The wind blows the door shut almost before Kory can get through. She shakes her umbrella out over the towel laid down by the coat rack, and at the same time, she shakes herself. Water runs off her jacket in little streams. 

“The cars are covered,” she announces. 

“I went ahead and flipped the sign,” Carol says. “I don’t think we’ll be getting much business today.” 

She settles back behind the front desk with her sudoku puzzle and a pencil. Kory scrapes her boots against the towel until they seem unlikely to trail water across the floor. Then she crosses the lobby to lean over a pair of stuffed chairs and look out the front window. 

“He’s still there.”

Across the front lot, past the open chain-link gates, a lonely figure sits hunched over at the bus stop. The bench has no awning, nothing to keep off the rain. He was there when it started raining, the better part of an hour ago. Perhaps he arrived on a city bus. Kory doesn’t know; she didn’t see. She has only seen him sitting there, dark hair and sky-blue jacket plastered flat by the rain. 

“Who?” Carol lifts her chin to look out the window. 

“Him.”

“You know him?” 

“No,” Kory says. She grabs her umbrella from the coat rack. “But I think he needs help.” 

“You sure?”

“No. I think so.” 

Carol watches. Grey-green eyes follow Kory across the lobby, to the front door. “Just be careful,” she says. 

“I will be,” Kory says. She steps back out into the rain. 

She understands that Carol worries. In the last two months, the used car lot has become a kind of sanctuary. Since Carol left Grant for the last time, since Kory warned him in no uncertain terms to stay away from both of them, Carol has spent more time in their cozy lobby than she has anywhere else. She feels safe at the car lot. She feels safe with Kory. She wants nothing to threaten either of those things. 

Kory understands. She also knows, if she knows anything, that Carol extended a hand in peace and help when she and Kory first met. Kory would like to do the same for someone else. 

Rain beats against her umbrella. Kory crosses the front lot, skirting the deep puddles pooling under the gate, and walks up to the bus stop. 

The lone man looks up as she approaches. He sits hunched over on the bench, his jacket pulled up almost to his ears. It does not have a hood. It does very little to block the rain. His face is mature, grown into high cheekbones, wide-set eyes, and an elegant nose. But his hands, where they worry the edges of his soaking-wet jacket—his hands are young. 

Kory stands by the bench for a moment, forming the question in her mind and translating it to English. When she has it, she says, “Would you like to come inside?” 

His eyes flick from her face to her hands to, curiously, her shoulders. He looks startled. 

“I—what?”

“It’s very wet,” Kory says. This seems self-evident. “Would you like to come inside?” She points over her shoulder, at the shop. 

“Oh,” he says. His face twitches—something like a flinch. “Oh, um, thanks, but I’m okay. I’m just waiting for the bus.”

“Is that a different bus from the three that have left you here?”

He startles again at that. His eyes open wider. They are very blue. That is not the color Kory would have expected. 

“Were you watching me?”

“Yes,” Kory says. “You looked… alone.”

He stares at her, mouth falling open like a dead fish. Rain drums against her umbrella. Kory smells it, soaking into the narrow strip of grass by the bus stop, pooling on top of concrete. 

“Why?” he says. 

“Why watch?” Kory says. “The bus stop is very close.”

“No, I mean, why…” He stops in the middle of his sentence. He purses his lips. He looks back at the shop behind them. “It’s closed,” he says. “Won’t you get in trouble?”

“No,” she says. “I’m Kory.”

He looks confused. She points at the hand-lettered sign over the entrance to the lot. Kory’s Used Cars, it says.

“Oh,” he says. “Is anyone else there?”

“Yes,” Kory says. “Carol. My friend. She makes the coffee.”

He sighs. Something seems to travel out of him on his breath. 

“Okay,” he says. He stands up from the bench. “Sure. Why not.” He shuffles a little closer to Kory, to stand under her umbrella. 

Kory smiles. “It’s much warmer inside,” she says. She shepherds him away from the bus stop and across the lot. “What is your name? You know mine.” 

“Richard,” he says. He glances up at her. He is much shorter—close to ten centimeters. “Kory, huh? Is that—” He stops in the middle again. He ducks his head back down. 

Kory lets them inside. She shakes her umbrella out on the doorstep, as Richard slips through ahead her. 

“Carol!” she calls ahead of him. “This is Richard.”

“Hello,” Richard says. He starts to approach the desk; Carol’s playful shriek stops him. 

“Don’t drip on the floor!” Carol starts out from behind the desk. “Stay right there. Don’t move.”

She grabs a towel from the bin by the garage door and throws it at him. Richard catches it in one hand and wraps it around his shoulders, rubbing vigorously at his arms. Carol brings him two more. She holds them as Richard slowly, meticulously dries himself off. 

“Thank you,” he says. “You’re Carol, I’m guessing?”

“Kory introduced me, huh?” Carol smiles at him. “Pleased to meet ya.” 

Kory folds her umbrella and stows it next to the door. She steps past Richard and Carol and goes to the coffee machine in the corner. The carafe is still half-full. The hanging rack is full of clean mugs. 

“Would you like coffee?” Kory says. 

“No, thanks.” Richard rubs his hair with one of the towels.

“You need to warm up,” Kory says. She frowns at Richard. He looks at the coffee machine with something like suspicion. 

