My eyes are on that when I hear a car pull into the back lot.
Engine cuts. A door shuts. A minute later, the rear entry opens.
Lance appears, still wearing his post-shift clothes: jeans and a gray pullover with the sleeves pushed up. He stops just inside the door and takes in the dark bay.
“You ignoring me on purpose?” he asks. “Because I sent, like, four texts.”
I check my phone sitting beside the notebook. Silent mode.
“Sorry. Missed them.”
“I was deciding whether to be offended.” He sets what looks like a bag of my favorite tacos from this place I normally frequent. He also fishes out a couple of muscle tapes from the bag. “Picked these up from the pharmacy. You were complaining about your shoulders the other day. Figured I’d save you from creaking around like a rusty gate.”
He slows when he sees the notebook open on the bench beside me. Columns of numbers, loan programs and deadlines. The circled sixty at the bottom of the page.
His expression changes, not dramatically. Lance doesn’t do pity. He just acts.
He pulls the second stool over and sits beside me, knees almost touching mine.
“Okay,” he encourages. “Talk to me.”
I glance at the notebook.
I’ve been carrying this thing around alone long enough that I don’t realize how exhausted I am of it until somebody else offers to shoulder part of the weight.
I tell him everything about the buyout ProMotive has been pushing. I explain the calls I’ve made this week, the programs I looked into. How each one falls apart the moment I consider them. I walk him through the timing problem that keeps popping back no matter how I approach it. I lay out what Carter’s buyout requires, what happens to the shop if I can’t cover it in time. What it would look like if ProMotive takes over this place.
Lance listens without interrupting once.
When I’m done, he picks up the notebook and actually reads it, turning back through the previous pages slowly, brows pulled together in concentration.
“Carter hasn’t filed formal notice yet,” he says eventually.
“No.”
“So technically the clock hasn’t started.”
I lean back slightly on the stool. “Doesn’t change the numbers.”
“No.” Lance taps the pencil lightly against the notebook. “But it changes how cornered you actually are.”
“I’m still pretty cornered.”
“Okay,” he says, eyes meeting mine, “but are you actually out of options, or have you reached the point where you’re stress-researching loan programs at three in the morning and convincing yourself the apocalypse is legally binding?”
I look at him. “That feels a little targeted.”
“It feels earned.”
Despite myself, I let out a short laugh.
Lance nods once, clearly satisfied with dragging that reaction out of me, then sweeps his gaze around the shop again, properly this time. The lifts, workbenches, the old signs hanging on the far wall.
“You built something good here, George.”
I don’t know what to do with that information.
He simply shrugs. “So, we keep looking. Community lenders. Private capital. Structured payout options. Something.”
