Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
STELLA
The girls’ lunch was lovely—good food, easy conversation, the kind of sun-drenched Sydney afternoon that should have left me floating.
But by three-thirty, an itch starts building in my spine.
Not the good kind. The kind that whispers something’s off.
Like I’ve left the stove on or forgotten an appointment.
That gnawing anxiety of being out of place.
Despite Emily’s exasperated sighs and Megan’s suggestion— “I’ll tattoo delegate or die on your wrist”—I convince them to cut the afternoon short.
“You’re impossible,” Yasmin mutters as we walk toward our cars, oversized sunglasses perched like armour on her face. “It’s like you’re allergic to relaxation.”
“I’m not allergic to relaxation,” I argue, even as I yank open my car door. “I’m just responsible for a business that’s finally running smoothly. I’d rather not tempt fate.”
“You do realise it’s okay to not be in control every second of the day?” Ella says gently. “You can trust your team.”
I nod, but my fingers tighten on the steering wheel. I do trust them—mostly. But something’s pulling at me now. Something deeper than control. A quiet instinct that tells me this wasn’t just a lunch break. That something’s been orchestrated behind my back.
On the drive back to Doc’s, I replay the day.
Jake pushing me to take time off. Chase being cagey about a Charger consult.
Yasmin and Ella showing up like it was their idea.
It all feels… off. Coordinated. And not in the sweet we planned a surprise cake kind of way.
More like a slow unravelling I haven’t been clued in on yet.
I pull into the car park and immediately notice the pickup truck.
It’s old but not rusted. Clean, polished chrome, careful wear. A vehicle with history. The kind that doesn’t end up in our yard by accident.
My stomach knots.
The air changes the second I walk inside. It’s not the usual late-arvo noise—tools whirring, music cranked, the boys ribbing each other over oil stains and smoko orders. This is silence. Thick. Tense. The kind of quiet that prickles over skin.
Then I see him.
He’s by the Charger. Back turned, head bent into the engine bay. His posture is familiar it’s deliberate but relaxed. A man used to grease under his fingernails and the weight of a socket wrench. The kind of silhouette burned into my childhood like oil stains on cotton.
Doc.
For a heartbeat, I can’t breathe. The workshop tilts around me, soundless, weightless.
My chest compresses as if someone’s reached in and yanked all the air out with their bare hands.
My mind flashes through memories like postcards: grease-stained overalls, half-smiles over busted car parts, the way he’d ruffle my hair and call me sprocket like it meant something.
I haven’t seen him in six years. But I’d know him anywhere.
A switch flips.
“What is he doing here?” My voice is sharp, loud enough to slice through the silence.
The entire workshop freezes. Every head turns. Every hand halts mid-task. The tension becomes suffocating.
Doc straightens slowly. Turns. His face is older, more worn than I remember, like time dragged its fingers over him harder than most. Our eyes lock, and for the briefest second, something flickers—guilt? Regret? It’s gone before I can catch it.
“Stella,” he mutters, voice rough.
I snap my attention to Chase as he appears at my elbow, looking like he’d rather crawl into an oil drum and die.
“I asked a question,” I say, cold and clear. “What is he doing here?”
Chase stammers, “Stella, maybe we should?—”
“No.” I hold up a hand. My stare doesn’t waver. “You promised me he’d never come in while I was working. So what’s this? Am I not supposed to be here today, or is he breaking the rules?”
Doc opens his mouth. “The Charger needed?—”
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
He flinches.
Behind me, Jake’s voice is low, steady. “Let’s just take a breath, Stell?—”
“Don’t. Don’t tell me to calm down. Do you have any idea what this feels like?”
The dam cracks.
“I come back from lunch early—lunch you all but forced me to take—and I find him here. In my space.” I point at my chest. “In the business I’ve rebuilt. The one thing I’ve had to pour every part of myself into just to keep standing.”
Doc takes a step forward. “Stella, sweetheart?—”
“DON’T!” The word tears out of me like shrapnel. “Don’t you dare call me that. You lost that right the day you disappeared.”
“I didn’t disappear?—”
“No?” I laugh, bitter and loud. “Because it sure felt like that. Mum died, and then you vanished. No calls. No visits. Nothing. Like I didn’t exist.”
His face cracks, pain etched deep. “You looked so much like her,” he says, barely above a whisper. “It hurt.”
“It hurt?” My voice rises, raw and splintered. “I was eighteen. I’d just lost my mother. I needed you. And you ran.”
