Chapter 6
Ethan
Lucky disrupts my morning before I even see her.
I wake at six, same as every day. Coffee. Quick shower. Lily’s lunch is packed even though she gets one from the school cafeteria—muscle memory I haven’t bothered to rewire. Then, a perimeter check around the yard. Habit, not paranoia.
One might call it 'vibing ex-military energy at civilians.'
The house is quiet. Predictable. Ordered.
Until it isn’t.
A dull thud carries across the yard. Then another. Then a muffled, drawn-out curse that is absolutely, unmistakably female and absolutely, unmistakably her.
Lucky.
Of course, it’s her.
I try to ignore it. I genuinely do. I go into the garage office, open my laptop, and read the same line three times without absorbing a word.
The strategic proposal for—
Thud.
Caution should be exercised when—
Thud.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter under my breath.
I push my chair back harder than necessary. Through the narrow window, I catch sight of her on the porch, wrestling with two enormous boxes stacked wrong-side-up, as if gravity personally insulted her. She shoulders one, stumbles, and kicks it like it insulted her first.
The box wins.
I rub a hand over my face. She’s been here what—two weeks? And somehow she’s broken the sound barrier without technically doing anything wrong. She just… exists loudly. Even when she isn’t speaking.
Noise follows her the way quiet follows me.
And she orders everything online. Everything. Half the time, she’s not home when deliveries arrive, so the driver leaves them with me—apparently, I look like someone trustworthy. That’s how I learned her legal surname. Vale.
Not that she’s ever introduced herself with it.
But Lily said she introduced herself as Lucky, so that’s what I call her. Lucky, or Lu, when she signs the notes she leaves taped to my door to thank me for collecting things.
Who she really is…well… I’m not sure she’s tethered to a single version of herself. Not yet.
But the parcels keep coming. Cosmetics. Cables. Books. Art supplies. Protein bars. Once, bizarrely, a deep freezer she absolutely didn’t have space for.
It shouldn’t matter. None of it should matter.
But it does. It gets under my skin in a way I can’t quite quantify.
I return to my desk. Try to focus. Try to get ahead on the documentation I owe before the weekend. Try to re-establish the peace that usually comes so easily.
Do not get dragged into her hurricane.
I type three words. Delete them. Type two more. Delete again.
Then I hear it. It’s faint at first, carried on the early sun-warmed stillness.
Click-click-click.
Her engine.
Trying and failing.
Again.
Click.
I close my eyes. Count to three.
Of course.
Of course, it’s her.
I stay still for a moment longer than I should, listening to the silence between clicks. Listening to the way my body reacts—annoyance first, but something else right behind it. Something warm, unwelcome, inevitable.
By the fourth click, I’m already on my feet.
I stand, shove the side door of the garage open, and step outside.
The morning is quiet except for her SUV coughing out its last electrical breath. Lucky sits in the driver’s seat, forehead almost touching the wheel, sunglasses tilted crooked like they gave up trying to help her see. Her hair is a mess of dark waves and irritation.
She tries the ignition again.
Click.
Nothing.
She collapses back against the seat with a groan that rolls across the yard—loud, dramatic, and weirdly endearing.
I cross the gravel before I can talk myself out of it. “Having trouble?”
She startles hard, with a full-body jump, and immediately smacks her knee against the steering column. “Ow—shit—why do cars hate me?”
“They don’t hate you.” I fold my arms out of habit, not comfort. She brings out every rigid part of me. “What’s wrong with it?”
“I don’t know.” She flings a hand toward the dashboard. “It just… won’t. Do. Car things. It made a noise. A mean one.”
“A mean noise,” I echo, deadpan. “Solid diagnostic vocabulary.”
She narrows her eyes behind her crooked sunglasses. “Don’t mock the victim.”
I almost smile. Almost. “Try it again.”
She turns the key.
Click.
Dead battery. Predictable.
I let out a slow breath. “Pop the hood.”
She freezes like I just asked her to solve quantum physics. “Which—uh… which button is that?”
I close my eyes for a beat. “Lucky.”
She winces. “Okay, okay, don’t use the voice. You do it.”
“The voice?”
“The ‘disappointed headmaster of life’ voice. Very British. Very judgey.”
This woman.
I lean in, far too close for my own peace, as I find the hood release. She smells like coffee and something faintly sweet, probably whatever lotion she uses. The scent hits harder than it should.
I open the hood.
Lucky gets out and hovers beside me, arms wrapped around herself like the engine might leap out and demand a duel. She rocks forward on her toes, squinting into the dark tangle of metal and wires.
“It looks complicated,” she whispers, like the car might be listening.
“It’s not.”
“Well, it feels complicated. Emotionally.”
I glance at her. She’s serious. Or pretending to be, which with her is the same thing.
Something tightens low in my chest. Not annoyance—something more dangerous.
“Stay back,” I say quietly.
“From the car?” Her brows lift. “Or from you?”
I don’t answer fast enough.
Her lips twitch.
I look back at the battery before she can see the heat rising in my neck.
Her voice is small. “So… what’s the diagnosis, Doctor Mechanic?”
“It’s dead,” I say.
She sighs, long and theatrical. “Great. Fantastic. I love when machines betray me before noon.”
I look at her properly this time. Another baggy jumper, leggings, layers hanging off her like she’s afraid the sun might touch her.
It’s June. Warm enough that normal people aren’t dressing for October.
Maybe she’s got terrible circulation. Or perhaps this is just what passes for style where she’s from.
City butterheads would probably call it intentional.
