Chapter Ten
Thorne
I Dont need ur love - Rumelis, Minzie, Hotel Red
It’s been a week, and somehow that’s enough time for Echo to become everybody’s favourite fucking complication.
Which is annoying for a lot of reasons, chief among them being that I’d quite like to still be properly angry with her.
Would be easier if she was useless and Sayshen was forced to swallow his smug little told you so face.
But no.
Turns out she’s good. Like, properly good.
Good enough that Andre’s already trusting her with work he doesn’t hand out to just anyone and the lads stopped eyeing her like a suspicious package by day three. When she leans over an engine, grease on her fingers and that mouthy little look on her face, everyone shuts the fuck up and listens.
Even me.
Hate that.
Mostly because it’d be a lot easier to stay pissed if she weren’t so fucking competent.
Instead, she’s clever, funny, still hot as hell, and somehow fits in around here way too easily for someone who dropped into our lives like a grenade with lip gloss on.
That should’ve sorted me out.
Should’ve looked at the whole circus from that morning, remembered she kept who she was to herself while dragging the most secret, buried part of me out into the open, and decided absolutely the fuck not.
Because that’s the bit that still sticks.
Not just that she lied, but that she let me give her something real while she was still holding shit back.
That she made it easy for me to let my guard down, to stop being scared for one night and to show her and Wolfe a side of me I’ve spent years keeping locked up tight, all while she was standing there hiding secrets of her own.
Brilliant.
Love that for me.
So instead of going home like a normal person and getting the fuck over myself, I’m still here.
It’s late, the garage is mostly empty, and I’m halfway through an oil change because messing around with my bike feels easier than sitting alone with my own head. Usually I like it here at night.
Less noise and showing off. Just the hum of the lights, the smell of oil and hot metal, and the kind of quiet that actually lets me breathe.
Tonight I’ve got my little bluetooth speaker on the bench behind me, and Quit Playing Games With My Heart is playing low enough not to wake the dead but loud enough that I’m singing along under my breath anyway, because if I’m going to be emotionally compromised in Bay Two, I may as well commit to the bit.
I slide the drain pan out, wipe my hands on a rag, and mutter the next line to myself with absolutely no shame.
The place is calm in that late-night way garages only get after everyone’s fucked off. Music low. It usually settles me right down.
Usually.
I’m checking the filter when I hear footsteps coming my way, slow and unhurried, and a second later someone stops at the edge of my bay.
“Do you ever listen to anything other than The Backstreet Boys?” Wolfe says.
I don’t even look up. “Don’t bloody start.”
He lets out a quiet laugh. “Wasn’t gonna.”
That gets my head up.
He’s standing at the edge of my bay with that annoyingly calm look on his face, helmet dangling from one hand, black tee stretched across his chest, hair still damp from the shower he definitely had before deciding to come over here and ruin my night properly.
I narrow my eyes. “You were about to, mate..”
He shrugs, looking far too pleased with himself. “Not really. Just thought if you’re gonna stand here obsessing over that bike so you don’t have to think about anything else, you could at least branch out a bit for once. Try a new band. Live a little, dude.”
I scoff and go back to the bike. “First of all, that’s just bloody rude. I’m not obsessing, I’m maintaining my bike properly, which already puts me above most of you lot. Second of all, I’ve got range.”
“Do you?”
“Yeah,” I say, wiping my hands on the rag. “I’m not some sad little one-band case. I’ve got taste. I’m just selective about it.”
That gets a small look out of him.
Quiet, slightly amused, and way too fucking knowing.
Which is annoying, because now it feels like we’re not talking about music anymore, and I know he knows it too.
“Right,” he says. “Selective. Good word for it.”
I throw the rag onto the bench a bit harder than I need to. “Don’t start acting all profound just because your taste is dead.”
Wolfe’s mouth twitches. “My taste is fine. I just meant every now and then it wouldn’t kill you to stop going back to the same thing. Maybe let yourself try something new.”
There it is.
Light enough to pass as a joke, but not light enough that I miss what he’s actually doing.
“You heading off,” I ask, “or did you come over here just to disrespect pop royalty?”
“Bit of both.”
I snort despite myself. “Bleak.”
Wolfe steps in a little farther, not enough to crowd me, just enough to make it obvious he’s not actually here for the playlist.
I can feel it before he says anything.
That shift.
The one where the light piss-taking starts getting edged out by something heavier.
I look back down at the bike and reach for the oil bottle. “Go on then. Spit it out.”
He leans one shoulder against the post. “Say what?”
I glance at him. “The real reason you’re here.”
