I should’ve let it go.
Didn’t.
“You don’t have to pay me back.”
Her face closed fast.
Too fast.
“I didn’t ask for charity.”
“Didn’t offer charity.”
“What would you call it?”
“Help.”
She stared at me like I’d used a language she distrusted.
I understood that look. Help always had a hook when you grew used to paying for everything with pieces of yourself. I hated recognizing that in her. Hated it more because it made me want to be careful, and careful was not a thing I trusted myself to do well.
I turned back to the engine. “Regan would skin me if I let you drive this thing.”
“Ah. So this is self-preservation.”
“Mostly.”
“Good. I’d hate for you to develop a personality this early in the day.”
I huffed. “Point the light.”
She pointed it.
I worked.
The sun climbed higher, pushing heat under the carport until the shade stopped feeling like shade and started feeling like an oven with manners. Sweat slid down my spine. Grease smeared my forearms. Sienna’s shirt stuck worse now, and every time she shifted, I caught the movement in my peripheral vision like my body had turned traitor and assigned itself surveillance duty.
She knew.
That was the problem.
She knew, and instead of shrinking from it, she got sharper. Chin tipped. Mouth curved. Eyes bright with challenge. Shedidn’t flirt soft. She didn’t flutter. She weaponized the fact that I wanted to look and made me hate myself for it.
At one point, she reached across me for the coffee she’d left on the fender, and her breasts brushed my arm.
Barely.
Enough.
I froze with one hand on the radiator cap.
She took a slow sip, eyes on me over the mug.
“You okay?”
“No.”
Her brows lifted.
