Chapter 15
Holt
I should be at Finn's, sleeping off last night's whiskey, but my truck ended up here instead. Muscle memory. Or maybe just stupidity.
I'm not working. Can't focus enough for that. Just standing in the bay with a wrench in my hand, pretending the Camaro on the lift needs my attention more than the sound of footsteps overhead. She's moving around up there, getting ready for him, and the wrench feels heavier than it should.
I hear her coming down the stairs—that specific rhythm, the way she takes them too fast like she's always in a hurry to get somewhere. The door opens and I don't turn around, but I know the exact moment she steps into the garage because the air changes. Or maybe I'm just that far gone.
Through the window, I watch a truck pull up.
Too clean. Navy blue, barely a scratch on it, the kind of truck that's never seen real work.
Grant Holloway gets out wearing a polo shirt and nice jeans and a confident smile, and everything about him screams easy, safe, uncomplicated. Everything I'm not.
He sees Scout and his smile widens, the kind of reaction I've seen before when someone notices her for the first time—like she's the only thing worth looking at.
"You look great."
She does. Jeans and a white tank top, hair pulled back, sunglasses pushed up on her head. Not the dress. I noticed that immediately, even though I was trying not to look.
"Thanks," she says, and there's a smile in her voice but it doesn't sound like the one she uses with me or even the one she uses with Finn. It sounds polite.
They get in his truck and she's laughing at something he said, and then the engine starts—smooth, quiet, well-maintained—and they're gone.
The garage feels emptier than it did five minutes ago.
I stand there with the wrench still in my hand, staring at the spot where his truck was parked, and Finn's voice echoes in my head: Do something, you stubborn bastard.
But what? Chase after her? Tell her what—that I'm a fucking coward who can't handle the idea of her getting hurt, that every time I think about letting her in my chest seizes up and all I can see is everything that could go wrong, that I had my chance and didn't take it?
I go back to pretending the wrench matters.
Scout
My phone buzzes. Grant: See you soon! and I stare at it, waiting for something to happen in my chest, the flutter, the nerves, anything.
Nothing.
Right.
Okay. I'm putting on emotional armor for a coffee date and feeling nothing when a nice guy texts me.
This is fine.
Everything's fine.
Grant's truck smells like pine air freshener and new leather and control, which is maybe a weird thing to smell but that's what it is—everything's so clean and organized it feels deliberate, like he spent time making sure there wasn't a single receipt or empty cup or random tool.
And okay yes I'm comparing this to Holt's truck which is basically a mobile junkyard of socket wrenches and empty water bottles and that's not fair, Grant's truck is nice, Grant is nice, stop comparing everything to Holt for five seconds, Scout, Jesus.
"Thanks for saying yes," Grant says as we pull onto the main road and the sun's already vicious even though it's barely ten, heat shimmering off the asphalt in waves, sweat already gathering at the back of my neck. "I wasn't sure you would."
"Why not?" I'm fiddling with my seatbelt and I need to stop fiddling with the seatbelt.
He glances over, then back to the road, and there's this pause like he's deciding how honest to be. "You seemed... I mean, you and that guy—Holt?"
My stomach drops straight through the floorboards and I'm gripping the seatbelt now instead of fiddling with it. "It's complicated."
"Yeah, I figured." He grins and it's understanding, not pushy, which somehow makes it worse. "I'm not trying to, like, step on anyone's toes here. Just thought coffee couldn't hurt."
"No. Yeah. Coffee's good." Coffee's safe, coffee's easy, coffee's what normal people do on dates instead of standing in garages having loaded silences that mean everything and nothing.
He turns up the radio—country music, and asks me where I'm from, how I ended up here, all the normal first-date questions, and I'm giving him the edited version because the real version involves a wedding dress and a full-scale panic attack and that's not exactly "let me tell you about my charming backstory" material.
His hands are steady on the wheel, no tapping or fidgeting, just easy confidence, and I watch the desert blur past—scrub brush and red rock and sky that goes on forever—and my chest feels tight and I don't know why.
The coffee shop's cute in that deliberate way where someone definitely looked at Pinterest first. Exposed brick, hanging plants that are somehow thriving in this heat, indie music at exactly the right volume, and it smells like espresso and cinnamon and every first date I've ever heard about but never actually had.
