Dirt Road Diary

"Hey doc," a raspy voice calls out in the shop. Harry slides out from under the car and waves at Zoey as she enters the garage through one of the open doors. Her hair is pulled up in two buns on either side of her head and she's wearing the jumpsuit but it's not zipped up past her waist. A Iron Maiden shirt is underneath and she has a cup of coffee in her hand.


"Doc?" he asks as he sits up trying to pretend that he wasn't just checking her out. "What no coffee for me?"


She shrugs and replies, "I didn't know how you take your coffee. And yes, Doc. Like a car doctor, ya'know. Nursing my baby back to health."


"I drink it black," he replies as he grabs a shop rag to wipe off most of the grease off of his hands and reaches out to take her cup right from her hands and take a drink anyway. To his surprise it is already black, nothing in it.


"Black like my soul," she jokes with a grin. She reaches up and rubs some of the black lipstick off of his lips that transferred off of her cup and takes her coffee back with the other.


He blushes softly and laughs, "I'm about to go smoke, care to join me?" He reaches into the breast pocket of his jumpsuit and heads out the back door, Zoey in tow. He shouldn't be surprised when she pulls out a pack of menthols of her own and lights up, offering her lighter to him when he can't find his own amongst his pockets.


"So what are we doing today?" she asks as she leans against the building, coffee in one hand and cigarette in the other.


"Well, the parts haven't come in yet. Have you ever installed a stereo system?" he asked before taking a drag.


"Nope," she replies much too chipper to be wearing that much black. "But I'm more than willing to learn."


Harry grins--most girls he has met have groaned and rolled their eyes at the thought of learning about cars and here this girl was more than willing to learn, she was excited.


"When do you start school?" he asked off topic out of curiosity. Until now he hadn't really had the courage to ask her anything he really wanted to know.


"Tomorrow," she replies. She begins to start looking antsy. "I'm kind of nervous."


Harry tries to hide his surprise as he asks, "Why?" with that bubbly personality he can't imagine why she would be nervous.


"I don't know, making new friends, starting over... it's all new to me. What if I wind up a loner eating my lunch in the bathroom?" she asks with a look of horror on her face.


Harry visibly rolls his eyes as he dully tells her, "You're not going to eat lunch in the bathroom. Don't worry about it, I'll be there. I'll introduce you to my friends, you'll be okay. You already know someone so it won't be all that bad."


"Yeah so you say, I went to Watertown yesterday to get groceries with my mom and I swear some woman started praying when she saw me!" she exclaims in horror. She was expecting to stand out. She wasn't expecting to be presumed possessed by a demon.


Harry laughs loudly as he wasn't expecting it, "You'll be fine. Now let's get to work on that stereo."


~


It's 7:15 AM and even though school doesn't start until 7:45 and it's right up the road, Zoey is sitting outside of the back door of her apartment waiting for Harry to get there. He had offered to give her a ride so she has two cups of black coffee in either hand and she's regretting not smoking on her way to pick them up.


She shouldn't be surprised when she sees his older blue [b]Ford[/b] heading her way. In all reality he apparently only lives a few blocks away and even though she has already gotten her class schedule and whatnot, Harry promised her he would introduce her to his friends before class starts so they're all supposed to be there waiting at the park for them to arrive.


"Morning," Harry grumbles obviously more tired than normal. Clearly he's not much of a morning person. Zoey holds out the coffee as a peace offering and Harry's face pulls up into a lazy smile. "You're an angel."


She gasps mockingly and tells him, "You take that back!"


Harry laughs loudly as they cross town to the school and parks in the parking lot. His friends are on the playground, sitting on the monkey bars when the approach. He doesn't even need to introduce her as Zoey walks up to them and greets them herself, "Thank you for meeting here early, I'm Zoey and I like dolphins!"


His friends laugh loudly at her and Eleanor is the first to approach her, "You can call me El. It's nice to meet you, Harry has said so much."


Harry tries to divert his gaze as Zoey looks over at him with a funny expression on her face.

"Does he?" she asks. "Do tell."


"Alright," Harry cuts in, "This is Louis, Liam, and Niall. Liam works at the shop on the weekends." He's trying to divert the conversation away from Zoey knowing anything he has said about her. None of it is bad but it's still embarrassing that El would mention it at all.


"No, no, I want to hear this," Zoey deflects it, looking over his shoulder at Eleanor whom is laughing hard at Harry's attempt to distract her. Zoey turns back to the boys for a moment and tells them, "Nice to meet you boys. What were you saying though El?"


Suddenly all of the boys are laughing and 'ooo'ing at Harry as he blushes bright red. He glares playfully at them as he tells them, "I hate you guys." but it's obvious that he doesn't actually mean it.


"Oh nothing, just something about you being beautiful," El teases Harry as she returns to the comforts of Louis' arms.


"Do you guys want to go to my place tonight?" Louis asks. "My parents are out of town. I'm sure I can get my aunt to buy us booze." The question is more pointed at Zoey as he already knows that the rest of them are going to show up, social gatherings have them practically an unspoken herd. They all show up together and leave together, have for years.


Zoey shrugs and looks at Harry as she says, "My car is in the shop I would need a ride."


Harry nods before taking a sip of his coffee. "I can bring you," he confirms.


"If you're pitching in do it now because I'm going to go pick it up during lunch," Louis pulls out his wallet and pulls out a ten dollar bill, more than plenty enough for what he's likely to drink.


Everyone fishes out their wallets to toss in between five and ten a piece depending on what they have in there except Zoey who sheepishly admits, "I don't carry cash. But I'll tell you what I'll put gas in Harry's truck and pick up pizza and soda in Watertown before we come over."


Niall looks at her with eyes glistening in awe. With a mouth full of breakfast sandwich he tells Harry, "Keep her. She's an angel."


"I tried to tell her that this morning and she said to take it back so I don't know about that one," Harry teases with a small glimmer in his eyes. He's glad that his friends are taking to her and not leaving her out of their group--something she obviously needed her first day of school.


"Well you're the sweetest devil I've ever met."

Notes

Sorry I'm rushing this along but if I don't get to interesting stuff I'm going to lose interest in writing it.