Chapter 5: In
The Supra crossed the finish line and Simon let it breathe down to an idle before swinging a wide U-turn and rolling back toward the crowd.
He heard Meg before he saw her.
She came off the curb at a sprint and hit him the moment he stepped out of the car — arms around his neck, legs around his waist, not even slightly self-conscious about the crowd. Simon caught her without breaking stride and kept walking toward Dom and the crew with Meg attached to him like a victory trophy she'd decided to award herself.
"You were unreal out there," she said into his ear.
"I had a good car."
"You had a great car and you know it."
Dom met them with a raised fist. Simon bumped it.
"Clean launch," Dom said. That was high praise from him.
Hector appeared at Simon's elbow with a plastic bag that had some weight to it. "Ten grand, man. All yours."
Simon took it without ceremony and handed it directly to Meg. "Hold that for me."
She took it with a grin that suggested she found this deeply satisfying.
Simon glanced around at the crowd — still loud, still celebrating, energy running high the way it always did right after a race. He checked his phone. Close to midnight.
"We should move," he said. "Hector had this road blocked for a while. LAPD's going to notice eventually."
Dom was already scanning the same thought across the strip. He nodded. "Yeah. Time to go."
Hector climbed up onto the hood of a nearby truck and put two fingers in his mouth.
The whistle cut through everything. "Alright, people! Party's over — let's clear out. Move your cars!"
Simon gave Dom a quick nod, scooped Meg off the ground, and headed back to the Supra.
Meg was still buzzing when she buckled in, the plastic bag of cash resting on her lap like she was the one who'd earned it, which in a logistical sense she sort of had.
"Okay," she announced. "I need you to know that watching you do that is genuinely one of my favorite things."
"You say that every time."
"Because it's true every time." She turned in her seat to face him. "Simon. You came out of that start line like a rocket. The guy in the Camaro didn't even know what happened — his face—" She laughed. "He looked like someone had cancelled Christmas."
Simon smiled and pulled onto the boulevard heading west.
"Beach?" he said.
Meg reached over and turned up the radio.
That was a yes.
They stayed until the sky started going gray at the edges.
Somewhere in the quiet after the waves and before the alarm, with Meg curled against his side and the windows fogged, Simon asked the question that had been sitting at the back of his mind for weeks.
"What school are you applying to? Like — actually applying to. Not the answer you give your parents."
Meg was quiet for a moment. He felt her go still in the specific way that meant she'd been expecting this conversation and had been hoping it would wait a little longer.
"Columbia," she said finally. "Journalism program. It's the best in the country and I've wanted it since eighth grade."
Simon nodded. He'd known. Meg was the kind of person whose ambitions were consistent — cheer captain, school news anchor, lead in every fall production, a GPA that made teachers slightly emotional. Columbia was the correct answer for someone like her. Her family had the money to make it work without flinching.
"And you?" she asked. Though her tone said she already knew the shape of his answer.
"Good public school, probably. Depends on what I can put together by spring."
Meg pushed herself up onto one elbow and looked at him. "Simon. My parents would help. You know they would. I could ask them and they would say yes before I finished the sentence."
"Meg—"
"Just listen. It wouldn't even be a big deal to them. It would be—"
"No." He said it gently, but he said it clearly. "I appreciate it. I really do. But no."
"Why does it have to be this hard?" She wasn't frustrated with him, exactly. More frustrated on his behalf, which was different.
"It doesn't feel hard to me," he said. "It feels like my problem to solve."
She looked at him for a long moment, then kissed him — the kind that wasn't really about kissing so much as it was about saying something words weren't landing.
When she pulled back she rested her forehead against his.
Neither of them brought it up again.
He dropped her at her house just before six AM and watched her go up the oak tree and through her window before he pulled away.
Then he drove straight to Dom's.
Dom was in the kitchen when Simon knocked. Up early or never fully slept — with Dom it was sometimes hard to tell. He poured Simon a coffee without being asked and sat down across from him.
