Angel rubbed her neck as she picked up the phone and flipped through the customer book until she landed on the information for a one Brian O'Conner the owner of the currently half painted skyline sitting on one of her lifts. Taking a breath she dialed the only number that he gave and waited patiently as it rang.

It wasn't hard to see that the car had gotten an outside overhaul from all the replaced panels and body kit parts that were painted to match the car. That was the way he wanted it, everything physically fixed but left unfinished. For her it was a bit of an eye sore but unless he gave her the go ahead she couldn't paint it.

But she made sure it ran, and ran well, after all she had gone over the car with a fine tooth comb and probably put more labor into it then she should have. Angel was pretty sure he wouldn't mind considering men loved their cars more then they loved their women well at least racers did. She knew she was like that, Angel would take a well cared for car over the issues and drama of men had any day.

"What the..?" Brian rolled over in bed and fished for his phone that was covered somewhere under the pillows, not deep enough to drown out the ringing though.
Groaning tired he stretched as far as he could without actually moving. His fingers finally brushed over it and he grabbed it bringing it up to his ear.
"Yeah?"
With one eye still shut he looked at his watch. 10 am was way too early after going to bed after a terribly long night shift.
"Who? Custom, oh my Skyline. Sure I'll be there once I'm awake."

"Aright not a problem Mr. O'Conner, I just wanted to let you know that your car was ready for pick up when ever you were ready to come get it," Angel said smiling as she could hear the grogginess in his voice, "And sorry for waking you up. Just come on by when ever," she mentioned before hanging up.

Glancing at the car once more she slipped inside and backed the car off the lift and into a parking space when she locked the car, keys in hand after pushing the seat all the way back once more. Now all she had to do was wait for him to come in, which meant in the meantime she could finish some of the custom work she had before Jeremy came in to handle all the calls in a half hour.

After a long shower and a large coffee Brian took the bus to the garage and walked the last bit of the way. So when he arrived he was fully awake and ready to have a look at the kind of work the woman had done to his car.
He pushed the glass door open and walked inside the air conditioned place.
Immediately he spotted it and was satisfied to see that the car was back in shape but not spraypainted yet, which would come in handy for races. People would think that a car that looked like that had to be in bad shape and wouldn"t win any race.
Across the garage he could see Diablo and approached her.
"Hi there. How did the job go?"

Angel smiled at Brian as he came in, "Not bad, I had to bang the frame back into place in a few places, re-aligned your wheels, and took care of a few tuning issues, not to mention fixed your undercarriage. So on a level of 1-10 your job was about a 3. Just try not to play bumper car with her again."

She walked towards him his keys in her hand as she glanced him over, "Sorry again about waking you up, I thought 10 was a decent hour to give you a call."

Brian circled the car carefully looking it over to evaluate the quality of her work as far as he could see it. Driving the Skyline would let him know more.

Briefly he looked up at her.
"Don't worry about it. I had to get up anyway. I was working the late shift last night. Usually I don't sleep that long."

When he was done with his brief inspection he took the keys.
"Thank you. Do you get a lot of Imports in here? Or more Muscle?"

"I feel for you, I've done the whole night shift job thing before. It's really not a problem Brian, I like fixing cars, that's why I'm in the biz for the long haul," She said as she mulled over his question, "To be honest I started on muscle got hooked, then learned import. So I get about even numbers running through my garages, some days it more muscle, other days I have an entire garage full of import. But it's been a while since I had the chance to work on an import like yours."

Angel shrugged with a soft smile as she moved towards him, "If you want you can bring her back here for anything, but you know your car better then I would. So if my work is at a acceptable and competent enough level for you I would complain at seeing you more often."

Her humble words made Brian smile. He would surely test her work even though he had a pretty good impression right now. A good garage was worth a lot to him and in the past he had trouble finding one he really liked that also worked for his public servant salary.
"Yeah, I like my cars fast and ...special." He admitted and pushed his sunglasses up on top of his head.
"Let's get to the bill. I hope I won't get a shock." He teased a little and walked over to the counter with the woman admiring her tattoes.

Angel laughed softly, "Special is what I do best," she said as her fingers flicked across the keyboard and she printed out the paper copy of the bill with all the details on it, "This is all the work I did and the parts I replaced or fixed, I had to replace some of your body kit parts so that's on there too, I actually had some spares lying around so I priced um cheaper then brand new."

She glanced at where he was looking and smiled slightly handing him the paper, "You like um?"

