36. Lance
Lance
The drive from Spring Valley to Chula Vista takes twenty-three minutes with light traffic and too much time to think.
I landed forty minutes ago. Carry-on only, straight through the terminal, car keys in hand before I’d fully cleared the gate.
I told myself I’d go home first. Drop the bag, shower, be a person.
I made it as far as the parking structure before I got in the car and pointed it toward Chula Vista instead.
I keep the windows down and the radio loud enough to drown out the parts of my brain trying to rehearse the conversation. Every version comes out wrong anyway. The words keep shifting around, never quite fitting together the way I want them to.
That’s what happens when you’re rehearsing the wrong one. That one’s been following me around since Marcus told George about Seattle.
The shop looks exactly the same from the outside.
I don’t know what I was expecting. It’s been a month, not a year, but I hang around in the lot for a while before I get out, just taking it in. Carter’s at the front desk when I walk in. He greets me with a nod.
I tap the door three times before pushing it open.
George looks up before I’ve crossed half the floor. He goes still for a second—just for a beat—and then he’s already standing, moving. I’m already moving too, and we meet somewhere in the middle of the office doorway like neither of us could help it.
He pulls me in without saying a word. Both arms, the full weight of him, like he’s been waiting to do exactly this and has run out of patience for any other version of hello.
I press my face into his neck and hold on tight, breathing him in—motor oil, soap, home.
For one perfect moment, everything else falls away.
There are probably three mechanics visible through the glass and I can’t bring myself to fucking care even a little.
“Hey,” he whispers, tone affectionate.
“Hey,” I whisper back into his shoulder, clinging harder.
We stay like that for a long time. When he finally pulls back it’s not all the way—his hands linger on my shoulders, thumbs pressing in like he’s checking I’m real.
His eyes are dark and hungry for a split second, then the shutters slam down.
There’s something guarded there now, pulled back and careful.
It wasn’t there before I left. He’s glad to see me, but there’s something beneath the surface I have a feeling I’m not going to like.
He clears his throat and steps back, dropping his hands. “Wasn’t expecting you until later.”
I shrug, trying to smile. “Seemed stupid to not see you now.”
He steps back and gestures at the chair across from his desk. His face hardens a little, jaw hardening even with the faint smile he manages to put on.
I sit down. I try to focus on why I’m actually here first thing. “Got something for you.”
I spent some time during the first two weeks in Seattle building a plan for him between mom and Hearthside Home. I pull a single folded piece of paper from my pocket, sliding it across the desk.
George scans it, then directs his focus back to me.
“I’ve got this friend, Oscar Whitfield,” I say. “We used to run in the same circles in Seattle. He spent the last few years building fundraising strategies for nonprofit networks. Knows this landscape better than anybody I could think to call.”
I lean forward, tapping the paper. “He gave me six good contacts. Two are warm leads already. One’s a veteran business coalition with emergency funding specifically for short-window buyouts.
Another is a private foundation that’s moved money in under thirty days before if the case is strong enough.
Oscar listened to me talk about the shop and said it sounded like a strong case. He was glad I called him first.”
George finally studies the paper, but he still doesn’t reach for it.
“I found a venue lead for a community car show. It’s not reinventing the wheel, but it works. There are examples in here from San Diego and Orange County. Same setup and kind of businesses. If we move fast enough, we can stage it before the buyout deadline.”
I keep going because I need him to hear all of it before he shuts me down.
“I ran the numbers. It won’t cover everything outright, but it can get close enough. There are other ways to cover it.”
George leans back in his chair, listening all the way through with the patience of a saint. No interruptions, questions, or visceral reaction whatsoever. He sits there turning it over in his head while I continue to stare at him, waiting for him to say literally anything else.
Then he looks at me and says, very simply, “You should go back to Seattle, Lance.”
I could’ve sworn I heard him wrong, but no. He adds the next part without delay, clear enough that there’s no misunderstanding it.
“The program at the hospital must still be open. You should confirm it.”
“I already turned it down.” I keep my voice level, though it takes effort. “Called Cameron’s office more than a month ago. It’s done.”
“Then uncall it.”
I level a stare at him. “Okay, and why the fuck are you saying that?”
