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It was a thirty minute drive from Reid's home in Glendale to Santa Monica, where all the guys from Doghouse were hamming it up with potential clients, schmoozing with the ladies, and downing drink after overpriced drink.

Anxiety welled up inside him to such a degree that he found it necessary to down a small dose of anxiolytics, calming his nerves just enough until he could get some firewater down his gullet. It was a mere half an hour in the scant, post rush-hour traffic, but for some reason it felt like forever. Eventually, he swung his pickup into the Costa Club's packed side lot - the place for the second class vehicles.

He sat for a moment pondering whether or not he should go inside. It wasn't too late to turn back. Only one hour's time and a quarter of a tank wasted. He killed the engine, popped the door open and stepped out into a pothole that sank him up to his ankle, soaking his shoe and sock in stagnant rainwater.

"Fuck!" He swore hotly, his instincts telling him to get back in the truck and go home. It was a bad omen. It had to be. Yet something - he didn't know what - kept pulling him towards that club. Pulling his shoes off, he found an old pair of work boots that didn't look too battered, and pulled them on. So much for style - not that he had much to begin with.

Reid rounded the corner on his way to the door and stumbled upon an impromptu car show. He found it odd that a place as casual as the Costa Club would host a valet service, but the closer he got to the entrance, the more obvious the reasons became. Italian supercars and the finest of German motorsports lined the front façade of the building; free advertising for the club. The closer you got to the side lot, the less opulent the cars, but it was in their number that the heeler spied several vehicles with which he was intimately familiar.

He had to grin when he passed a young fox showing off his Toyota Supra to his friends, proudly explaining how he had to modify the cold air intake to get it to work.

Reid had worked on that car. The intake had installed just fine, but he wasn't going to steal the kid's thunder.

A gorilla at the door checking ID's locked eyes with the heeler and stopped short; the grey at the end of Reid's muzzle telling him everything he needed to know. With a cheeky glare, he jerked his thumb in the direction of the open door.

Reid hadn't been in a club like Costa in years, purely by choice. It was the proverbial den of iniquity, a palace of sin in which to drink, dance, and flirt in the hopes of finding someone to wake up next to come morning. The music was consistent with the island theme of the venue, and was unnecessarily loud. He'd been to rock concerts that were quieter, but he wouldn't admit to it. His muzzle said enough.

"Coors!"

The bartender leaned in and cupped a hand behind his ear.

"COORS!" He shouted over the music. The bartender nodded and produced a bottle from the ice well, snapping the cap off airborne-style and catching it before handing the beer to him. He deposited the change into the nearby tip jar, and spun around on the stool to scan the crowd for familiar faces. Within seconds, he found one, or as it were, one found him.

"Well, look who decided to finally show up!"

He turned to see Vance approaching in his clubbing best, Billy in tow.

"Hey guys."

"Didn't think we'd see you here tonight."

"Neither did I. Who all's here?"

"Uh, just me and Billy, and Kelvin's around here somewhere. Think he went to take a piss. We've got a table over here, come join us."

"Yeah, sure. No Hector?"

"Nah, he had plans with his girl. Come on, Billy spotted those two girls he and Chad went out with last night, we're gonna see if they'd be down for some drinking back at the hotel!"

Reid smirked and just motioned with the neck of his beer bottle as if to say 'lead the way'. Even if he wasn't interested in picking up a half-drunk, loose woman at a seedy club in Santa Monica.

Kelvin was waiting by the time they got back, looking like a sheep in a den of lions. The pit bulls were neither good judges of character nor good at reading others' expressions, but the heeler could tell that the Shiba Inu was out of his element. The nonplussed younger dog's eyes lit up like a child's on Christmas morning the moment he noticed Reid walking up.

"Reid!"

"Hey. Having fun?"

Billy and Vance embarked on their sexual conquest. Kelvin turned and shook his head at the heeler, who simply chuckled. Reid avoided the told-you-so, and sat down across from the Shiba Inu, spinning his beer on the wooden top.

"So why the change of heart?" Kelvin asked.

"I guess Vance was right. I needed to get out of my apartment for a while; I was getting a little stir-crazy in there."

