We spend the next hour reinstalling flushed lines, replacing filters, and checking the starter. I guide her hands. She learns fast.Every time our fingers brush, it’s like the Mustang isn’t the only thing getting rewired.
She climbs into the driver’s seat again, testing the fit of the shift knob. Her palm around the top. Her thumb over the engraving.
My throat tightens. That’s hers now. She’s part of the machine. Part of this shop. Part of me, if I’m honest enough to say it.
“You make it look right,” I say before I can stop myself.
Her gaze slides to mine, revealing hope and heat. And a question.
I look away.
“Electrical next,” I say gruffly. “Then we check the ignition coil.”
But inside me, my heart is a drumbeat:
Kiss her. Kiss her. Kiss her.
Chapter 8
Nolan
Hours pass. Work blurs into something easier than thinking. Midnight sneaks in unnoticed.
We end up sitting in the Mustang again. Not because the job requires it, but because neither of us wants to walk away.
Sally turns sideways in the seat, one knee up, her elbow propped against the backrest. “My grandpa used to say she purred when she was happy,” she says, running her hand over the cracked steering wheel. “Like she understood she was loved.”
I nod. “Cars know when you care.”
She smiles faintly, stroking the wheel as if it’s alive. “I think that’s why he loved her so much. She gave something back. Not like the rest of the world.”
Her voice is bittersweet.
“My parents died in a car accident when I was a baby,” she says quietly. “I don’t remember them. Just stories. Bits and pieces people offered over the years, like puzzle pieces from a box I never had the picture for.”
I stay still. Let her speak.
“My grandparents raised me after that. Grandpa used to joke that I came out stubborn and soft in equal measure. Said I’d be hell on wheels once I grew up.” Her laugh is sentimental. “Grandma passed when I was ten. After that, it was just Grandpa and me. We were a team.”
She pauses, blinking fast, but doesn’t try to hide the ache in her expression.
“I inherited their house. The one up on the ridge with the wraparound porch and the too-big garage.” She glances at me, shy and warm. “It’s falling apart in some places, but I’m trying. Bit by bit.”
I nod. “I know that kind of trying.”
She studies me like she wants to ask what I mean, but doesn’t push.
“When I’m not filming videos, I work remotely for a nonprofit in Bozeman,” she says. “It’s a crisis support org. We help connect people to resources—mental health services, housing support, domestic safety networks. I mostly handle case triage and digital outreach. It’s heavy sometimes, but… I don’t know. I like being useful.”
Useful.
That word shouldn’t break me a little, but it does. Because I know what it is to chase usefulness and have it not be enough.
She looks down, fidgeting with the hem of her sleeve. “Sorry. That was probably way more than you wanted to know.”
“It wasn’t.”
And I mean it.
