the jack, he says, “So you’re a twin? What’s that like?”

I shake my head. “Only the best and worst thing in the world.”

He laughs. “How so?”

“Well, we want to be together all the time, but then it’s like always being with someone who knows you a little too well and feeling like you can’t even be spontaneous sometimes. And then every decision I make takes Clem into account.” I slide the tray under the car for him while he crawls under. “But then sometimes she doesn’t do the same for me . . . I don’t know, it’s complicated. We’re so codependent, but I also wouldn’t change us for anything.”