Chapter 6
Sally
I swear the Mustang is a little smug tonight.
Nolan pops the hood with practiced hands, and she creaks like she knows she’s got a hero now.
The overhead lights hum. Tool drawers thunk open and shut.
Nolan’s presence fills the garage the way a good bass line fills a song, quiet but commanding.
Steady. Deep. And impossible not to feel in your bones.
We start by removing the fuel tank for cleaning. Correction: he removes it, all efficient muscle and quiet focus, while I hand over tools and try not to ogle his forearms as if they belong in some forbidden museum wing labeled Objects of Worship.
Each time he leans over the fender, his shirt pulls tight across muscles that have no right being that distracting, shifting beneath the fabric like they were made to ruin a woman’s focus.
If I believed in reincarnation, I’d file a formal request to come back as that shirt.
I narrate updates for the camera, but my voice sounds… different tonight. Softer. A little breathless. As if overactive butterflies have replaced my lungs.
Nolan notices.
“You okay?” he asks, straightening.
Sweat dots his brow, and he has a streak of grease on his jaw that I should not want to lick. And yet…
Focus, Sally.
“I’m good,” I answer. “Just watching and learning.”
He grunts as if that’s acceptable.
The tank removal takes time. My arms ache from holding the flashlight at the right angle. Nolan pretends not to notice how often my hands shake when he brushes past me.
But I know he does, like he’s cataloging the exact moment I get overwhelmed and deciding how close he can get without tipping us both over an edge.
By the time he lowers the tank onto a cradle, I’m sweating and exhilarated—and the car is one step closer to living again.
We take a break. Nolan wipes his hands, grabs two bottles from the mini-fridge: water and a root beer. He holds out the root beer to me.
“You look like you’ll crash without sugar.”
I grin. “Thought you only ran on coffee and angst.”
A huff of a laugh. “Just take the drink.”
I pop the cap and take a sip. Sweet, fizzy nostalgia. Grandpa used to bring root beer home after long days in the shop. I close my eyes and let the memory settle warm in my chest.
When I look up, Nolan is watching me.
“What?” I ask.
He shakes it off. “Nothing.”
Liar.
We go through more checks—battery cables, spark plugs, signs of critter residency. (Apparently, mice think classic cars are five-star accommodations.)
Eventually, we slide into the Mustang’s front seats. The leather is cracked and worn, but it feels like home.
I settle beside him, legs tucked. The steering wheel looks enormous in his hands.
He explains his plan for the electrical and starter motor. I try to pay attention, but his knee brushes mine, and suddenly, all my brain can do is scream contact! contact! like a NASA launch alert.
“So the starter might have corrosion on the—”
“I remember what it was like,” I interrupt.
He pauses. “What?”
I place my hand gently on the wheel. “Riding in her. When she worked. What it felt like.” Tears sting my eyes. “Grandpa used to say it was like flying low to the ground. When we’d go get ice cream in the summer, he’d take the long road by the creek. Said she liked to stretch her legs.”
Nolan turns toward me, interest sharpening. “He never taught you how to drive her?”
I smile, small and sheepish. “He tried. I stalled her six times. She has opinions.”
One corner of his mouth lifts. “She still does.”
I bite my lip. “I want to take her there again. To the ice cream stand. I want to feel that flight.”
His eyes flick down to my mouth, then back up. “You will.” His voice wraps around the words like a vow.
Silence hums between us. Not awkward. Charged.
His thigh presses against mine—barely—and the heat from that point of contact floods through me like I’ve been plugged into something bigger. Deeper.
My heartbeat has left the building. My brain too.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
He frowns. “For what?”
“For… believing she’s worth it. For believing I am.”
The air shifts.
He looks at me like I’m a locked trunk he’s been trying to open and suddenly realizes he already has the key.
Then… he reaches up.
Calloused fingers under my jaw, cautious but sure. He tilts my face toward him.
I stop breathing.
The pad of his thumb traces a smudge of dirt from my cheek slowly and tenderly as if he’s memorizing the texture of me.
My lips part instinctively in invitation. Surrender.
Just when Nolan’s thumb grazes my jaw, and I’m ninety-nine percent sure we’re about to rewrite my entire definition of kissing, the shop door bangs open.
A big, broad silhouette fills the entry.
Nolan sighs. “Beckett.”
“West,” a deep voice calls. “George said you had—”
Beckett stops dead. His eyes flick from me to Nolan, to how close we’re sitting.
His eyebrows lift with slow, wicked delight.
“Hey, lovebirds,” he says, a smirk curling under his stubble, “didn’t mean to interrupt date night at the auto shop.”
My face combusts into pure lava. Nolan’s hand drops from my face like he touched a live wire.
Beckett steps fully inside, nodding politely to me. “Hey. I’m Beckett Lawson.” He taps his chest. “George’s fiancé. Said Nolan had the part she needed.”
Nolan grumbles, “It’s on the bench.”