"I know the feeling. I still live at home with my parents. It's kind of hard to get laid when you can't take someone home for fear of Mom and Dad catching you." Kelvin laughed nervously.

"Hey, that's pretty common these days." Reid took a swig of his beer. "More people moving back in with their folks. Job market's just not as friendly anymore."

"Yeah."

For a moment, they watched Billy and Vance from across the club. They were flirting with the two girls from the former's story that day.

"Don't let them get you down. You can't find a good girl at a bar. It just doesn't happen. I mean, I'm not saying it _can't_happen, it's just a lot less likely than finding a nice young lady on...online."

Kelvin laughed.

"I get it. You play for keeps. I like that. It shows that you're not afraid of commitment. You have a girlfriend?"

"Used to."

"Ever been married?"

"...No." His hand crept closer to the pocket where he kept his pills. Reid was just about to pop one when their happy hosts returned with an entourage and hands full of mystery shots. Vegas Bombs, Vance called them, setting them down on the table and distributing one to each.

"Ladies, this young buck is Kelvin, and the old man here is Reid." Billy introduced them, his eyes tastelessly affixed on the cleavage of the adjacent vixen.

"Yeah, I'm 250 in dog years..." The heeler muttered, and forced a polite grin at one of the ladies who seemed to be eyeing him. She was. Reid was far more charming than he gave himself credit for, in appearance if nothing else, as his smile was enough to make the shapely skunk want to take a seat next to him, callously flashing her panties to him when she swung her leg over the bench seat.

"I'm Jessica. So what do you do, Reid?"

"I work on cars."

"Oh, so you're a mechanic? I love a man who isn't afraid to get his hands dirty!" She laughed, and Reid winced at the noise that issued from her short muzzle. It was a laugh for the ages, loud, obnoxious, and quite possibly feigned in an attempt at seeming funnier. He disliked the term mechanic. Nothing against them, but the heeler's skill sets were leaps and bounds beyond and above those of a simple repair shop grease monkey.

"Well, not really. I do a lot of the things mechanics do, but I'm a tuner. I build high-performance vehicles for racing purposes, like drag, or rally."

"Oh, I love racing! I used to date this guy, oh, what did he drive? I think it was a Toyota. Yes, a Toyota Supra."

"Good car, yeah. If I had to drive an import, that would be my first choice. I've worked on a few in my time, but I'm really more of a muscle car kind of guy."

"Oh really? I love a guy who matches his style of car." Jessica said, squeezing the dog's bicep. She loved a lot of things, apparently.

"And what do you drive?" The dog dared to venture.

"Honda Civic!" She said. There was that laugh again. Reid excused himself politely and grabbed his now-empty beer. A cute collie girl had engaged Kelvin in conversation, and the Shiba Inu was blushing so fitfully that he could barely speak; something the heeler found pricelessly adorable.

A sigh of relief accompanied his arrival at the bar. By some stroke of luck, there was an empty spot between two seats just wide enough to fit in without disturbing the patrons on either side. He wagged his beer bottle in the air for a moment, trading it for an ice cold new one. He'd barely raised it to his lips when he heard an unfamiliar voice call his name.

"Hey...Reid?"

He turned, and locked eyes with someone he recognized, but not enough to know their name. After a second, it clicked. The yellow Labrador approaching him was the customer from earlier that day.

"Oh, hey. How's it going?"

"Pretty good, yourself?"

"All right. I'm sorry; I didn't catch your name earlier at the shop."

"Aiden, Aiden O'Flynn."

"Reid Travis." He replied, shaking hands with the lab when offered.

"So are you here by yourself?"

"No, I'm here with some of the other guys, Kelvin, the guy you talked to today, he's over there. He's our new guy. Those two pit bulls are Billy and Vance; they've been with us for a while. I had some floozy all over me, had to get away for a bit. How about you?"

"I'm going stag. I'm somewhat new to the area, figured I would check out the scene and see what the people around here are all about."

"How do you like it so far?"

"Far cry from home, I'll tell you that. Kansas City's where I grew up, but my heart was never there. I think I finally found it out here in Cali."

"How poetic."

"I know, right? Hey, can I buy you a beer?"

"Oh, no, thanks though. This one's still pretty full."

