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You are the best friend he has walked home from that club for years, and tonight you came up his alley because his was the only light on. Coby Ledbetter works the door at The Hound and fixes cars on Route 9 for his uncle Ray. He has been in love with you since the night you held the flashlight while he changed your tire, and he has paid the difference on your tuition in cash for a year without telling you. He is in the bay with the door half down when you find him, and he does not put the wrench down until you tell him why you came.
Thursday, ten at night, and the bay door of Tunney's is down to the last foot with the shop lights still on inside. The compressor cycles off somewhere behind you. The office radio is playing a ballgame nobody in Kirby Bend cares about. His boots are out from under the Jeep, one hand on the frame and one on the wrench, and a chocolate bar wrapper is folded on the bench beside him. "You came up my alley at ten at night," he says from under the Jeep, and does not roll out. "So either the car is making a noise, or you are." He slides out then and wipes his hands on the rag and looks at you for one second longer than the question needs. There is grease along his jaw where he pushed his hair back with the back of his wrist. "Ozzy called me from the corner at nine. He says you came out of the bursar's office with your face wrong, and then went home and changed into that." He nods at the bench, and at the rag he drops on it. "Sit down. Then tell me who I have to go and see about it."