Chapter 2 #5
Not "I was" paying attention. Present tense. Ongoing. He's still doing it.
Despite the chaos, things are getting done.
The desk is cleaner than it's been in years probably.
Invoices filed correctly in their proper color-coded folders.
Every phone call answered without saying anything that could be considered a fireable offense.
Bolts mostly collected—we'll probably be finding strays for weeks but that's future Scout's problem. Nothing actively on fire.
I'm calling this a win.
Mid-afternoon the heat becomes unbearable. The kind that makes you question every life choice that led you to a place where air feels like soup. I'm sprawled in the office chair, fan pointed directly at my face, dignity completely abandoned.
"How do you people live here?" I don't bother sitting up. Can't. The heat's won. "This isn't weather. This is a threat. This is assault. This is—I need to file a complaint with God about this. Where's the suggestion box for the universe?"
Finn walks past, not even sweating, which seems unfair. "You get used to it."
"I don't want to get used to it. I want to stage a protest. I want to write my congressman. I want to move to Alaska."
"Alaska's cold."
"Good. Cold sounds amazing. Cold sounds like heaven. I would kill for cold right now."
"Give it time. You'll adjust."
"I will never adjust. I will tolerate. I will survive. But adjust? Love this heat? No. Never. Not happening. You could offer me a million dollars and I would still hate this."
"Get in line for the complaint box. That line's two thousand people deep and they all live in Coyote Bend."
"This town is a mistake."
"Welcome home."
"This is not home. Home has air conditioning. Home has reasonable temperatures that don't make you want to die. Home doesn't require you to drink your weight in water just to survive until sunset."
I'm about to continue my heat-induced rant when cold presses against my arm.
I yelp, jerking upright, and find Holt standing there. Right there, closer than expected, suddenly in my space. He's holding a water bottle—condensation forming on the plastic, droplets running down the sides—and he tosses it. I catch it on reflex.
"Drink it," he says. His voice is low, quieter than usual. "You haven't had water in two hours."
I blink at him. At the cold bottle in my hands. At him standing there watching me, grease on his forearms, hair damp with sweat, completely serious. "How do you—"
"I'm paying attention."
There it is again. That phrase. He walks away before I can respond, before I can process what it means that he's been tracking my water intake in between fixing cars and running a business and doing whatever else he does all day.
I sit there with the cold bottle, pressing it against my forehead, my neck, my wrists where my pulse hammers. That warmth in my chest grows, spreads, settles deeper somewhere behind my ribs. Roots itself in a place I didn't know was empty until something filled it.
He's paying attention. To me. Not just whether I'm doing my job or filing things correctly. To whether I'm drinking water. Whether I'm okay. Whether I need something I haven't asked for.
Finn catches my eye from across the garage. Grins. Mouths: told you so.
I unscrew the bottle and drink. The water's cold enough to hurt, perfect, exactly what I needed.
By five I'm exhausted in a good way. Accomplished exhausted. The kind that comes from doing something productive instead of just surviving. Instead of running.
Finn starts shutting down—music cutting off, tools getting put away in places they probably don't belong but at least they're off the floor.
I finish filing the last invoice, wipe down the desk that's now actually functional, turn off the computer that I learned how to use approximately six hours ago.
I look at my work and feel something close to pride.
The desk is organized. Invoices filed in a system that makes sense. Phone calls answered without major incident. The bucket incident notwithstanding, I didn't destroy anything irreplaceable.
"You survived," Finn says, appearing at my desk. "Congratulations. You made it through day one without getting fired, injured, or buried under invoices. That's basically winning."
I slump dramatically, every muscle protesting. "Barely."
"You did good, Gremlin. Really." He's sincere now, the humor dropping away. "You made it through the first day. That's something. That's everything, actually."
Holt appears, wiping grease off his hands with a rag that's probably making them worse. He looks at the desk—takes a long moment to assess it, his eyes moving over the organized files and labeled folders—and nods once.
That single nod feels like winning a prize. Like accomplishing something huge. Like mattering.
"Tomorrow," he says. Just that. "Seven AM."
"I'll be here."
He heads for the stairs and I watch him go, watch the way he moves—that slight hesitation in his stride, the careful weight distribution, the way he favors his left side just barely. The prosthetic. The pain. The couch.
