I replay the short video again, this time watchingher.
Her cheeks pink from frustration and cold. Her eyes determined. Her smile… too much. Too soft. Too sweet. Too dangerous.
I shut the phone off and shove it into my pocket.
The garage is quiet again. Finally.
Except I can still hear her. That laugh. That bright energy that sweeps into a space andrearranges something in your chest.
I stand, needing something to do before I lose my mind and go chasing headlights down the road she drove home on.
I pop the Mustang’s hood and lean over the engine, staring at it like it might answer questions I’m not asking out loud. I breathe in the scent of old oil and metal. This is solid. This I can trust.
You fix what’s broken. You don’t ask it to feel back.
I should go home. My apartment’s ten minutes away, half-furnished and quiet as a tomb. No one waiting. No light left on.
But I don’t want quiet tonight. I don’t want that kind of loneliness.
So I walk to the side room that George lets me use. It’s a converted office with a space heater and a generous fold-out cot against the far wall. When I first asked if I could stay late, maybe crash some nights when I was running night shifts or just didn’t feel like leaving, George didn’t even blink. Just said, “It’s your name on the lease after six. Make it yours.”
So I did.
The cot’s already made. Clean sheet, comfortable duvet, pillow that smells of fabric softener.
I toe off my boots and sit down heavily, resting my elbows on my knees. Sally’s voice still echoes in my head. That hope. That spark.
I’m in trouble.
I lie back, one arm flung over my eyes. The shop settles around me. It’s all familiar, but nothing about tonight feels the same.
She’s in my head. In my garage. Under my skin. And I’m sleeping here instead of going home because the second I walk into that empty apartment, I’ll have to admit what I already know.
Sally’s not just here to fix a car. She’s going to wreck everything I thought I wanted.
And for the first time in years, I don’t think I mind.
Footsteps echo in the entry bay as I make coffee the next morning—solid, confident, familiar. I look up.
George. She’s in coveralls, hair twisted into a messy knot, and she already has a smear of grease on her cheek.
“You’re here early,” she says. “Again.”
“Slept on the cot. Worked late,” I mumble, scrubbing a hand over my face.
“You brood late,” she corrects. “There’s a difference.”
She leans against the fender of a truck I’m fixing, crossing her arms. Her engagement ring catches the light and flickers like a spark plug. Her fiancé, Beckett, is head of security at Havenridge Ranch.
“So.” She drags the word out until it becomes a statement. “How did it go with Sally? Heard you had a dinner date at Spur and Spoon last night.”
I grit my teeth. George is not subtle. “Jesus, is nothing private in this town? And it was not a date. Sally is a customer.”
“A customer who had youalmostsmiling, according to Wanda.” Her eyebrows rise. “I didn’t think those muscles still worked.”
I glare.
George is unfazed. “Wanda said there was a… spark between you.”