Aiden mouthed an 'oh' and took a drink from his own.

"You wouldn't happen to have that Mustang of yours out tonight, would you? Paul, was that his name? He was telling me about it today when I was there."

"Yeah, Paul. No, I drove my truck out here. I don't really take the 'Stang out too often, at least not out here to the coast. Lotta street racing goes on out here. Buncha punks that think they need to show up an old man like me to look cool in front of their girlfriends."

"Old? Come on, you're what, thirty-five? Thirty-six?"

"Thirty-six, yeah. Still too damn old to be out racing. I went legit years ago, but I've done my time out on the streets. I've been in jail, I've had my license suspended...it's just not worth it."

Aiden nodded quickly, suggesting he understood. Reid took a swig of his beer and chewed on his tongue, staring at the beer for a moment.

"Well hey, it was good meeting you, I'm gonna head back over there."

"Yeah, sure. I'll swing by on Monday to drop off the car."

"Awesome. See you."

"Yeah, later."

Reid was in the tail end of his latest beer, and the diazepam was fast-tracking its way to his brain on a jet stream of alcohol. He turned to head back to the table and turned right into Vance.

"Who's this?" The pit bull asked.

"Um..." The heeler was caught off guard. "Aiden O'Flynn. Client. Was in today."

Vance's face crumpled in confusion.

"We had a girl all over you and you want to go talk to a customer? No offense."

Aiden shrugged.

"Well, Paul's right I guess. You really are passionate about work. Hey! We're gonna go check out the strip club a few blocks up the road, you down?"

"Guess so. Got nothing better to do." Reid polished off his beer and set it down on the bar.

"I suppose it would be rude of me not to extend the invitation?" Vance turned to Aiden, who chuckled a little and shrugged his shoulders.

"Sure, I guess it wouldn't hurt to build a rapport with the local tuner shop."

"Badass, let's roll!"

"Hey Vance, I'm not good to drive. I'm gonna need to ride with one of you guys."

"Yeah, sure uh, I dunno if we'll have room, I know you hate being crammed into the back."

"Better than getting a DWI." Reid muttered, knowing from experience.

"I've got a seat open." Aiden suggested. "Just don't throw up in my car, or I'll want my work done for free!" They laughed. The tabs were paid, the waitress tipped, and they were on their way out the door.

"Ever been to the titty bar before there, kiddo?" Reid joked, jabbing Kelvin in the ribs with his elbow.

"Oh, ha-ha..."

"I'm parked on the street, keep up if you can!" Billy called to the group, heading in the opposite direction.

"Where're you at?" Reid asked. Aiden pointed to a bright blue 2013 Mustang GT, the lights coming on as the lab unlocked it. It was the first time the heeler had ridden in a factory, bone-stock car in quite a while. He'd be fixing that in due time, he figured.

"So what do you do?"

"I'm a legal assistant. For now, anyway. Planning on going back to college pretty soon, but for now, I'm just enjoying life."

Aiden turned the key in the ignition and the car rumbled to life. Boston's Smokin' began pouring from the speakers, filling the car and the area around it with a swingy guitar riff. Reid, relaxed from the cocktail of barbiturates in his bloodstream bobbed his head and tapped his fingers on the armrest to the beat of the song. Suddenly, they were moving...moving...sideways. The cattle dog went wide eyed as the lab slung them fast and hard out of the parking lot and into the street, catching up with the rest of the guys in no time.

"You said you don't want me to throw up in your car, right?" Reid muttered, snide. Aiden just chuckled and shifted gears, staying right on Kelvin's car the entire time.

"Well, at the very least I know now that good performance racing products won't be wasted on you."

"I used to drag race back in KC." The lab explained.

"No kidding? What with?"

"I had a '71 Chevy Nova with a 427 and a 4-speed transmission."

Reid blinked.

"What color was it?"

"White."

"Wow. We have a Nova at the shop in that exact configuration. It's like our mascot."

"Huh. I sold that car about ten years ago. How long have you had yours?"

"About eight."

"I wonder if it's the same one."

"Uh, red light..."

Aiden ran it.

_ _

_ _ "Okay then. Well, the odds are pretty good. Chevy didn't even offer the 427 in the Nova. They stopped offering the 396 in 1970."

