Which is precisely why I’m in trouble.
Time crawls toward 7 PM like thick molasses. Every minute, I check the door. Every hour, I replay the way she saidI’ll be here.
When her headlights sweep across the bay, I breathe for the first time all day.
Sally steps into the garage, hair pulled up, camera bag slung over her shoulder,hope in her eyes. She smiles as if seeing me matters.
“Hi,” she says.
And just like that—I’m done. Absolutely, irreversibly done for.
“Let’s get to work,” I tell her, keeping my voice steady enough to hide the war inside me.
Because I know two things for sure now:
I can fix her car.
And I cannot—will not—let anything break that smile.
Chapter 6
Sally
I swear the Mustang is a little smug tonight.
Nolan pops the hood with practiced hands, and she creaks like she knows she’s got a hero now. The overhead lights hum. Tool drawers thunk open and shut.Nolan’s presence fills the garage the way a good bass line fills a song, quiet but commanding. Steady. Deep. And impossible not to feel in your bones.
We start by removing the fuel tank for cleaning. Correction:heremoves it, all efficient muscle and quiet focus, while I hand over tools and try not to ogle his forearms as if they belong in some forbidden museum wing labeledObjects of Worship.
Each time he leans over the fender, his shirt pulls tight across muscles that have no right being that distracting, shifting beneath the fabric like they were made to ruin a woman’s focus.
If I believed in reincarnation, I’d file a formal request to come back as that shirt.
I narrate updates for the camera, but my voice sounds… different tonight. Softer. A little breathless. As if overactive butterflies have replaced my lungs.
Nolan notices.
“You okay?” he asks, straightening.
Sweat dots his brow, and he has a streak of grease on his jaw that I shouldnotwant to lick. And yet…
Focus, Sally.
“I’m good,” I answer. “Just watching and learning.”
He grunts as if that’s acceptable.
The tank removal takes time. My arms ache from holding the flashlight at the right angle. Nolan pretends not to notice how often my hands shake when he brushes past me.
But I know he does, like he’s cataloging the exact moment I get overwhelmed and deciding how close he can get without tipping us both over an edge.
By the time he lowers the tank onto a cradle, I’m sweating and exhilarated—and the car is one step closer to living again.
We take a break. Nolan wipes his hands, grabs two bottles from the mini-fridge: water and a root beer. He holds out the root beer to me.
“You look like you’ll crash without sugar.”
I grin. “Thought you only ran on coffee and angst.”