There’s a pause.
Then, “You’ve been avoiding me.”
I tip the bottle, then stop before I pour. “Have I?”
Wolfe watches me for a second, then says, “Yeah. And I know it’s because of this thing between us.”
I frown at him like he’s gone fully insane. “What thing?”
That gets him moving.
Not much. Just enough to come a little closer, enough that I’ve got to tip my chin up a fraction to hold his gaze, and suddenly the whole garage feels a bit too small for the pair of us.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” he says.
I let out a dry little laugh. “Do I.”
“Yeah,” Wolfe says, steady as anything. “You do.”
I shake my head and turn back to the bike, reaching for the rag like this is still about the oil change and not the fact he’s standing in my space making my pulse go stupid. “You’re reading into things.”
“Am I.”
“Yes.”
“Right,” he says. “So the motel meant nothing.”
My jaw tightens. “Didn’t say that.”
I don’t answer.
Because I can’t.
Because that’s the problem, innit? The second I answer one honest thing, the rest of it comes with it. The wanting. The panic. The fact I’ve spent the whole bloody week avoiding him because it’s easier to act irritated than admit I can still feel his mouth on mine.
Wolfe takes another step closer. “Thorne.”
“Don’t.”
“No, you don’t get to do that. Not this time.”
I turn on him. “Do what?”
“Act like you haven’t got a clue what’s going on here.”
I bark out a laugh. “Who the fuck said it’s an act? Maybe I haven’t a bloody clue what you’re on about..”
“That’s bullshit.”
I stare at him.
He stares right back.
No smile now. No easy little joke to soften it. Just that calm, maddening certainty that makes me want to shake him and kiss him and tell him to piss off, probably all at once.
“You feel it,” he says. “And you know I do too.”
I scoff, because that’s safer than saying anything real. “You always this sure of yourself?”
“Only when I’m right.”
I roll my eyes. “Bloody hell, you’re annoying.”
“Stop fucking fighting it then. You can’t avoid this thing between us forever”
I fold my arms. “You don’t know what I feel.”
His expression shifts, softening just enough to make it worse. “Then tell me I’m wrong.”
I don’t.
Can’t, and the silence after that says too much all on its own.
His voice drops lower. “You know, it’s okay to want me.”
Something hot flashes through me at that.
Defensive and embarrassed.
Wanting, which is the worst bit.
“You make it sound so fucking simple,” I mutter.
“Shouldn’t it be?” he says, still too close, still not backing off. “Why does feeling something for me have to be so complicated? What are you so afraid of?”
I hate how that goes straight through me.
Because he sees it. He sees too fucking much.
“I’m not scared,” I lie.
Wolfe gives me a look that would almost be funny if I weren’t currently one heartbeat away from doing something stupid. “You’re terrified.”
“Shut up.”
I shove at his chest. Not hard enough to hurt. Just enough to get him back, but he catches my wrist before I can pull away.
The air in the bay goes thick and strange, like the whole place has stopped breathing with us.
Neither of us moves.
His hand is still round my wrist, warm and steady, and that’s almost worse than if he’d grabbed harder. It’s not forced though. It’s certainty. Like he knows I could pull away if I really wanted to.
Problem is, I’m not pulling away.
His eyes stay on mine, dark and dead serious, and whatever smart little comment I had lined up dies somewhere behind my teeth.
Then he says, low and rough, “I’m not fucking around, Thorne.”
And that does it.
Not because it’s dramatic. Because it’s him. The honesty of it. The fact he’s standing there, not joking, not dodging, not making me drag every bloody thing out of him one painful inch at a time.
I don’t even realise I’ve gone still until Wolfe’s gaze drops to my mouth and back up again, like he’s giving me one last chance to bolt.
I don’t.
His thumb shifts once against my wrist. Barely anything and yet its enough to make my pulse kick fucking harder.
“Tell me to stop,” he says quietly.
I should. Bloody hell I should.
I should say something smart. Deflect with the usual comical shit or tell him he’s being a smug bastard and to get out of my fuckin’ bay.
Instead I just stand there looking at him, breathing too hard, and saying absolutely fuck all.
Which is answer enough, apparently, because Wolfe steps in first.
Slow enough that I could still pull away. Careful enough that it feels worse than if he’d just taken it from me. His hand leaves my wrist and comes up to the side of my neck, fingers settling there warm and steady, and then his mouth is on mine.
Soft at first, and for half a second it’s not a fight, not a challenge or all the sharp-edged tension we’ve been throwing at each other for a week. It’s just him kissing me like he means it.