38. Dean
Dean
Dean crouched beside the driver's side tire, pressure gauge in hand, trying to work as quietly as possible in the pre-dawn darkness. He'd been at this for twenty minutes—checking fluids, replacing the wiper blades that had been streaking, cleaning the headlights.
The spare keys felt heavy in his pocket. He'd kept them out of habit, hadn’t thought to hand them over during that awful conversation on Emma's porch. Now he was grateful for his own negligence.
He adjusted the pressure in the back right tire, trying not to think too hard. But the memory from the night before kept flashing back—Troy Granger’s smug voice, the look on Fiona’s face, the moment her arms crossed. The moment he’d stepped in.
She hadn’t needed him. She hadn’t asked him.
But she’d let him do it anyway.
That meant something.
It wasn’t redemption. But it was something.
He'd gone home afterward and stared at the ceiling for hours, the adrenaline refusing to burn out. All he could see was Fiona—steady in the face of that asshole, graceful even while shaken. And Dean, just standing beside her, wanting to be her shield and knowing he was too late for that.
He’d jerked off anyway.
Rough. Impatient. Not because he thought he’d ever have her again—God, if only—but because he couldn’t hold it all in.
The ache. The need. The wretchedness of still wanting her that badly when he’d ruined everything.
He came with her name half-formed in his throat and self-loathing thick in his chest. The kind of release that didn’t soothe anything.
Just confirmed how much of a mess he still was.
Now, in the gray hush before sunrise, he crouched beside her car with the same hands that had once touched her skin and now only got to twist wrenches and wipe grime off headlights.
He was packing up his tools when the front door opened.
Dean's head snapped up, heart hammering as Fiona stepped onto the porch. She was dressed for work—cream cardigan, jeans, her hair pulled back in that loose bun that always made a few pieces escape to frame her face. She had her travel mug in one hand, her work bag in the other.
And she was staring at him.
"Dean?" Her voice was small, confused. "What are you?—"
He stood slowly, tire gauge still in his hand, feeling caught. Feeling stupid. "Hi."
They looked at each other across the driveway. The space between them felt infinite and electric at the same time.
God, she was beautiful. Even in the gray morning light, even with exhaustion written in the lines around her eyes, even looking at him like he was a problem to be solved. She was so beautiful it made his chest ache.
"The tires were low," he said lamely, holding up the gauge like evidence. "And the wiper blades were getting old. I just—I wanted to…” he trailed off.
Looking at her—really looking at her—made all his rational thoughts evaporate.
She’d always been the most beautiful woman to him. He didn’t understand why the rest of the world didn’t see that as clearly as he did. The fools.
Sexy , too.
His body didn't understand that she wasn't his anymore. Not last night, and not this morning. Didn't understand that he'd forfeited the right to want her, to need her. Even now all he could think about was pulling her against him and burying his face in her hair.
He wanted her so badly it was a physical ache. Wanted to close the distance between them, wanted to kiss her until she remembered what they'd been like together, wanted to drive her home, carry her back to bed and spend the morning reminding her body why it used to fit so perfectly against his.
"The car's fine now," Dean said, stepping away from her space, away from the temptation to reach for her. "Everything's topped off. Tires are good. It should run smooth."
Fiona looked at him for a long moment.
"Thank you," she said finally. As if he deserved thanks.
The least I can do , he thought. After everything I took from you, checking your tire pressure is the least I can fucking do.
Dean nodded and gathered his supplies, acutely aware of her watching him. Acutely aware of the way her presence made every nerve ending in his body light up like a live wire.
He'd lost the right to touch her. Lost the right to take care of her. Lost the right to love her the way his body still insisted he should.
But at least her car would start every morning.
At least she'd be safe on the road.
At least he'd done something useful with the want that was eating him alive.
Dean gripped the steering wheel tighter, trying to focus on the road instead of the ache between his legs that had started the moment his wife stepped onto that porch.
Ex-wife, he corrected himself savagely. Ex-wife. Get used to it.
The paperwork wasn’t final yet, but that didn’t matter. She wasn’t his anymore.
But his body didn't give a shit about legal paperwork. His body remembered the way she'd looked in that cream cardigan, the way her hair caught the morning light, the way she'd said his name—confused, soft, like she wasn't sure if he was real.
He shifted in the driver's seat, trying to find a position that didn't make his jeans feel like torture. Two minutes in her presence and he was hard as a teenager, desperate and wanting and completely fucking pathetic.
The highway stretched ahead of him, empty in the early morning light. He still had at least forty-five minutes back to the city. Forty-five minutes to get himself under control before he had to face the world like a functioning adult instead of a man undone by his wife's— ex-wife's —proximity.
He'd touched her car. Her steering wheel, her door handles. Like some kind of perverted car maintenance foreplay that she hadn't even known she was participating in.
Christ, he was losing his mind.
The memory of her voice— "Thank you" —played on repeat in his head. The way she'd looked at him, those few seconds where her guard had been down and she'd just been... Fiona. His Fiona. Before she remembered she wasn't his anymore.
He wanted her so badly it was making him insane. Wanted to turn the car around, drive back to Emma's, knock on that door and beg her to let him?—
Let him what? Touch her? Kiss her? Pretend for five minutes that he hadn't destroyed everything good between them?
Dean laughed, harsh and bitter. Even his fantasies were pathetic now.
The interstate sign for the city limits came into view, and he forced himself to breathe. To think about something else. Anything else.
His hands clenched tighter on the wheel.
You don’t get to fantasize about your wife while she’s standing in the wreckage you caused.
Still living out of someone else’s guest room. Still piecing her life back together.
Still making that brutal, long commute from Sweetwater every damn day—because of him.
Dean’s throat tightened. She was exhausted. He’d seen it on her face that morning—masked behind professionalism and pride, but clear as day to someone who used to know her better than anyone.
She couldn’t keep doing this.
And she shouldn’t have to.
He pressed harder on the gas, like speed might outrun the guilt, the heat, the helplessness—all of it.