Underneath the shock is hurt—immediate and sharp and ugly.
“This,” he maintains, gesturing toward the piece of paper, “isn’t your problem to fix.”
“You know I won’t sit around and watch you lose your shop. I’m making it my problem, George. You know I’d do anything for you.”
“I didn’t ask you to.” His voice rises slightly, more than he probably intended.
The office suddenly feels too small and hot. The sounds of the shop come through muffled through the walls. Air tools, radios, somebody laughing somewhere outside this room while my entire life starts coming apart inside it.
George sighs, and when he speaks again his voice goes in a careful way I already hate.
“I appreciate everything you’ve done. Really.”
There it is, but I know very well it’s not what he’s trying to say.
“But I don’t need you staying here for this. I’ll handle it from here.”
“Is this about the trust fund again? We’ve talked about it. I’m not touching it unless you want me to.”
“Lance, I don’t care—”
“G, I want to stay.” My voice lands closer to a plea than I’d like. “That’s why I turned it down. It’s not really the shop or the fundraiser. You know why.”
George holds my gaze across the desk, completely still.
“No,” he says evenly. “I don’t.”
Something in me snaps.
“Jesus Christ, do you really need me to spell this out for you?” The words come out loud now. “I’m staying because of you. Because whatever the hell this is between us, I don’t want to leave it behind.”
There’s just silence. For one awful second, I think maybe he’s finally going to say it too. His jaw clenches so hard I see the muscle jump, his knuckles white where they grip the edge of the desk. Pain flashes raw across his face before he locks it down.
Instead, he says with a voice so low and flat, “I think…I think you’re forgetting what we actually are.”
I look at his face, and it very much contradicts that theory. The air leaves my lungs.
“This was never anything more than that,” he continues, forcing the words out. “We’re friends. You were figuring yourself out. I was part of that. That’s what we agreed on.”
The bottom drops out of something inside me. I wait for the words to settle differently. They don’t.
“What the fuck did you just say?” I say slowly.
A few weeks ago, this man had me pinned against a wall with his mouth on my throat like he wanted to live there.
I actually laugh—short, disbelieving and fucking wounded.
“Oh. You’re serious.”
“I didn’t mean to mislead you about what this was. That’s on me. But this, what we agreed to, it was never going to be—”
“George.” My voice cracks upward hard enough to cut him off.
“We’ve been sleeping together for months.
We know each other well enough to read each other’s minds half the time.
Fuck, you went to Seattle when I couldn’t go home, met my family.
You looked at me like—” I stop myself before the sentence gets dangerous.
“And now you’re acting like this was some temporary experiment that ran its course?
I fucking get it. It was me who laid down the rules.
I did say there shouldn’t be any…emotions involved. But…are you for real?”
“I’m telling you what it was, Lance.”
Was, as in past tense, like he already buried it before I even knew it was dying.
“Go back to Seattle. Handle your shit there,” his voice grim and low, almost as if he’s carving the words into stone. “You don’t need to stick around here trying to save a shop that might not even make it.”
I shake my head, throat tight. “That’s not the point. I already told you. I’m choosing us.”
He looks away for a second, jaw set, eyes squeezed shut like it physically hurts him to say it. “There’s no ‘us’ that fucking needs you blowing up your future. You don’t owe me anything.”
The words land like another dismissal, sharp and final.
“What the hell happened since I first left?” I demand, voice rising. “Was it because I stayed in Seattle longer than planned? I was trying to get back here as fast as I could. You saw how it was for me back there. I’ve always meant to come back.”
George sighs, glancing up at the ceiling like he’s searching for the strength to keep this wall up.
When he looks back at me, his eyes are haunted but his voice stays cold and determined.
“Of course I saw what it was like for you. I’m not a child, Lance.
You’re even thinking about resigning from the hospital because you just have a lot of things going on over there now.
You don’t need to be here. It’s that simple. ”
“What was it for you?” I challenge, my chest hurting now—a deep, crushing ache. “You seem real comfortable writing all this off for somebody who’s supposedly just helping a friend. Are we not in this together, figuring shit out? I didn’t know this is just all about me.”
“I already knew,” he says.
“Knew fucking what?”