Chapter 4
FOUR
Instead of spending Sunday obsessively reliving her panic attack, Mallory worked a shift at the bakery and turned to the dating app in her spare time. She’d hit it off with a guy named Tyler, a teacher thirty minutes away from Honeysuckle, and they’d already progressed from messaging on the app to exchanging texts. The conversations were pleasant enough, but it was difficult to gauge chemistry through the phone, so plans were made to meet for drinks that Saturday night.
Saturday promised to be a busy day since it was also the library’s used-book sale. Considering Mallory only had a few days to scrounge up silent auction donations, she hit the ground running. Beginning Monday afternoon, she spent her lunch breaks bouncing from business to business in Honeysuckle and the surrounding towns, shamelessly soliciting contributions. Her landlord supplied a one-hundred-dollar gift card to Black Cat Bakery. The pizza joint offered a free slice per month for the next calendar year. And the yoga studio donated a complimentary enrollment in their six-week beginner workshop. Each business owner was eager to help, which boosted her confidence every time she walked into another storefront. It was the perfect exercise to continue pushing herself outside her comfort zone.
It wasn’t until Wednesday afternoon that she faltered. Because once she reached the end of Main Street and laid eyes on Foster Auto Body, flashbacks from that weekend thrashed at her. She’d been dreading his Friday library visit, well aware there was no avoiding him. But seeing Joel a few days earlier would be akin to ripping a Band-Aid off, and her therapist constantly emphasized the need to conquer her tendency to cope via avoidance. Better to face the music now instead of stew in anticipation—that’s what the old Mallory would do, at least. With an encouraging breath, she headed toward his establishment.
The building bustled with activity as she approached. All three garage doors were open, and the sounds of power tools and men shouting commands fluttered over the warm breeze. A burgundy SUV was hoisted in a car lift, with two mechanics working on the undercarriage, while a rusty sedan waited nearby for a new set of tires. The strong smell of motor oil permeated the air, intertwined with the aroma of sweaty men working in the early summer heat. The entire scene was intimidating, and she’d be better suited heading to the main office door, but Mallory wandered closer.
Even with all the commotion, Mallory only had eyes for Joel. He stood near the built-in shelving units lining the wall on the far side of the garage, clad in navy-blue coveralls. The top half of the garment was tied around his sturdy waist, exposing the gray undershirt that clung to his upper body. He hoisted a tire onto his shoulder, and she sweltered at such masculine strength. Her hungry eyes trailed his muscles, engrossed in how they contracted and released with exertion.
Their eyes connected the instant he turned, affixing over the hustle and bustle of the garage. His dark eyebrows rose in surprise, which she acknowledged with an apologetic smile and her quintessential small wave. He placed the tire down, leaning it against the side of the sedan. Small patches of sweat had seeped into his undershirt, and a thin sheen of perspiration covered his brow. Work gloves adorned his hands, so he used his forearm to wipe away the moisture as he drew nearer.
“Everything okay with your car?” he asked in greeting.
“Oh, yes. It’s fine. Perfect, even. Runs like a dream.”
One day she’d figure out how to reply to him with a straight answer, but apparently, that day was not today. She took a second to regroup.
“I’m here on library business,” she told him.
“Oh?”
She quickly explained the silent auction endeavor and asked, “Would you be interested in donating something? It can be anything, really. Free oil change or something like that.”
His alluring mouth twitched. “Did you suggest an oil change because it’s the only thing you know about car maintenance?”
“Guilty,” she joked, holding up her hands in surrender.
A soft laugh bubbled from his chest. “Put us down for a free tune-up.”
Mallory nodded despite not having the slightest inkling what constituted a tune-up. She made a note in her phone, adding the item to her donation list. “Thanks. We appreciate it.”
“Are you accepting books?”
“We are. The sale is on Saturday, so we’re collecting until the day before. Just so long as they aren’t musty and gross,” she added with a grin.
Joel returned her smile with a tentative one of his own. “I’ll bring some on Friday, then.”
Before she could respond, a lean man with a riot of curly dark hair emerged from the undercarriage of the lifted car. Mallory was instantly reminded of her surroundings and realized the men working nearby had stopped to watch them converse like they were goldfish in a bowl.
“It’s the librarian,” the man stage-whispered to Joel, nudging him in the ribs. Then he turned his attention to Mallory, removing his work gloves and shoving them in his back pocket. “How’s it going?”
“Fine, thanks.” Recognizing his voice, she asked, “It’s Tony, right?”
Tony raised his eyebrows and threw a shit-eating grin Joel’s way. “She knows my name.”
“Congratulations,” Joel replied dryly, giving his cousin the side-eye. “You want something?”
Tony ignored the question and threw an arm over Joel’s shoulder. “My cousin is a great guy, you know.”
There was a joke happening that she wasn’t privy to since Joel turned his head and threw Tony a thoroughly exasperated look. But, inexplicably, the silent communication made the hope she’d locked away this past weekend reemerge, knocking on her heart like a weary traveler.
She nodded in agreement and murmured, “I know.”
“Glad we’re all on the same page,” Tony replied as he patted Joel’s sculpted chest with his free hand, which Joel swatted away. The interaction brought a smile to her face; she could easily picture them as young boys roughhousing around Honeysuckle.
Joel shrugged his cousin’s arm off. “Tony, do me a favor and shut the fuck up.”