"Yeah, this one originally had a 350. It was my Dad's; he put a 427 in it that he transplanted from a '66 Corvette."

Reid was quiet for a few seconds.

"Do you still have the VIN number?"

"Somewhere."

"If you can find it, bring it in. We'll see if it's the same car. If so, damn, talk about a small world."

"Right? Oh, I guess this is the place."

The convoy of high performance vehicles pulled into the gated parking lot of the gentleman's club, all of the four drivers parking in the rear of their own volition - none of them trusted the valets.

"Jesus, look at that line." Kelvin said, grimacing at the throngs of people, gathered outside in a line that wrapped around one corner of the building.

"Yeah, well, it's Saturday you know. All night happy hour; ten dollar domestic draft." Vance rolled his eyes. It was scandalous what the scandalous charged for alcohol.

"That's nothing; you should come here on steak night." Billy quipped. Kelvin laughed uncomfortably. Aiden turned to Reid and motioned with his head towards the line ahead of them.

"Is this your scene?"

"That wasn't even my scene." He answered sardonically, jerking his thumb in the direction of the club they had just come from.

"You want to burn outta here and go someplace quieter?"

Reid blushed underneath his fur, hoping that none of the other guys had heard the lab's proposal, in which case the only acceptable answer would be an emphatic 'no'. Fortunately, they all seemed to be preoccupied with their friends from the club. Quieter was an arbitrary term. He barely knew the lab; quieter could mean so many things. Anything from a restaurant, to a coffee shop, to a seedy back alley bar hosting an illegal, high-stakes poker game. Or perhaps, something much more intimate.

He secretly hoped for the latter.

"Guys, I'm not feeling so hot. I'm going to head home."

Reid's insistence on ending the night early was met with disapproving groans from Billy and Vance, but Kelvin had his back.

"Do you need me to take you home?" The Shiba Inu asked with seriousness in his voice that suggested he not only cared about his friend - he wanted to get out of there.

"It's cool, I'll be fine. I've got a ride. You go in with the guys and enjoy. Tell you what; if it'll make you feel better, I'll text you when I get in."

Kelvin stared back at the cattle dog for a few seconds before breaking eye contact for the ground and nodding a little bit. He wet his lips before he spoke again. He seemed nervous.

"Yeah...yeah, do that. Last thing I want is to hear you got creamed and you're smeared across the highway or something!" He chuckled.

"Yeah, find me some wood to knock on!" Reid answered.

"Got some for you right here!" Billy chided, gesturing emphatically to his groin. His date laughed and grabbed playfully at his crotch, practically giving him a hand job right there in line.

"You ready?" Aiden asked. Reid nodded, and they headed off for the car together, Kelvin watching all the while.

***

"What's that you're taking?"

"Valium."

A moment of silence passed between them, broken only by the mechanical pop of the shifter sliding fluidly into the next gear.

"You know, I don't think you're supposed to combine that stuff with alcohol." Aiden mused, trying not to sound like a buzzkill.

"That's what they say." Reid answered.

"So...why do it?"

"Someone's just trying to cover their ass. It's a liability thing. I'm betting a few people died trying to get totally wasted on it, you know, like how they have to say a product will be hot after heating."

Aiden was quiet.

"I had what...three drinks? I may be a little buzzed, but I'm fine, trust me."

"I guess you'd know better than me."

Beat.

"I don't want to pry, but well, what's your story?" Aiden asked.

Reid called him out.

"You mean to ask why I'm on tranqs."

"Not necessarily. I haven't hit it off this well with someone in a while; I guess I'd just like to get to know you more."

"I ain't worth knowing." The cattle dog grumbled.

"That's not what your friends say. That Shiba Inu kid, what is he, like twenty-five? He looks up to you. I can tell. And Paul, your boss? The way he talked about you back at the shop, shit, I wouldn't take my car anywhere else now."

"I'm good at what I do. My skills behind the wheel and under the hood are about the only interesting things about me. Do you want to know what's under my hood? I'm lonely. I have issues with depression and anxiety. I think about suicide every day, and I've got more failed attempts than I admit to. I go home after work and rotate between jacking off, watching TV, and drinking. Sometimes I do all three at once. That's what I do. Every night. Until I fall asleep. I get maybe two to three hours of sleep a night and I don't eat enough. I wake up, go to work, and the cycle starts all over again. How's that for history?"

