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It took him a little while to get things situated at the shop. His abrupt departure had left a mess he needed to take care of before he went looking for Karma. He didn’t want anything to interrupt them when he found her.
His trip out of town brought some things into perspective. Ever since he returned to One-stop from the military, he had hid from life. He was existing, just letting life pass him by. He worked on his cars and bikes. Fixed the other residents of One-stop vehicles as needed. But otherwise, he was a ghost.
It was his way of dealing with the horror that haunted him from his last mission on active duty. Or should he say his way of ignoring it? It didn’t help him. His sleep was still filled with nightmares until Karma came along.
He didn’t interact with anyone on a regular basis except for his brother Blaze until Karma. He hadn’t been in a relationship since long before he went on his last mission. He was just a ghost. Existing but not living life.
When he encountered Karma on the side of a dark mountain road, everything changed. Being in her presence those few minutes was enough to awaken something deep inside him: life.
He thought about the picnic they shared. How she made him laugh. He didn’t remember the last time he did that. Her spontaneous way of looking at life and just living in the moment made things; made reality easier to bear. Buck smiled as he remembered their second trip to Lake Raleigh when Karma decided she was hot and stripped off her clothes to go skinny dipping in a secluded area of the lake. He grew hard at the memory of joining her and then making love to her on the sandy shores of the lake. If he’d gone on this trip without having met Karma, he wouldn’t have made it back to One-stop.
Yes, his brother was here. But he really had no reason to return. There was no connection to One-stop other than Blaze. No connection to life.
Things would have taken a different turn if Karma wasn’t a part of it. He probably would’ve gone out the same way as his friend did.
With a gun in his mouth and a bullet through the back of his head.
But instead of ending his life. He was eager to get back to One-stop. To get back to Karma. To bask in her glow and joy; her warmth like a flower opening to the sun of a new summer day. She was the reason that life was worth living.
Before Buck left his shop to head over to Blazing Buck he paused next to Betty Lou staring at the car. He checked the car inside and out, twice. There was nothing mechanically or electronically wrong with the car. With a sigh he pulled Karma’s key to Betty Lou out of his pocket. He carried it around so that he would always have a connection to Karma. He slid into the front seat of the car and slipped the key into the ignition. He had no idea why he was doing this. The car never started despite there being nothing wrong with it.
He turned the key and Betty Lou roared to life. Buck sat there stunned for a few seconds before pulling the lever to release the hood. He hopped out of the car and rushed around the front to open the hood. Everything in the car appeared to be running smoothly. He dashed into his shop and grabbed his diagnostic scanner before rushing back to the car. The numbers came up perfectly. This was so strange. No, he thought to himself, this was karma.