“I was trying to protect?—”
“Yourself. That’s who you were protecting. Don’t feed me noble bullshit about grief. You abandoned me because you couldn’t handle the way I reminded you of her. Like my face was the problem. Like I was something to be erased.”
Doc’s eyes glisten. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Then explain it to me. Explain why I left voicemails you never answered. Why I stood on your front step crying, and you never opened the door. Why I spent years thinking I’d done something so unforgivable you couldn’t even look at me.”
“I couldn’t lose her and lose you, too. So I... I froze.”
“You froze,” I repeat, stunned. “You iced me out and watched me drown.”
Tears blur my vision. I don’t care anymore. Let them see. Let them all see.
“I was a kid,” I say, voice cracking. “A scared, grieving kid who would’ve given anything to hear you say you were still there for me. And instead, I got silence.”
He takes another step. “Stella…”
“No.” I hold up my hand again. “You don’t get to say my name like that.
You don’t get to cry now like it means something.
You weren’t there for any of it. Not the birthdays.
Not the uni rejections. Not the nights I cried so hard I threw up.
You weren’t there when I got my first job, when I rented my first flat, when I got promoted. ”
My throat tightens. “You weren’t there when I came back here, took your legacy, and made it better.”
“I am proud?—”
“You don’t get to be proud of what you abandoned.”
The silence that follows is brutal. Exposed. The kind that scrapes bone.
Jake steps in, voice quiet but firm. “Maybe this would be better somewhere else.”
“There’s nowhere else,” I say, shaking. “This is it. This is the moment. Because he made his choice, and now I’m making mine.”
I turn, my heels biting into the concrete.
“Stella—” Chase calls.
“I’m going home,” I say. “Jake, you’re welcome to join me. I’m done for the day.”
The sobs hit in the car.
They start small, tight hiccups and trembles. By the time Jake slides into the driver’s seat beside me and takes the keys from my hands, I’m shaking.
“I’ll drive,” he murmurs. No argument. No questions.
The ride is silent, except for the occasional sniff I can’t suppress. Jake’s hand stays curled around my thigh the entire way. A grounding weight. A reminder I’m not alone, even when it feels like everything just busted open.
At my house, I barely make it through the door before I collapse into him.
The tears are ugly. Loud. Shoulder-shaking sobs that pour out from places I didn’t realise were still raw.
Jake just holds me. Strong arms, steady heartbeat. His shirt soaks through, but he doesn’t flinch. He just strokes my hair and lets me fall apart.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper eventually. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”
“Don’t be.” His voice is quiet thunder. “Don’t ever apologise for feeling.”
“But I lost it. In front of everyone.”
“They’ll understand. You’ve held that in for too long.”
I pull back enough to see his face. “I just… I’ve been carrying this for so long. Not knowing and wondering what I did wrong.”
Jake cups my cheeks, his thumbs brushing away tears I didn’t know were still falling.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” he says. “He failed you. You survived anyway.”
“I don’t feel strong.”
“You don’t have to feel it to be it. You’re the strongest person I know.”
Something inside me softens—the part that’s always braced for disappointment, for abandonment. Jake doesn’t pull away. He holds me like I’m something fragile and sacred. And I believe him. Just for a moment, I let myself believe it.
“I love you,” I whisper.
His mouth finds mine—gentle, sure, warm. When he pulls back, his eyes are darker than I’ve ever seen them.
“I love you too,” he says. “More than I knew was possible.”
I bury my face in his chest and breathe him in—grease, cologne, and home.
And for the first time in six years, I let myself believe that maybe… just maybe… I’m not alone anymore.
“Come on,” Jake says softly, linking our fingers. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
He doesn’t rush me. Just leads me through the quiet of my house, hand firm but gentle.
Like he knows I’m holding it together by a thread and refuses to let me snap.
In the bathroom, he starts the shower—lukewarm, just how I like it when my chest feels tight and my skin’s too full of emotion to handle heat.
He watches me for a beat, eyes scanning like he’s checking for more damage than I’m letting on. Then he steps in, tugging his shirt off, then mine, his hands slow and reverent. I don’t fight it. I’m too tired, too full, too raw to keep up the tough-girl act.
Each kiss he presses to my shoulders, my collarbone, my neck isn’t sexual. Not yet. It’s worship. Grounding. His way of saying I’m here and I’ve got you without words.
“Better?” he murmurs once we’re in the shower, his arms around me as the water runs over us.
“Yeah.” My voice is small but real. I rest my cheek against his chest, listening to the steady thump of his heart like it’s the only rhythm I trust.