Chapter 10
The kitchen of the Westchester home was warm, smelling of roasted garlic, rosemary, and homemade beef stew. A heavy oak table stood in the center of the room, set with simple white ceramic bowls and heavy silverware.
Julian placed a steaming loaf of crusty bread on the table as Leo walked in, washing his hands at the porcelain sink.
"You smell like motor oil and old lacquer," Julian observed with a faint smile, pulling out a chair.
"Feels like home," Leo replied, sitting down across from him.
They ate in comfortable silence for a few minutes, the hearty stew providing a welcome warmth against the chill of the autumn evening. Julian watched his nephew with a quiet, analytical gaze, noting the relaxed posture and the absence of the sharp, defensive edge that Leo had carried into the dealership earlier that morning.
"So," Julian said, setting his spoon down. "What are your plans now? You walked off the floor of Apex Motors without looking back. I assume you don't plan on going back to washing cars for minimum wage."
Leo buttered a slice of bread, taking his time before answering. "I’m done with Apex. Marcus can find someone else to clean his inventory. But I’m not running away from work either. I want to set up shop here—use the carriage house to restore classic engines, starting with the convertible."
Julian nodded slowly, a look of profound approval crossing his face. "Arthur would have liked that. He always said you had a better mechanical instinct than he did. When you were ten, you spent three hours taking apart a lawnmower carburetor and actually got it back together without losing a single spring."
"I remember," Leo said, smiling faintly at the memory. "He made me do it twice just to make sure I understood tolerance levels."
"He was a hard taskmaster," Julian admitted, taking a sip of water. "But he cared about craftsmanship in a world that was moving too fast toward disposable goods. That car out there—it's a relic of an era when things were built to be repaired rather than replaced. If you treat it right, it will outlive both of us."
"It's going to need a full engine rebuild eventually," Leo noted, leaning forward. "The compression on cylinder three is a bit low, just like the notes in the journal mentioned. I found his custom throttle sketches in the engine bay today. I can machine the replacement gasket right here once we get the lathe set up."
Julian raised his eyebrows in pleasant surprise. "You know how to operate a metal lathe?"
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"I picked it up working maintenance at a manufacturing plant in Pennsylvania before I took the job at the dealership," Leo said. "Turns out, precision machining is like riding a bicycle. Once you learn the tolerances, you don't forget."
The conversation shifted easily into memories of the old days—stories of Arthur’s legendary stubbornness, family road trips that went disastrously wrong, and the quiet summers spent in the Vermont garage. For the first time in his adult life, Leo felt the jagged pieces of his family history snapping together into a coherent, unbroken narrative. He wasn't the son of a fugitive failure; he was the continuation of a lineage of mechanics and builders who believed in the integrity of a well-turned screw and a properly aligned engine.
