“Lark?” Chain called through the door. “You up for a driving lesson?”
I swept the scattered things back into my bag. “Yeah,” I called, trying to sound normal.
When I opened the door, he was leaning against the frame, coffee in hand, eyes intense as ever. “You okay?”
“Fine,” I said automatically.
“Don’t lie to me this early,” he drawled. “You look like you saw a ghost.”
“Guess you’re rubbing off on me.”
That earned the smallest grin, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He studied me a moment longer, then took a drink of his coffee. “After you eat come find me out front.”
I nodded, careful not to meet his gaze too long. Because if I did, I might’ve told him everything—the smell of smoke, the note, the way it vanished. But some things were better buried. At least until I knew whether my past was still alive… or if I was just losing my mind.
***
THE MORNING AIRstill carried last night’s rain, raw, clean, lifting steam off the asphalt as the sun climbed higher. Chain waited by the truck near the back lot, coffee in one hand, keys spinning slow in the other. I was worried after last night he may not continue to teach me to drive.
“You look awake,” he said.
“A shower will do that.”
He handed me a second mug of coffee he’d brought along, his fingers brushing mine just long enough to trip my breath. Warm, calloused, steady. He acted like it meant nothing. My pulse disagreed.
“Figured we’d start slow today,” he said, nodding toward the truck. “No traffic. No witnesses.”
“Comforting,” I muttered, taking a sip. Then, “You sure about this?”
That grin—lazy, dangerous, unfair—spread across his mouth. “Not even a little.”
He tossed me the keys. They jingled through the air; I caught them—barely—and stared at the truck with a mix of nerves and anticipation.
“Clutch, brake, gas,” he said. “You remember?”
“I remember you yelling at me last time I stalled.”
“I wasn’t yellin’. I was coachin’ loud.”
I rolled my eyes and climbed in, working to steady my breath. The seat was warm from the sunlight and smelled faintly of leather and his cologne, which was becoming addictive as much as familiar. Chain slid into the passenger seat, and the truck immediately felt smaller, air thicker.
“Alright,” he said, voice soft and patient. “Start her up.”
The engine coughed alive. I eased my foot off the clutch and lurched forward hard enough to nearly kiss the wheel.
Chain laughed—deep, genuine, the kind of sound that rumbled straight through me. “Good start. Almost killed us.”
I shot him a glare I didn’t really mean. “You’re not helping.”
“Relax, darlin’. You’re doin’ just fine.”
Something in the way he saiddarlin’—easy, warm, without a hint of ownership—slipped under my guard before I could stop it. No one had ever spoken to me like that before. No demands. No judgment. Just quiet belief.
We made a few jerky loops around the lot. By the third one, the rhythm started to make sense, the weight of the wheel, the vibration under my feet, the breeze through the cracked windows.
“See?” Chain said. “Told you you’d get it.”
“Barely.”
