My heart is in my throat.
His broad back turns toward me.
He doesn’t see me yet.
I take a breath and kill the engine.
Before I open the door, he speaks.
“I swear,” he growls without looking up, “if this is Miles asking me to check his carburetor again, I’m burning the damn garage down.”
I laugh under my breath. I don’t have a carburetor on my car, it’s fuel injected, but I wish I did right now just to give him a hard time.
His head snaps up at the sound.
He freezes.
Completely freezes.
For a moment, Tony looks like a man who stopped breathing mid-sentence. His hands still. His jaw locks. His chest rises slowly, visibly, like he has to remind himself how lungs work.
Then his brows slam together.
He stalks toward me.
Not slow.
Not casual.
Not indifferent.
Full stride, deliberate, every step precise enough to shake something loose inside me. Determined.
When he reaches the car, he plants a hand on top of the door, leaning down until he’s eye level with me through the open window.
“What the hell are you doing here without telling me?” he demands softly.
Not angry.
Not yelling.
But intense.
Cutting.
Shaken, if I’m reading him right.
Heat floods my cheeks. “I… you said to come. So I came.”
“I meant eventually,” he mutters. “Not immediately. Not without warning. Jesus, Holley—I could’ve been on a run. Out of town. Busy. Anything.”
My breath catches. “Do you want me to leave?”
He stares at me.
Long enough that my heart practically stops.
Then—something inside him breaks. Or softens. Or gives up fighting, I can’t tell which.
