He repeated answers in his head while traffic crawled.
Reliable.
Hardworking.
Learns fast.
Team player.
Can handle pressure.
All those neat little phrases people say in rooms where the air-conditioning works and nobody smells like floodwater.
But under those practiced answers was the truth.
He needed that job.
Badly.
He was a single father raising eight-year-old Sofia on a mechanic’s unpredictable income and luck that had been running thin for years. Rent was late. The electric bill sat unpaid under a magnet on the fridge. Sofia’s school sneakers had a split sole Miguel kept pretending he could fix one more time.
