Horsepower And Hypotenuse

Cars and math leads to a boy’s need to find love

“Horsepower and Hypotenuse”

Zane McAllister’s hands were stained with oil again, and he didn’t care. Underneath the hood of his 1979 Camaro—a machine held together by elbow grease, borrowed parts, and dreams—he felt in control. The growl of the engine was his symphony, torque his poetry. Out here, in his uncle’s garage, he was a king.

But in the world of girls? Specifically Tracy Meadows?

He was a court jester. A stammering, awkward, barely coherent court jester.

Tracy was everything Zane wasn’t: smooth, confident, poised. She wore glasses like they were a fashion statement, not a necessity. She ran the Math Club like a benevolent dictator, calling for votes but always making the final decisions. Zane didn’t even like math—he liked her. So when she announced that the club would be competing in the State Math Bowl, he volunteered for extra prep sessions faster than a dragster off the line.

“You’re really getting into derivatives,” Tracy said one afternoon as they sat at a table in the library, their notebooks open and a half-eaten Twix between them.

Zane shrugged, trying not to make eye contact too long. “Well, rates of change are kind of like RPMs, right?”

Tracy laughed. “Wow. I never thought of it that way.”

Her laugh made something in Zane’s chest backfire.

He cleared his throat. “Hey, um… I was thinking… after the competition, maybe you’d wanna—”

“Go over matrices again?” Tracy interrupted.

Zane deflated like a punctured tire. “Uh. Yeah. Matrices. That’s totally what I meant.”

Zane was convinced his love life was DOA. That is, until Mr. Halloran, their overly enthusiastic Math Club advisor, dropped the bombshell: they were one team member short for the competition.

“If we don’t have five, we’re disqualified,” he said dramatically, like he was announcing a murder.

Zane knew what he had to do.

⸻

That night, he drove to the auto shop and found his best friend Nate under the hood of a Dodge Charger.

“Hey,” Zane said. “Wanna join Math Club?”

Nate banged his head on the hood.

“Come again?”

Zane explained the situation, emphasizing Tracy’s importance and his plan to maybe—just maybe—ask her out.

“You’re insane,” Nate said. “But it’s the kind of insane I respect. I’m in.”

⸻

They met every day after school. Zane learned to balance equations like he balanced carbs and air intake. Nate kept cracking jokes, surprisingly good at geometry, claiming the angles reminded him of tire treads.

Through it all, Zane watched Tracy. She bit her pencil when she was thinking. She twirled her hair when solving proofs. And sometimes—just sometimes—she looked at him with this softness that gave him the same butterflies he felt before a street race.

⸻

The night before the competition, Zane stayed up until 2 a.m. tuning the Camaro. It had nothing to do with the event, but he needed to feel grounded. Focused. The next day, they were heading to the State Capitol, and he would be trapped on a bus with Tracy for two hours.

Trapped? No. Blessed.

At 6 a.m., he was at the school parking lot, sleepy-eyed but present. Tracy arrived in a yellow sundress and sneakers.

“You look—” Zane began, but forgot what adjectives were.

Tracy blushed. “You clean up nice too.”

He looked down. He was in jeans and a hoodie with a grease stain on the sleeve. Somehow, she made that sound like a compliment.

On the bus, Zane sat across the aisle from her. They shared energy drinks and argued about whether pi or e was more important.

By the time they arrived, he was more nervous than he’d been the first time he drove stick shift.

⸻

The competition was in a massive auditorium. They competed in front of a crowd, solving equations on whiteboards like it was an academic game show.

Zane actually held his own.

When the buzzer sounded and the final scores were tallied, they’d come in second place—beating ten other schools.

It was Tracy who ran up and hugged him first, squealing with delight.

“You did amazing!” she said.

“Thanks. I had a good tutor.”

Zane was about to say something else—something important—when Nate cleared his throat behind him.

“We should celebrate,” Nate said. “Burgers?”

Zane looked at Tracy. “Want to come?”

She smiled. “Sure. But only if you promise not to talk about cars the whole time.”

“I make no promises,” Zane said.

⸻

They ended up at a diner off the highway, passing milkshakes around and laughing about Mr. Halloran’s panic over a missing calculator. Tracy and Zane sat next to each other in the booth. Every so often, their knees touched, and neither moved.

“Okay,” Nate said, “I’m calling it. Zane, say it.”

Zane blinked. “Say what?”

“What you dragged me into Math Club for.”

Zane turned red. Tracy raised an eyebrow.

“What did you drag him in for?” she asked.

Zane glanced at her, then at his half-eaten burger, then back at her.

“I wanted to spend time with you,” he admitted. “And I didn’t know how to ask. I mean—you’re amazing. And I’m… mostly good with engines.”

Tracy blinked. For a terrifying second, Zane thought she was going to laugh.

Then she said, “Zane, I figured that out weeks ago.”

“You… did?”

“Yeah. You’re not exactly subtle.”

“Oh.”

There was a long pause.

“You never needed Math Club to ask me out,” she added. “You could’ve just said, ‘Hey Tracy, wanna grab a burger sometime?’”

Zane laughed, nerves cracking through. “Okay. So… Tracy, wanna grab a burger sometime?”

“Only if you let me drive the Camaro after.”

Zane gasped. “You drive stick?”

“Better than most guys I know.”

He smiled. “Now I really have to see that.”

⸻

Later that night, when he dropped her off, she leaned in and kissed his cheek.

“Thanks for today,” she whispered.

As Zane drove home, his heart felt like it had nitro in the tank.

⸻

Over the next few months, Zane and Tracy were inseparable. They were an odd pair—horsepower and highlighters—but somehow, it worked. Zane still got nervous sometimes. Tracy still ran circles around him in calculus. But he didn’t feel like a court jester anymore. Just a guy who finally got the girl.

And when he taught her how to downshift properly, and she taught him how to use a graphing calculator, they laughed, kissed, and agreed: math and muscle cars weren’t so different after all.

They both just needed the right formula.