The thought almost makes me laugh. Almost.
“Great. Amazing. Perfect. Love that for me.” She kicks a pebble, doesn’t even graze it, then pretends that was the plan all along. “Can I… revive it with positive thoughts?”
“No.”
“With caffeine?”
“No.”
“With, I don’t know, unfocused rage and a playlist?”
I give her a look, the kind that should answer the next five questions she hasn’t asked yet. She deflates with a dramatic sigh. “Fine. How do I fix it?”
“You don’t.” I nod toward my driveway. “I’ll get my truck. We’ll jump it.”
Her expression softens like I’ve just offered her a puppy. “You’re helping me?”
“It’s either that or listen to you swear at the engine for the next hour.”
“That’s fair,” she says, because even she can’t argue with that.
I grab the jumper cables from the garage and pull the truck around. She watches me hook things up with wide, fascinated eyes—as if I’m performing open-heart surgery, not clipping metal to metal.
“This looks very… science,” she says.
“It isn’t.”
“Still science-y.”
I double-check the clamps, then straighten. “Alright. When I start the truck, your SUV should get enough charge. Don’t touch anything.”
“I’ll just stand here. Looking pretty.”
I shouldn’t look.
But, I do.
And she is pretty. Her messy hair, tired eyes, one knee smudged with what looks like dried paint. Chaotic, disorganized, completely opposite of everything I prefer. And beautiful.
Focus.
I start my truck; the engine rumbles to life.
“Start your car.”
She climbs back in and turns the ignition. The SUV coughs. Fails. Then—on the next attempt—it turns over with a reluctant growl.
Lucky lights up instantly. She’s all relief, pride, and raw, unfiltered emotion, like someone just told her the world is survivable after all.
“Oh my god, Ethan, you’re a genius.” she says, jumping back out toward me.
“Hardly.” I cut the truck’s engine. “But your leasing company should replace that battery. It’s their job.”
She groans. “Ugh, don’t remind me I’m a functioning adult.”
“That’s debatable.”
Her mouth drops open, scandalized. “Wow. Wow. Uncalled for.”
“You asked.”
“No, I didn’t!”
The corners of my mouth betray me, twitching upward, almost a smile.
She sees it. Her own smile shifts, softening, and for a split second, something warms the air between us. Quick, subtle, dangerous.
I disconnect the cables, coil them properly, and shut her hood with a solid click.
“There,” I say. “Try not to kill it again.”
“No promises.” She tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “But… thanks. Really.”
The sincerity hits harder than it should. I look away before it shows.
“Next time,” I tell her, “come get me before the car dies.”
“And interrupt your mysterious garage-hermit routine? Never.”
I turn toward my garage before she can catch the heat climbing up my neck.
Because the truth is simple, and unsettling:
I heard her engine struggling, and I came running.
And I’m not sure I hate that.
The afternoon moves the way I like it: quiet, structured, predictable. I’m at the workbench in the garage office, closing out a report and re-checking the diagnostics on a motion-sensor unit. The kind of task that keeps my hands busy and my mind steady.
The school bus hisses to a stop outside.
Right on time.
A moment later, the garage door swings open and Lily steps inside, backpack sliding off one shoulder, her smile easy and familiar.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Hey, peanut.” I crouch so she can hug me—she always does, even though she claims she’s “basically a teenager.” “Good day?”
She shrugs dramatically. “Math was boring. Lunch was weird. Colt tripped over his shoelaces again.”
“So… standard Tuesday.”
“Exactly.” She grins and plops onto the stool beside my workbench, swinging her legs. “Whatcha doing?”
“Trying to fix something someone broke,” I say, which is technically true. “How was the ride?”
“Fine. The driver played old music again. Like, ancient.” She shudders playfully, then glances toward the open garage door. “Is Lucky home?”
Before I can answer, a sound drifts through the air.
Soft. Low. Melodic.
A single guitar chord. Then another—slow, testing, as if feeling out the edges of a memory.
Lily tilts her head. “That’s… new.”
Not entirely. We’ve heard music from that house before—muffled, background, the kind of playlist noise you assume comes from speakers someone forgot to turn off.
But this—this is different.
This is live. Her.
Then her voice joins the guitar. Unpolished, intimate—like something she only sings when she thinks no one’s listening. The sound threads through the yard, slips into the garage, and hits somewhere low in my chest, where I don’t usually let anything reach.
Lily’s eyes go wide. “She’s terrific.”
I swallow. “Yeah.”
I don’t mean for it to come out soft. It just does.
Lily slides off the stool and pads to the garage window, pressing her palms to the smudged glass. “Dad… she’s outside. On her back patio. Sitting on the step with her guitar.”
I move beside her before I think about it—slow, cautious. Lily shifts to give me room.
Through the window, I can just make out Lucky on the small concrete patio behind her place. Cross-legged. Guitar balanced against her knee. Head bowed slightly, hair spilling forward. She strums again—hesitant but steadying—and hums a few bars.
Something in me loosens. Or breaks. Hard to tell.
Lily whispers, “Can I go listen?”
Her voice is full of that bright, earnest hope kids have before the world teaches them to mute it.
I nod. “Stay in the yard.”
She’s already halfway down the property. “I will!”
I watch her cross the grass—slow, polite, giving Lucky plenty of space—while that voice drifts through the warm air, turning the whole backyard into something softer than it was a minute ago.
Lucky doesn’t see me watching.
Good.
Because I’m not sure how to explain the way everything inside me shifted the moment she started to sing.