Page 44 of Cherry Picking

“Grant’s lovely.”

“But.” She narrows her eyes. “There’s a but?”

My only real objection is that somewhere between arguing about mufflers and watching hockey with his father, I’ve gone and developed a little thing for Briggs. Hazel knows I’ve been working for a famous athlete’s family. She doesn’t know we text every single day now.

That part feels like a secret worth keeping a little longer.

“I’m just tired,” I say, deflecting again. “It’s been a long month.”

“Then go home, you little weirdo. You don’t have to stay if you’re not feeling it. I won’t be offended.”

I pout. “Promise?”

She offers the two-finger salute. “Scout’s honor.”

“Okay. Congratulations, junior partner. I’ll see you at Cherry on Sunday?”

“See you then.”

I hug her goodbye and slip out. The December air hits all at once, cool enough that I zip my jacket while crossing to the car.

I make it about four blocks before the noise starts. It’s not the familiar muffler rattle; it’s a high, grinding whine under the hood that rises with the accelerator and drops when I let off.

I pull into a dark tire shop lot, put it in park, and let it idle. Eventually, the whine settles into a rattle.

What the hell? This car got a full tune-up six weeks ago—the one Briggs insisted on as a condition of employment so it wouldn’t die with his father in the passenger seat.

I text him, because he made it his business. And because it’s technically his money currently rattling itself apart under this hood.

Evie

your investment is making a strange noise

[voice memo, 0:09]

I hold the phone to the vent and record the whine as evidence. I don’t expect a reply before morning, given the hour where he is, but the phone rings in my hand with a FaceTime request I scramble to answer.

When Briggs appears, he’s propped against his headboard, shirtless. The dahlia climbs his neck just like I remember, but without the shirt, I finally see where it leads—across his shoulder and down into a scatter of black ink over his chest.

There are others, too. Ink across one rib, something wrapping his left forearm. Hockey has carved the rest of him into hard lines and old scars. He is, as expected, sculpted out of fucking marble.

“That’s not the muffler,” he says.

“Hi to you, too.” I give myself exactly ten seconds to appreciate the view. “It’s a new noise. It’s been very loyal to the muffler until tonight, so this feels like a betrayal.”

“Play it again.”

I hold the phone to the vent. The whine obliges.

When I flip back, he’s frowning at something off camera, thinking, and I get a clean look at him for the first time since he left. The heavy brows, the mustache. A pillow crease on his cheek, his hair a mess, and none of it helps.

If anything, it’s worse. The polished version I could brace for. This is just a half-naked man alone in his bed.

“Yeah, that doesn’t sound good.”

“No shit.”

There’s something resting against his knee. His right hand. The knuckles are a mess—split across two of them, one scabbed dark, the whole thing still visibly swollen.