26. George
George
I roll my shoulder, wincing as the familiar ache flares up again. It’s been nagging me for days.
I’m still in the office at the shop, making some calls almost all afternoon. The last one ends the same way the others did. I thank the guy for his time, hang up, and sit there staring at the office wall for a while after the line goes dead.
Three days of calls and the math still comes back wrong.
The 504 program needs ninety days minimum to process and I have sixty, which means it’s useless no matter how good the application looks on paper.
The Small Business Administration loan I already carry blocks me from applying for a second one while the balance is active.
The Veterans Affairs vocational rehabilitation track Carter used to buy into the shop is exhausted, nothing left there either.
Every option crashes into the same wall underneath it. Timing. Always timing.
I’ve run the numbers enough times now to know running them again isn’t going to magically produce a different answer. They’re not just circling. They’ve already got people in position.
Tired of looking at it, I shove the ProMotive letter back in the drawer and set off for the bay.
The overheads stay off. The work lamp above the back bench throws enough light to work by and that’s all I need. I drag a stool over and sit down at the bench where I’ve spent most nights this week pretending I’m troubleshooting something mechanical instead of my own life.
The tools line the wall exactly the way my father kept them. Wrenches by size. Screwdrivers on the second row. Ratchets underneath. I hung them the same way when we opened.
The youth mechanics calendar is still pinned above the break room door. Saturday’s session is circled red.
My eyes are on that when I hear a car pull into the back lot.
Engine cuts. A door shuts. A minute later, the rear entry opens.
Lance appears, still wearing his post-shift clothes: jeans and a gray pullover with the sleeves pushed up. He stops just inside the door and takes in the dark bay.
“You ignoring me on purpose?” he asks. “Because I sent, like, four texts.”
I check my phone sitting beside the notebook. Silent mode.
“Sorry. Missed them.”
“I was deciding whether to be offended.” He sets what looks like a bag of my favorite tacos from this place I normally frequent.
He also fishes out a couple of muscle tapes from the bag.
“Picked these up from the pharmacy. You were complaining about your shoulders the other day. Figured I’d save you from creaking around like a rusty gate. ”
He slows when he sees the notebook open on the bench beside me. Columns of numbers, loan programs and deadlines. The circled sixty at the bottom of the page.
His expression changes, not dramatically. Lance doesn’t do pity. He just acts.
He pulls the second stool over and sits beside me, knees almost touching mine.
“Okay,” he encourages. “Talk to me.”
I glance at the notebook.
I’ve been carrying this thing around alone long enough that I don’t realize how exhausted I am of it until somebody else offers to shoulder part of the weight.
I tell him everything about the buyout ProMotive has been pushing.
I explain the calls I’ve made this week, the programs I looked into.
How each one falls apart the moment I consider them.
I walk him through the timing problem that keeps popping back no matter how I approach it.
I lay out what Carter’s buyout requires, what happens to the shop if I can’t cover it in time.
What it would look like if ProMotive takes over this place.
Lance listens without interrupting once.
When I’m done, he picks up the notebook and actually reads it, turning back through the previous pages slowly, brows pulled together in concentration.
“Carter hasn’t filed formal notice yet,” he says eventually.
“No.”
“So technically the clock hasn’t started.”
I lean back slightly on the stool. “Doesn’t change the numbers.”
“No.” Lance taps the pencil lightly against the notebook. “But it changes how cornered you actually are.”
“I’m still pretty cornered.”
“Okay,” he says, eyes meeting mine, “but are you actually out of options, or have you reached the point where you’re stress-researching loan programs at three in the morning and convincing yourself the apocalypse is legally binding?”
I look at him. “That feels a little targeted.”
“It feels earned.”
Despite myself, I let out a short laugh.
Lance nods once, clearly satisfied with dragging that reaction out of me, then sweeps his gaze around the shop again, properly this time. The lifts, workbenches, the old signs hanging on the far wall.
“You built something good here, George.”
I don’t know what to do with that information.
He simply shrugs. “So, we keep looking. Community lenders. Private capital. Structured payout options. Something.”
“We?”
He gives me a look. “Yeah, sweetheart. We.”
I shake my head almost to myself. We spend the next hour going through every angle we can think of. Some ideas die fast. A few actually have legs. Lance catches details I missed from being buried too deep in the problem for too long.
I roll my shoulder again. The pain’s a bit bad tonight.
Lance notices immediately. He sets the notebook aside. “Okay. Enough of that for now.”
Before I can argue, his hands are on my shoulders.
His thumbs dig into the tight knots. The pressure is perfect, bordering on painful in the best way.
Every deep knead sends heat spreading down my back and lower.
He keeps calmly talking the whole time, throwing out more ideas for the shop like he’s not currently turning my body into liquid.
I’ve felt his hands on me before. It’s not the first time he gave me a quick massage, but tonight hits different.
The sure way he works the muscle. It’s always done something to me, even years ago when I told myself it didn’t.
Now, there’s no pretending. My heart is doing something entirely different—softening, sinking, swelling with how much I want him.
By the time he’s done, I’m breathing harder than I should be, half-hard and aching in more ways than one.
We stay there, eyes on each other. It’s quiet except for the low hum of the old fridge and the occasional car passing outside.
Light from the work lamp catches the side of his face, showing every line of exhaustion and the fact that he’s still here, trying to bear some of this weight with me anyway.
Tonight, I see it all clearly—the effort, care, and the fact that he’s sitting in my shop with my worst week numbers spread out between us.
Something in me finally gives up pretending I’m still in control.
Since we started this, I’ve made myself believe that it’s his exploration, his timeline. My job is to stay inside whatever lines he draws. Right now, every part of me wants to cross every fucking line.
I reach over and grip the back of his neck. Lance’s head jerks up, eyes wide with surprise, but I don’t give him a chance to speak. I pull him in hard.
The kiss hits like a breaking point. All the restraint I’ve been carrying since Azure Tides comes crashing down at once.
I kiss him like I’ve been dying to for months—hungry, desperate, with every bit of frustration and want I’ve tried to bury.
Lance makes a startled sound against my mouth, his body tensing for a heartbeat before his hands fist my shirt.
I don’t let him decide. I grip his waist tighter and yank him forward, lifting him off the stool and backing him against the bench in one rough motion.
He gasps into the kiss, arms wrapping around my shoulders as I press my body fully against his, pinning him there.
My heart is hammering so hard it feels like it might crack my ribs.
We’ve barely started, yet he already looks wrecked enough to ruin my ability to think straight.
“Hey,” he whispers. That single word does considerable damage already.
I drag my mouth along his jaw and down to his throat, finding the spot below his ear I’ve been thinking about since that night on Vince’s couch. He tips his head back with a sharp inhale.
His fingers dig into my shoulders as he lets out a low, filthy moan.
Christ. I could live off that sound.
“George,” he murmurs against my lips, my own name vibrating through me.
I pull back a bit so I can enjoy the view before me. His mouth is swollen, hair a mess, eyes glazed and dark. He seems already deliciously fucked out.
He blinks slowly, then gives me a crooked grin.
“If you keep looking at me like that, Big Guy, I’m not responsible for what happens next.”
I kiss that fucking mouth before it can say anything else.