All of it my fault.
By the time I climb the stairs, I'm so tired I can barely think. My legs are shaking. My feet hurt. My brain feels like static. Holt's already up there—I can hear the shower running, water hitting tile. I collapse into a chair at the small table and just breathe.
The shower cuts off. Holt emerges, hair damp and dark, clean t-shirt soft and worn, smelling like soap and something clean.
He sees me sprawled in the chair like I've been murdered and his face does a complicated thing—concern flickering across it before smoothing out, relief maybe that I made it through, something else I can't read.
"You did fine today," he says.
I look up. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Even with the bucket incident? Because I feel like the bucket incident should disqualify me from 'fine.' The bucket incident was a disaster. A catastrophe. The bucket incident will probably go down in shop history as the worst thing that's ever happened."
His lips curve—just barely, just enough that I know I'm not imagining it. "Especially the bucket incident. Kept Finn entertained all afternoon. He's still finding bolts."
I laugh, exhausted but real. The sound fills the space, echoes in the small loft, and his face changes again—goes softer, stays longer, something warm in his eyes.
"Could be worse," I say.
"Could be better. I could be graceful. Competent. The kind of person who doesn't declare war on basic office supplies and lose."
"Where's the fun in that?"
I blink at him. Did Holt Ward just make a joke? An actual joke? This feels significant. This feels like progress. "Did you just—"
He's already moving toward the couch, picking up his book from the side table, settling into what passes for his routine now. "Get some rest. Tomorrow's going to be long."
"Great. Can't wait. Love long days in hell's armpit." I push myself up, every muscle protesting the movement. "Oh—wait. I made you lunch. For tomorrow. It's in the fridge."
He stops. Goes completely still. Then turns to look at me, and there's a change in his eyes—surprise, definitely surprise, maybe relief or gratitude or something else he won't name. Something vulnerable that he's trying to hide but not quite managing.
"You didn't have to do that," he says quietly, and his voice has gone rougher.
"I know. But you didn't have to either, and you did anyway.
" I hold his gaze, trying to make him understand that this matters, that I see what he did.
"So. Yeah. Turkey and cheese. I didn't know what you like, so I just made what you made for me.
Seemed fair. Reciprocal. I can do reciprocity. That's a thing I can do."
He looks at me for a long moment. The silence stretches, weighted with things neither of us is ready to say out loud. Then he nods slowly. "Thank you."
"You're welcome." The words come out softer than I mean them to.
"Goodnight, Scout."
"Goodnight, Holt."
I retreat to the bedroom, leaving the door cracked—wider than last night, wider than I probably should.
The routine is becoming familiar now. Him on that too-small couch, me in his bed, both of us existing in this strange shared space where the boundaries keep shifting without either of us acknowledging it out loud.
I hear him settle. The springs protest—they always do—and he adjusts once, twice, then goes still. Accepting. Resigned.
His breathing evens out. I can hear pages turning as he reads that thriller with the cracked spine, the soft rustle of paper that's becoming part of my nights here. Part of what home sounds like.
This is becoming normal. The sound of him in the next room. The rhythm of shared space and careful boundaries and small kindnesses that mean more than they should. Coffee in the morning, lunch in a paper bag with my name written careful, water tossed across a garage because he was paying attention.
I'm not home yet. I don't know if I ever will be. Don't know if I deserve to call this home when I took his bedroom and his bed and apparently his peace of mind about whether I'm hydrated.
But lying here in his bed, listening to him breathe in the room beyond, I think maybe this could be it. Maybe Coyote Bend isn't where my car died. Maybe it's where I finally stop running. Where I finally let myself stay.
My dead car is still sitting outside the shop, unfixed and expensive to repair, but somehow that doesn't scare me anymore.
I've got time. I've got a job. I've got a place to stay with a man who catches flying mugs without looking and makes sandwiches like they matter and tracks whether I'm drinking water like it's his job.
I fall asleep to the sound of pages turning, thinking about turkey sandwiches and single nods of approval and the way his voice sounded when he said "I'm paying attention."
Present tense. Ongoing. Still happening.
It meant something. It means something.
I matter.
Maybe I might just survive this after all.