“Caffeine is… not good for me,” he says. 

“Then I will make decaf.” Kory crouches down to rummage in the cabinet under the coffee service. 

“I keep tellin’ Kory we should get tea,” Carol says. She’s behind the desk again, standing up to lean over the top of it. “But she keeps forgetting.”

“I’m okay, really.” Richard folds the last towel up and sets in on the pile at his feet. “I appreciate your concern, but…” He doesn’t finish his sentence. 

“It’s no problem,” Carol says. Her smile fades into a look of concern. “Is there anything else you need help with? You need to make a call or something?” 

“No, that’s—” Richard stops. He shakes his head—a tiny motion, perhaps meant only for himself. “Actually, yes. Could I use your phone? If it’s not too much trouble.”

“No trouble at all.” Carol motions to the telephone on her desk. “Call whoever you need.”

Richard picks up the phone and dials a number without looking. He tilts his head to catch the handset between his ear and shoulder. He reaches for the base, and then glances at Carol. “Can I move this?”

“Sure.” 

Richard picks up the base and carries with him around the corner, into the back room. Carol looks at Kory and raises her eyebrows. 

“It’s alright,” Kory says. The power cord prevents Richard from going too far into the back room, and besides that, he has so far been unfailingly polite. She doesn’t think he would try to sabotage them now. 

Carol shrugs and goes back to her sudoku. Kory sets the decaffeinated coffee to brew and pours herself a cup of the old coffee before she dumps it out. As the machine hisses and boils, she goes about adding her preferred ratio of cream and sugar. 

“No, I’m not going back.” Richard’s voice drifts from the other room. “No. He’ll just—”

Carol lifts her head. Richard’s voice drops back down, too low for them to hear any more. He speaks emphatically. His voice is deep and rich, spiking against the sound of rain pattering on the roof. 

Kory sips her coffee, hums, and adds another dash of cream. She hears a click, and Richard emerges from the back room, holding the telephone. He sets it down on Carol’s desk, in exactly the place it was before. 

“Thank you,” he says again. “A friend is coming to pick me up. I’ll be out of your hair soon.”

“Speaking of,” Carol says, twisting a curl around her finger. “What conditioner do you use? Your hair is gorgeous.”

“Oh,” Richard says. His cheeks color. “I don't use anything special. It just… does that. When it gets wet.” 

He runs a hand through his hair, which seems to be drying in thick, curling waves. It falls over his forehead just so, framing his blue eyes and broad nose. In the warm light of the waiting room, his skin doesn’t look quite so pale. Its real color is light brown.

He is quite beautiful. 

Carol sighs. “Some people have all the luck.”

“What do you use?” Richard says. “My—brother has curly hair, and he’s always having trouble washing it.” He stumbles slightly over the word brother.

“What kind of curls does he have?” Carol says. “I’m 3B. Is it like mine, or more like Kory’s? She’s 4A.” 

“More like yours,” Richard says. “I think.” 

“Cream and sugar?” Kory says. Richard looks over, surprised. She holds up a mug of hot coffee. 

“That’s ok—” Richard catches Carol’s disapproving frown and stops mid-word. “Um. Both?” 

Carol smiles and nods. 

“Thank you,” Richard says. He’s blushing again. 

Kory hands over his coffee, thoroughly sweetened, and Carol tells him about different hair products until a red pickup truck turns into the front lot and splashes through three puddles in a row. The passenger-side door is dented. The muffler sounds worse for the wear. 

“That’s my friend,” Richard says. He sets his mug down on one of the side tables. “Thank you again. For everything.”

“No problem,” Carol says. 

Kory nods. “It is good to meet you, Richard,” she says. 

“It’s, um.” He lifts his shoulders. “Actually. My friends call me Dick.” 

Richard. Dick. A nickname? Kory doesn’t see how the two names are related, but she can ask Carol to explain later. “Are we friends?”

“I think anyone who saves me from drowning qualifies,” he says. He smiles. It brings light to his eyes. It lifts his whole face; it makes him brighter. 

It is the first time Kory has seen his smile. She thinks she would like to see it again. 

“If you need help,” Kory says, and then she stops in the middle. They may be friends, but she does not know Dick, not really. She does not know what he might need help with; she does not know where he refuses to go back to. “I hope we will see you again,” she says. That is all she says. Not a promise. A hope. 

“Yeah,” Dick says. He looks away. He flushes red. “Maybe.” 

“And hey, if your friend needs a new car,” Carol says. “You know where to look.” She winks. 

Dick snorts. “Thanks,” he says. “I’ll let him know.” 

Then he steps out and runs through the rain to the truck, holding his jacket up to shield his head as best he can. He slides in as quickly as possible. The truck idles in their lot for another moment. Then it pulls out onto the street. 

Carol huffs. “He seems nice.” She does not entirely mean it. She says things like this with a way of self-contradiction, as though even she does not believe the words she says. Still: it is important that she says the words. It means one day she might believe them.

“Yes,” Kory says. “I think so.” 

Author's Note

on my way to work one day I saw a sticker that said "Kory's Used Cars", and I was reading The New Teen Titans at the time, so obviously I had to use that as a prompt. then this sat in my drafts folder for several months before I finally decided to finish it for the End OTW Racism event on AO3 in June 2023. Better late than never!