Then the driver’s door flies open.
He gets out like he’s already mid-argument. Door bangs wider than it needs to. Boots hit gravel hard.
Rough around the edges doesn’t begin to cover it.
He’s mid-forties, maybe, with a scraggly beard that wants to be tough but comes off sloppy, a cheap leather jacket that’s doing its best impression of fancy and failing, and a twitchy sort of agitation rolling off him in waves. The kind of man who thinks volume is the same thing as power.
“Holley!” he barks, slamming the car door shut. “What the actual hell?” So that’s her name.
She flinches at the sound of it, like it’s a slap.
He storms up the drive, not even noticing me at first, all his focus zeroed straight in on her like a heat-seeking missile.
“I’ve been calling you,” he snarls. “Texting. You just gonna ignore me now?”
She takes half a step back toward her driver’s side door, eyes wide. “I’ve been working, Eric.”
Eric. Of course that’s his name.
“Don’t ‘I’ve been working’ me.” He throws his arms out, voice already too loud for the quiet night. “My card got declined at the damn store, Holley. In front of everybody. You know how embarrassing that is?”
I almost laugh.
Yeah, I think that’s humiliating. Probably almost as embarrassing as having a man show up and start yelling in your driveway while a stranger is standing five feet away.
Holley—not Holly, like the listing showed, is a unique spelling. The mechanic in me wonders if her parents had a thing for cars since they spell it like the carburetor brand. I notice the look, the quick, mortified glance over at me.
She looks like she wants the ground to swallow her whole.
Rage flickers at the edges of her eyes, though. It’s coiled under the shame, tight and hot. Woman’s not just scared or embarrassed. She’s pissed.
But she’s also cornered.
Her car is blocked in. He’s too close. The house is behind her, but she’d have to squeeze past him to reach it. Every exit is compromised.
That instinct in me that’s kept me alive for nearly six decades sits up and takes notice.
Not on my watch.
I start walking.
Slow. Steady. Not stomping, not charging. Just… moving. Putting my body where it needs to be.
Between.
Between his chaos and her. My jaw tightens as I sidle up behind her.
“Evening,” I say mildly as I close the distance, voice low but carrying. “You lost?”
Eric startles like he only just noticed I exist.
His gaze snaps to me, eyes flicking over the leather, the patches on my cut, the gray in my beard, the size then the stance. Most men can’t help but catalogue threat level. You can see it in their pupils.
I watch him filter through it all, the quick recalibration. His first flare of aggression dampens down a notch once his lizard brain does the math.
Doesn’t mean he backs off.
“Who the hell are you?” he snaps.