Beckett wanders over, grabs a sealed box, and casts one last glance Nolan’s way.
“You know,” he says lightly, “there are easier ways to get a woman’s attention than staring intensely at her in a parked car.”
Nolan’s glare could dent steel. I try to melt into the seat. Failing that, I become one with the upholstery.
Beckett chuckles. “Relax, man. You’ll figure it out.” He tosses Nolan a salute. “Don’t break anything important.”
When the door swings shut behind him, silence explodes back into existence.
I straighten while my heart tries to sprint out of my chest. “That was George’s Beckett?”
Nolan exhales as if he’s been holding his breath since the door opened. “Yeah.”
“He seems… very sure of himself.”
“He is.” Nolan frowns at the closed door. “And he loves to meddle.”
I bite back a smile. “He was kind of fun.”
“Fun gets you in trouble,” Nolan mutters.
“Are you allergic to fun?” I tease.
He looks right at me. Eyes dark. Voice like smoke. “Maybe I just don’t know how to have it anymore.”
Oh.
That lands right in the center of me.
That one line holds so much grief, grit, and guardedness. I want to reach through it and trace the edges of whatever cracked him open.
But one wrong move and I’ll scare him back behind the walls he keeps fortified with silence and sarcasm.
So I soften, matching his quiet. “Maybe you just haven’t met the right co-pilot yet.”
He stares at me like I’m the map to every place he promised himself he wouldn’t go. “Sally…”
“Yes?” It comes out breathless.
He opens his mouth… then shuts it again. Scrubs his hand down his face, as if he can wipe away the feeling.
“We should get back to work,” he says gruffly.
Of course. Work is safe. Work doesn’t kiss back.
I slide out of the seat, knees wobbly. “Right. Work.”
But the way his gaze follows me before he turns away?
There’s nothing safe about that.
At all.
Later, with the camera rolling again, I film a quick outro.
“Okay, team. Progress tonight: fuel tank removed! A major victory. Nolan says it’s like clearing a clogged artery before you can make a new heart pump properly.” I grin. “He’s very poetic when he doesn’t realize he’s mic’d.”
Nolan’s low voice rumbles from under the hood: “I’m not poetic.”
“Debatable. We’ll revisit this later.” I wink at the camera. “Tune in next time for more mechanical miracles from Clover Canyon Autos.”
I stop recording. My audience isn’t huge, but they’re loyal. After dinner last night, a few new subscribers popped up—people who apparently worship Grumpy Mechanics.
I grab my phone to check for comments. Curiosity… purely scientific.
greasegirl88: if that mechanic doesn’t kiss you I WILL
ToolTimeTina: the tension serve it, queen
carbutt69: pls ask his name in the next vid
GarageDaddy99: Is he single? Asking for MYSELF
wrenchwench: NOT ME FALLING FOR HIS FOREARMS
I choke. Nolan glances over.
“What?”
“Uh. Nothing.” I angle the phone away like it’s radioactive.
He folds his arms. “Show me.”
“Nope!”
His eyes narrow. Very suspicious.
“You made promises about filming,” he reminds me.
“I did. I promised not to film you—”
“You did.”
“—without asking. And I didn’t ask. So I didn’t film you.”
His glare has the texture of sandpaper.
“Okay, fine!” I show him one comment. Just one. A tame-ish one.
He reads it.
Expression: unreadable.
Emotion: hidden.
Jaw: clenched.
“What the hell does ‘Garage Daddy’ mean?”
Oh, no.
“Uh… someone who sees you as, like… an authority figure… in a… greasy tool-based… um… fantasy scenario?” I squeak.
He blinks. Once. Twice.
“Delete it.”
I snort-laugh. “I can’t delete comments, Nolan. That’s… not how the internet works.”
He rakes a hand through his hair like he’s reconsidering gravity as a law of nature.
“They don’t even know me,” he mutters.
“Maybe not,” I say carefully. “But you matter to the story, and they can see you care.”
His muscles lock up. “I don’t care.”
I smile. “You do.”
His gaze snaps to mine. The intensity in his brown eyes could melt chrome.
“Sally.” Just my name, but it contains warning and want tangled together.
I swallow. “Nolan.”
He steps closer, just one step, but the heat between us snaps like a live wire.
“We need to focus,” he says.
“We are,” I whisper. “I am.”
That tension returns. That almost-kiss from earlier hangs like unfinished business in the air.
He backs away first. He always does.
But his voice is rough when he says, “Come back tomorrow night. We’ll keep going.”
I nod. “I’ll be here.”
I take a few steps backward toward the exit, not turning away from him until the last possible second.
He watches me walk out. I feel it like a hand between my shoulder blades, warm and grounding.
The night air is cool. The stars are bright.
And my heart?
My heart is a ’67 Shelby fully revved, tires spinning, waiting for him to drop the clutch.
Tomorrow keeps getting closer.
And I think…
I might be ready for a little trouble.