Simon pulled a folded newspaper from his jacket and set it on the table. It was that morning's edition, still smelling like print. He placed his finger on the front page.
The headline was about a series of truck hijackings on the I-15 corridor. High-value cargo. Clean execution. No witnesses. Law enforcement baffled.
Dom looked at the paper. Then at Simon.
"Don't tell me you don't know what I'm talking about," Simon said. "Because you and I both know there's maybe one crew in this city with the coordination and the driving skill to pull these off. And I know where your crew disappears to on certain nights."
Silence.
"Who else knows?" Dom said finally.
"Nobody." Simon met his eyes steadily. "And that's how it stays. You're my neighbor, Dom. You've looked out for me since I was fifteen. I know how to keep my mouth shut."
Dom leaned back. Crossed his arms. Studied Simon the way he studied an engine — looking for weak points, trying to understand what it was actually built to handle.
"Simon." His voice was even, measured. "This isn't your world. You're smart. You can go to college, build something real. Don't let money make you throw that away."
"College costs money I don't have. And even with a degree, nothing's guaranteed — you know that better than anyone." Simon kept his hands flat on the table. "I'm not asking you to save me from anything. I'm asking to work."
"I can loan you—"
"No." Simon shook his head. "Dom. You've already done more for me than I can repay. I'm not adding to that."
"We're family."
"Then let me pull my weight like family." Simon held his gaze. "That's all I'm asking."
A long silence opened up between them. Dom stared at the table, then at the newspaper, then somewhere past both of them.
"I need to talk to Letty," he said finally. "And the others."
"Of course."
"I'm not promising anything."
"I know." Simon stood up, drained the rest of his coffee. "I've got school. Give me an answer tonight?"
Dom said nothing, which with Dom was as close to yes as you usually got before the conversation was officially over.
Simon swung by the garage to swap the Supra for the truck — the pickup was less conspicuous in the school parking lot — then drove to Neptune High running on two hours of sleep and a cup of Dom's coffee.
Meg was waiting at his usual spot with a breakfast sandwich wrapped in foil.
"Knew you wouldn't have time to eat," she said, holding it out.
He kissed her on the cheek and took it. "You're a good person."
"I know." She fell into step beside him. "How are you still upright?"
"Spite, mostly."
She laughed.
Neither of them mentioned the beach. Neither of them needed to. Whatever that conversation had been — they both understood it was still open, still unfinished, still waiting for a version of the future they hadn't figured out yet. For now, it was easier to walk through the parking lot in the California morning and let the question sit.
They almost made it to the entrance before someone made it worse.
"Lewis." The voice came from the left, carrying the particular tone of someone who was performing for an audience. "Is that truck street-legal? Or did you push it here again?"
Logan Echolls — the specific kind of rich that came with an instinct for finding the pressure point in any situation and leaning on it until something happened. He was standing with two friends near a Range Rover that probably cost more than Simon's college fund, dressed like a catalog, smiling like he'd already won.
"Good morning, Logan," Simon said, without stopping.
"I'm serious — that thing sounds like a blender full of gravel. I'm concerned for public safety."
"Very thoughtful of you." Simon kept walking.
Logan called something else after him that wasn't worth turning around for.
Simon held the door for Meg and let it close behind them.
"You're not going to say anything?" Meg asked.
"About what?"
She looked at him sidelong. "Fair enough."
First period he spent mostly unconscious in the technical sense — present, upright, occasionally nodding. Second period was better. By third he'd burned through enough of the night's exhaustion to actually track what was being said at the front of the room.
By lunch he was functional.
He found Meg outside the cafeteria and they got food and found a table in the sun, and for a little while the day became the kind of ordinary that Simon had always suspected he'd take for granted and kept catching himself appreciating instead.
He'd find out about Dom tonight.
Until then, this was enough.
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