Chapter Ten: An Offer

As Sally came out of her office an hour later, she drove past Lightning, who was muttering to himself as he paved the road. She drove past him and stopped at Luigi's tires, where Guido was repainting the garage doors.

"Oh, Guido, que belisimo!" Guido asked 'what' in Italian. "It looks great! This is great!" she said to him.

"Oh!" Guido said back to her and continued to talk to Luigi, who was washing windows, in Italian.

Sally drove back over to Flo's Café and then watched as Guido went to Lightning and began to air up his tires and spin the cactus off of them, while Luigi tried to sell Lightning some tires. She turned when she heard the sound of Flo's voice.

"Mmm-mmm…Ramone, Ramone!" she said as her husband repainted the fence in front of their house. Sally turned back towards Luigi's when she heard the sound of water. She smiled as she saw Red the fire truck hosing down the 'Leaning Tower of Tires' in front of Luigi's Casa Della Tires. Sally was filled with happiness at the sight of everyone finally taking pride in their town again. All because of the new road. And him. She turned back to where Luigi was still dealing with Lightning, who kept refusing his tires. I guess we could all be nicer to him. I mean, we don't need to make Radiator Springs seem any worse than he thinks it is. Sally drove over to where Red was and asked him a favor.

"Red? Could you help me out with something? Could you rinse Lightning off and clean him up? Please, Red?"

After Red agreed, they waited until Luigi left. Just as Lightning let out a big sigh, he was hit by a blast of cold water from Red. Sally stood next to Red, watching as all the cactus pieces fell off of him. Then she noticed there was still a piece in the middle of his hood.

"Oooh, Red, you missed a spot. See it? Right there in the hood, right…" Red hit McQueen right in the hood with the water. He kept spraying, despite the protests of "Stop! Please! Ugh, Whoo! Burr, please stop!!", until the cactus flew off.

"Thanks Red." Sally said as he drove away. She faced Lightning and waited until he stopped coughing and sputtering.

"What was that for?" he said angrily.

"Do you wanna stay at the Cozy Cone or what?" What?! What am I doing?!

"Huh?"

"Well, if you do, you gotta be clean. Cause even here, in hillbilly hell, we have standards."

"What? I don't get it."

Sally stop. He won't appreciate it. Just stop talking right now.

"Well I was just thought I'd say, 'Thank you for doing a great job' so I thought I'd let you stay with me." She realized what she said and quickly blushed and tried to recover. "Oh not with me, but there. Not with me there, but there in your own cozy cone, and I'd be in my cone and it's…"

Thankfully, he chose to stop her here. "Wait. Wait, you're being nice to me."

Stop now Sally! She tried to shake off her proposition. "Well if you wanna stay in the dirty impound, that's fine. You know, I understand you criminal types."

"No, no, no. Yeah, the Cozy Cone."

"It's newly refurbished." Sally said proudly.

Lightning gave a small chuckle. "Yeah, it's like a clever little twist on motels made out of caution cones, which of course, cars usually try to avoid, but now we're gonna stay in them. Huh, that's funny."

Ugh, there it is. Sally gave him an annoyed look. "Figure that all out on your own, did you?" She backed up and said "Cone number one if you want," and drove toward her office. Just as she was almost inside, a voice came from behind her.

"Hey, is that a little pin striping tattoo back there?"

Sally spun around quickly, obviously flustered. "Oh," she said as she backed into a pile of caution cones and nervously laughed. "Oh, you saw that? Just going to be going now. Gonna…Yeah." Just before she backed into her office, she saw him smile. Not a fake, I'm-better-than-all-of-you smile, but a genuine smile. She could feel the heat radiating through her frame. What is happening to me?