Chapter 3: Jason

"Hello the shop!" The voice was unfamiliar, but Jason hoped the man needed some work done. Since he'd moved back to his childhood home he'd spent much more of his savings than he'd anticipated and needed the extra money.

"Hey," Jason said as he greeted the balding guy standing in the open bay doorway. "Can I help ya'?"

"I hope so," he said and looked back at a bus-sized RV that was idling in the gravel driveway. "A guy named Ronny back at the gas station on 28 said you work on RVs."

"I do, yes sir," Jason said as he wiped his hands clean on a work towel. "I'm Jason Peters," he said and extended his hand.

"I'm Bill McGowen. We've been staying out at the Smoky Mountain National Park this week and I noticed the steering felt off when we pulled out to head back to Florida."

"Off how?" Jason asked as they walked towards the vehicle.

"Like the power steering is cutting out when I turn hard. It makes a grinding noise when you get all the way over and the wheel vibrates. It never did that before."

"Let me take a look," Jason said as Bill opened the door to let him into the driver's seat. Jason sat and spun the wheel both directions to its limits. I bet it's the ball-nut assembly, he thought with a frown. Most big vehicles had a servo controlled steering system because the vehicle was too heavy for the kind of manual assisted steering used on cars.

"Is it drivable back to Orlando?" Bill asked as he studied Jason's face.

"I wouldn't risk it," Jason said. "Let me get it in my bay so I can take a look at the steering assembly."

Twenty minutes later Jason called Bill into the long pit under his garage and shined a light overhead at the vehicles leaking ball-nut assembly.

"Damn," Bill muttered as he reached up to wipe his finger along the dripping seam.

"I'll need to order the part, but I got no idea how long it'll take to get here."

"What about cost?" Bill asked as they turned to climb out of the pit.

"Let's go find out." Jason led them back up the stairs.

"You got a nice place here," Bill said as they came out of the pit into the large metal building. There was enough room to pull in a full length eighteen wheeled tractor trailer and stand on top without hitting the roof.

"Thanks," Jason said as a sense of pride filled him.

It had been a long month. Cleaning the high windows along the roof ridge had taken nerves of steel, a supply of razor scrapers, and a dozen rolls of paper towels. The bright daylight that came through made working so much easier. After that he'd used most of a steel drum full of degreaser to get the stains off the walls and concrete floors.

The sturdy wooden workbenches that lined the walls couldn't be cleaned, but a few hours with a belt sander got most of the burns and notches out of them. The hand tools had decades of accumulated grime on them, but now they gleamed from their proper places on the wall mounted pegboards above the benches. It had taken the whole month to organize the tools and replace what was missing. By the time he was done, the garage looked professional and Jason was ready for customers.

"Come on through to the office in the house so I can get on my laptop," Jason said as he led Bill towards the back door of the garage.

In the month since Di had come to live with him Jason had been able to get so much more work done than before. There were a few small bumps as they got to know each other, but things were going better than Jason had hoped. Di was quiet, stayed out of his way, and did everything he asked without complaint. The only reminder she was around was when she checked out a new book on his ereader, which pinged the linked app on his phone.

She was a voracious reader with wide ranging tastes. He'd kept an eye on the book log out of curiosity. At first she'd read a handful of the books he'd left and rated on the ereader. His tastes went to thrillers and speculative fiction, but she quickly branched off into horror, young adult, and most recently, romance.

He could tell which books she liked because she had started rating her favorites. In the last few days she'd begun writing reviews as well. Reading her take on some of the books displayed a keen insight and sense of humor he hadn't expected. He'd even read some of the books she had particularly enjoyed, even though the stories were outside of his preferred genres. The romances were particularly steamy and explicit, forcing him to mentally adjust his view of her maturity.

Jason opened the front door and called out. "It's me. I'm just bringin' a customer into the office."

"Okay," she called from the kitchen. "I'll have lunch ready in a bit."

His Pawpaw had made the front room his office. The walls were lined with bookcases full of repair manuals and parts catalogs. It still had the comforting smell of Pawpaw's pipe tobacco despite all the cleaning he and Di had done.

"Have a seat, Bill," Jason said and gestured to the chairs in front of the desk. "Let me get logged in and I'll get you an estimate."

Bill sat as he looked around the office. "So was that your wife?"

"Naw," Jason chuckled and shook his head. "She's my foster kid."

Bill raised his eyebrows. "You foster? That's really good of you, Jason."

The compliment made Jason suppress a smile. "I'm the lucky one. She's a great kid and has really helped me out since she's been here."

Jason typed in the part number and started looking for the best prices and fastest shipping. He also brought up his accounting software and began to assemble the part costs and time estimates into a formal quote. In a few minutes he printed the quote and grabbed it off the printer.