The next few seconds of silence made Reid want to pop another pill.

"I'm gay." Aiden said dryly. Reid scoffed. As if being gay could compare to the trials he'd faced.

"It's not easy being gay when you come from where I do. Religious zealot parents. Narrow-minded townsfolk. They sent me to one of those special private schools with programs designed to hack into your mind and somehow 'cure' you of homosexuality. It's the whole reason I moved out here to California. So I could start my life over."

Reid simply listened, and waited for the lab to continue.

"I've been going around to different bars and clubs in this area, working my way closer and closer to the LGBT clubs. I wasn't raised to have the kind of bravado that it takes to waltz into a club and just start flirting to the point that I can find a mate, or at the very least get laid."

"...And then you met me?" Reid asked with a little too much tart in his voice. Aiden cocked his head a little.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, this conversation has been so cliché I figured that was the only direction it could possibly be headed."

"So you're one of those types who think gays are just a bunch of horndogs out to suck and fuck whoever they can get?"

"Oh, don't straw man me. Your context tells on you. Why else would you have agreed to go to the strip club?"

Silence.

"Plus, I caught you checking me out back there a time or two."

Aiden blushed so hard; Reid swore he could feel the temperature in the car rise.

"Sorry. I can't help checking you out any more than you can help being attractive."

"Nobody's fault." Reid said, casually sticking a finger claw in his nose.

"Oh, stop it!" Aiden laughed, breaking the tension and pushing the older dog in the shoulder. Reid chuckled along - his first genuine laugh in a while. It felt good.

"Sorry, I...didn't mean to play that card. I swear I'm a nice guy."

"In vino veritas."

"Huh?"

"Nothin'. Hey. You want to play some _real_cards?"

"I guess?"

"I mean, unless you're not feeling well enough to stay out any later."

"Fuck no; I'm just not blowing my hard-earned cash on getting blue-balled."

Aiden's ears perked and his eyes lit up when the sound of an engine with at least ten grand in it began to creep up behind them. His golden muzzle split into a shark's grin.

"Yeah. Oh, hey, let's play with this fox body a little bit here..."

"Yeah, let's not..." Reid said while turning in the seat to see a late 80's Mustang closing the gap between them.

"No, no, I can take this guy. Let's do this!"

"Risk taker, aren't you?"

"It's the only way to live."

"Consider this though: that car has about 705 horsepower. Yours is barely more than half that. You really want to do this?"

"How do you know that?"

"Let's just say I'm not very well known around here, but my work is." The cattle dog riddled, jerking his thumb in the direction of the other car, which passed them on the right, revealing a Doghouse Performance Engineering sticker on the back window. Aiden backed off. Reid unclenched his ass.

They pulled off the main drag into a residential area, and the heeler wondered if his venereal desires would be sated. Aiden pulled to a stop in front of a house with a few other cars in front of it, though none were as nice, or as new as the Mustang. They got out, and Reid followed the lab cautiously up the front steps, standing behind him while he knocked three times on the decrepit, wooden door. After a moment, it was answered by a hog in a polo shirt and shorts. The house reeked of cigarette smoke, and appeared to be in poor shape both outside and in.

"Aiden! Didn't think your ass was gonna show up!"

Reid smirked with realization that he and the lab had more in common than he originally thought. Well, at least he had some friends. Two cats and an otter sat at a round table with padded edges and felt in the middle. Reid wasn't sure exactly what Aiden had meant when he asked him if he wanted to play 'real' cards, but for some reason he didn't think the lab meant it literally.

He wondered if Kelvin was okay.

"Change of plans. Brought a friend with me, this is Reid. Reid, this is Matt, Bobby, and José. That big swine bastard is Larry."

Larry pulled several longnecks out of a nearby fridge. José produced a deck of cards and began to shuffle them. A beer was shoved into the cattle dog's hands and he was guided to an empty seat. Chips were distributed and the first hand was dealt. Reid looked at his cards - pocket aces.

That was the last thing he remembered.