There's a chalkboard menu with too many options in perfect cursive and I already feel out of place, like I should've worn the dress after all, or at least not shown up with motor oil still under my fingernails no matter how hard I scrubbed.
Grant orders black coffee and then looks at me, just waits, doesn't assume. "What do you want?"
"Iced vanilla latte. Extra shot."
"Living dangerous." He grins and pays before I can dig out my wallet, which is nice, he's being nice, normal nice, first-date nice.
We sit by the window where the light's good and you can people-watch, and Grant's completely relaxed, leaning back in his chair like he does this all the time, like dating is easy for him.
"So how long have you been at Ward & Weller? "
"Few months."
"You like it?"
"I love it." That part's true, easy to say—the work, the routine, the way my hands stay busy and my brain shuts up when I'm buried in an engine, the way Holt's silence doesn't demand anything except that I exist in the same space and Finn makes me laugh until I can't breathe and—shit, I'm thinking about them again.
Stop thinking about them. Focus on Grant.
Grant who's right here, asking questions, being interested.
"That's great. Holt and Finn seem like good guys. Finn's hilarious." He pauses and I can feel what's coming. "Holt's... intense."
I'm very focused on the condensation dripping down my cup.
"He's quiet. Takes a while to warm up."
"Has he? Warmed up to you?"
There's something in how he asks it, like he already knows, like it's written all over my face in permanent marker.
"I think so."
Grant doesn't look convinced but he doesn't push, just launches into this story about a customer who tried to fix his transmission with duct tape, and I laugh because it is funny, he's good at this, good at talking and filling space and making it comfortable, and this is nice, this is exactly what a first date should be.
So why do I feel like I'm watching it happen to someone else?
He's talking about a car show now, classic Mustangs lined up in the sun, and all I can think is how Holt would've just said "duct tape fixes everything but stupid" and it would've been funnier than this entire story, how Holt's silences make me want to fill them, make every word feel like it matters because he actually listens, really listens, instead of just waiting for his turn to talk.
How right now, with Grant being perfect and interested and everything I'm supposed to want, I'm bored out of my skull.
The coffee tastes fine. Grant's laugh is warm. His smile reaches his eyes. And none of it touches me. Not the way my pulse jumps when Holt looks at me, not the way my skin goes electric when I make him almost-smile, not the way the temperature shifts when he walks into a room.
"—and the guy says, 'But it was working fine yesterday!'" Grant finishes, shaking his head. "They always say that."
"Yeah." I'm smiling but I'm not here. "They do."
He picks up his coffee and studies me over the rim. "You okay? You seem like you're somewhere else."
Fuck.
"No, I'm good. Just—" scrambling for literally anything that's not the truth, "—thinking about this Dodge we've got coming in Monday and whether it's the alternator or something deeper—"
"Scout." He sets his cup down, gentle but firm. "It's okay. You don't have to make excuses."
My throat's tight. "I'm not—"
"It's the complicated thing. Holt." He's not mad, doesn't even look hurt, just understanding, which is somehow worse than if he were pissed. "You want to walk around? Get some air?"
"Yeah. Okay." Because staying here feels like drowning and at least outside I can pretend the heat's why I'm uncomfortable.
He just walks beside me with his hands in his pockets, pointing out the bookstore across the street like this is fine, like I didn't just mentally abandon our date mid-conversation.
Inside it's cooler but not by much, and Grant picks up a sci-fi novel with a spaceship on the cover. "Have you read this? It's incredible."
"Not yet."
"I'll lend it to you. If you, you know, if you want." He's still trying, still being nice about this disaster.
"Sure. Thanks."
We drift next door to the thrift shop and bells chime over the door, dust motes floating in the slanted light, and he points out a vintage typewriter in the window. Black and cream, keys worn smooth from decades of use. "You seem like someone who'd appreciate this."
He's right. I do. Old things that still work, that carry stories in their dents and scratches.
But I'm looking at it and there's nothing—no spark, no flutter.
Grant's close enough that I ought to notice his cologne or his warmth or something, but I don't. There's just pleasant company and the crushing awareness that pleasant isn't enough.