He said it so succinctly that Mallory giggled. An absurdly girlish sound, so she tucked her chin down against her collarbone, waiting for the unbearable embarrassment to commence. But Joel’s reaction to her laughter—how victory flashed in his eyes and his already noticeable chest puffed out—kept her irrational thoughts confined.
Tony released a barking laugh and signaled to the other mechanic nearby. “We’re going to lunch, boss.”
“Music to my ears,” Joel grumbled.
The men strolled off and headed down Main Street, undoubtedly bound for the deli or pizza joint. After witnessing the auto shop’s earlier commotion, the stillness was significant as she and Joel stood alone. She suppressed the desire to squirm, knowing she couldn’t ignore what had happened at this very location a few days prior, but the words still got caught in her throat.
He removed his work gloves and tossed them onto the hood of the sedan. As he cleaned his hands with a rag, he peered at her cautiously. “Everything okay otherwise?”
“Yes. Great. Really good, even.” There she went again, a nice, plentiful bunch of word vomit. She collected herself and said, “I want to apologize for the other day?—”
“Don’t.”
“But I?—”
He looked her dead in the eye, equal parts fierce and gentle. “Mallory. I think you apologize too much.” Then he cleared his throat and raised his hands in a diplomatic fashion. “Uh, respectfully, that is.”
The amendment was endearing, and the negative tension in her body faded bit by bit. “I guess I was conditioned to always apologize.”
“By the ex with shit taste in music?”
Typically, any reference to her ex-husband conjured a wide range of emotions. Mirth was never one of them, but Joel’s forthright question made her chuckle.
“Shit person with shit taste in music,” she agreed with a wry smile. “You know, he once berated me for hanging toilet paper the wrong way.”
“Ah. Under?”
“Yes,” she confirmed, a semblance of shame persisting.
He shrugged. “I like under. It looks aggressive when it’s hanging over.”
After months of fantasizing about Joel, of imagining him bending her over the circulation desk and having his way with her, she never expected an innocent comment about toilet paper would make her heart soar. But it did.
Her throat tightened, overcome with emotion. She couldn’t form a proper reply or maintain eye contact. Instead, her gaze drifted lower and lingered on his chest, captivated by the small puffs of silver-tinged black hair that peeked out from the top of his gray undershirt. For a few seconds, her entire world revolved around the curve of his pectoral muscles, the vastness of his shoulders, the slopes of his biceps, and the pronounced veins in his forearms—all culminating in those large hands that handled books so delicately.
Gawking at him was nothing new, but she’d graduated to straight-up leering like an animal in heat. She dragged her attention away from his torso, eyes darting around the garage in an attempt to act natural. Even though there was nothing natural about the way she’d just blatantly eye-fucked him.
The old Mallory would be proud, though.
“I should get back to work,” she muttered.
One glance up at Joel, and she abandoned that plan. A light shade of pink tinged his sharp cheekbones, and his dilated golden-brown eyes made her quiver. While no stranger to his intense looks, something was layered into his expression—something so primal her knees weakened. Because the way Joel peered at her was not the stare of acquaintances or newfound friends.
In fact, it was the look he wore in every fantasy she’d constructed since first laying eyes on him. The look that drove her to press the button on her vibrator, upping the pressure until her hips bucked off the bed. She blinked a few times, assuming she’d hallucinated the whole thing, but the sensual episode only deepened the longer they stared at each other. His stormy gaze carefully traveled down the length of her, fixating on the pebbled peaks that obscenely pressed against the linen bodice of her sundress.
Christine.
Christine.
Christine.
There was no phone call to break the moment this time—no shrill sound to pull Mallory back down to earth—so she chanted the name in her mind like the most painful incantation.
“Relationships are tough,” Joel eventually rasped out, fracturing the heady silence.
“I agree.” She paused and looked down at her Oxfords, so polished against the scuffed concrete floor of the garage. “Sometimes I wonder if they’re worth it at all.”
“They are.”
His response was filled with such conviction that she lifted her gaze and caught his eyes. Every moment they’d shared over the past week rushed back to her, and her head spun with the substantial memories she’d created with him in such a short span of time.
That little spark of hope within her simply couldn’t be extinguished. Not while one question remained unasked. Her mouth opened, the inquiry on the tip of her tongue.
This might be too forward, but can I ask what the situation is with your ex-wife?
In the end, she couldn’t summon the courage to ask. The woman she’d once been—the one she wanted more than anything to bolster back to life—was still woefully dormant.
With a quick glance at her wristwatch, she smiled contritely. “I really do need to get back.”
“Of course, yeah. I’ll see you Friday.”
She whirled around and proceeded down the driveway, but his rumbling voice stopped her.
“Hey, Mallory?”
“Hmm?” she said, glancing over her shoulder.
Joel stepped forward, leaning against the garage-door frame. He gestured toward her and said, “That’s a pretty dress, by the way. Brings out your eyes.”
The cornflower-blue sundress was nothing special, but his compliment made it feel like the finest haute couture. A smile extended across her face, and bliss zipped down from her head to her toes.
“Thank you.”
The flicker in her chest billowed into a tiny fire, warming her insides, and the thawing process commenced. While not completely defrosted, she’d taken steps that had stoked the fire, and the return of the old Mallory didn’t seem quite so impossible anymore.
As she walked back toward the library, there was an extra pep in her step and a goal in her mind.
Friday. She’d ask him about Christine on Friday.
Maybe there was hope for her yet.