Brian tore his eyes of the other cars and looked at the bill and all the items on it.
The sum still made him stop and stare. "There goes dinner for the next two weeks."
Out of his back pocket he retrieved his wallett and handed her his credit card.
Pointing at one part he asked. "What exactly is this part here, did you have to replace the whole suspension system?"

His eyes wandered up to meet her dark ones. For a moment he got a little lost in them before he reminded himself that any interest in girls usually led to disaster. So he simply smiled and looked back at the paper in his hands.

"Yep you cracked the suspension and the hit shook and cracked a couple of other parts. But I mean if your going to starve to pay for you car, I guess you'll have to come over some time to get fed. That is if I'm not being too forward for you," Angel said innocently looking at Brian before she glanced down at his credit card.

She liked this guy, sure she had just met him, but she wouldn't mind in the least if he kept coming around.

At first Brian assumed that she was going to offer him deferred payments and objected . "No, no. It's okay. My account will be able to handle it." For sure he'd make the money in no time now that his baby was running again but looking like a piece of crap.

Then he put two and two together and tapped his credit card onto the counter top a couple of times before his eyes met hers again and he asked.
"Was that some weird way to invite me for dinner?"

"Maybe," Angel said innocently looking at him, "I know that once you had a working ride, money is an easy bill to fill. But I mean you look like a bachelor, so I assume you'd like a home cooked meal once in a while... so it's a friendly offer."

She looked at him and smiled, "Only an offer, I won't be offended if you say no. Figured I would offer."

"What do you mean by that? Get the money once my ride is working again?" It was a trick question , of course. Racers can smell other racers from a hundred yards away.


Brian place both palms on the counter top next to hers and then touched her hand, turned it over and placed the credit card in her hand before her nodded. "You're right...I'm a Bachelor. But I hate home cooked food."
He looked her straight in the eye. "I'm more of a Burger King and Taco Bell person."

"I think you know exactly what I'm talking about. Night life here is wild and wonderful if you know the right people. Shame, here I was thinking I'd get to cook for more then just me for once," she said pulling her hand away as she swiped his card on the side of the computer, "So I'm going to be seeing you sometime to get that paint finished?" Honestly it wasn't the paint that she wanted to work on, more of just seeing him again.

She hoped that she wasn't being to forward, but he was cute and she was available, even if most guys saw all the tats and turned the other way.

"I was just kidding." Brian burst out laughing. "Don't tell me you bought that. I love real homemade food. Girl, no way I'd take BK over a good old fashioned stew!"
He shook his head with a large grin.
"Just tell me when and where."

"Hey you never know any more... Guys see my tats and normally head in the other direction. But food would be here," Angel said with a shrug and a half smile pointing up to her loft, "And when ever you want to be here, for how ever often you want to come by. Honestly living upstairs has it's perks, I never have to give another another set of addresses."

She leaned on the counter handing him back his credit card and his receipt, "So when you coming to see me for something other then business, Mr. O'Conner?"

Her invitation was obvious now plus it seemed to be aimed at a little more than car talk. "Do you always invite new customers or am I special?" Brian teased a little, then reached out and grabbed the card and receipt.

Brian was pretty comfortable with himself when it came to girls and dating. In high school he had a whole 'hit list' and even though he got blown off a couple of times he still managed to out'date' his best buddy Rome. Since Mia thngs had changed though.

Brian gave Angel one of his trademark smiles and looked into her eyes just a little longer than he normally would. "I'm not that superficial that tats scare me away from good food.---(oops, I almost said tits."

Jiggling his keys he thought about it. Tomorrow I've got the late shift again but then I'm changing to early. Does Wednesday work for you?"

"I'd say you are a special one. I don't invite many people to eat dinner with me, period, that aren't family or friends," Angel said laughing softly, "I'm glad you like good food more then your getting bothered by Tits and Tats. Wednesday is good for me. Just pop by whenever, I ain't got any big plans other then making dinner for you."

She smiled at him and straightened up, "You know your quite the mystery man, I'm looking forward to spending some time getting to know you, or at least as much as you let me get to know."

She was definetly good at reading people and already figured out that Brian wasn't going to give up everything about him on a first date.
Taking a lot of time he shoved his wallett in his back pocket and then looked up at her.
"Looking forward to hearing all those stories you have to tell." Brian grinned and clapped his hands on the counter.
This girl wasn't the kind of woman he'd usually ask out but he had to admit that there was something about her that caught his eye. And even though he had made a promise to himself not to throw himself back in the game any time soon a good meal couldn't do any harm.
"I'll be here."

With that he left, climbed in his reinstalled Skyline and backed it out of the garage but not without shooting one last glance at her.