8. Jessica #2
His taillights disappeared down the road.
I sat in the silence, breathing, unclenching my hands one finger at a time.
Then I started the engine, pulled out of the lot, drove home, locked my apartment door behind me, walked to the bathroom, turned the shower on as hot as it would go, stepped in, and stood under the water with my forehead against the tile while the heat poured down my spine and my hands shook against the wall and the place on my back where his palm had been slowly, slowly stopped burning.
The workshop smelled like motor oil and sawdust and the warmth of a space that had been closed up in the afternoon sun.
I climbed onto the workbench with my coffee and swung my legs and the rhythm of it — the familiar perch, the worn wood under my palms, the sound of Hunter working underneath the truck — unwound something the shower hadn't been able to reach.
My shoulders dropped. My jaw unclenched.
The workshop did what the workshop had always done — it made the world the right size again.
I started talking.
"So I get there," I said, tucking one leg under me and cradling the mug in both hands.
"And he's already ordered the wine. Already poured it.
Already decided which appetizers we're sharing.
I haven't even put my bag down and this man has planned my evening like it's a military operation and I'm the civilian who just needs to follow orders. "
The sound of Hunter's wrench under the truck. Steady. Rhythmic.
"And for about twelve minutes — twelve, Hunt, I was counting — he's charming.
Asks the right questions. Leans in when I talk.
I'm sitting there thinking maybe you were being overprotective, maybe this is just a guy with a pushy mother and an overenthusiastic handshake.
" I took a sip of coffee. "And then minute thirteen shows up, and it's all downhill. "
I did Garrett's voice — the drawl, the hand flourish. "'She'll have the filet, medium rare, with the roasted vegetables.' Like I'm a golden retriever at a steakhouse. Like I don't have a mouth and a menu and opinions about fucking vegetables."
The wrench stopped moving.
"So I correct it. Politely. Calmly. And his face does this —" I demonstrated the micro-flash, tightening my own jaw for a fraction of a second and then snapping the smile back into place. "Gone. Just gone. Like a light flickering. And then he's laughing and apologizing and touching my arm."
I did the re-enactment. Touched my own arm, pulled it away, touched it again, pulled it away, touched it a third time. "Three times, Hunt. I moved my arm three times. At what point does a man acknowledge that the arm is not interested?"
Silence from underneath the truck.
"And then —" I put on the voice again. Smooth.
Magnanimous. The benevolent drawl of a man bestowing wisdom.
"'You must be relieved to be back somewhere where people take care of their women.
' Take care of their women, Hunt. Their.
Women. Like I'm a fucking potted plant somebody left on a windowsill. "
Hunter slid out from under the truck. He sat up on the floor and looked at me. His jaw was set, and his eyes had gone dark — the same register from Dottie's, except heavier now. The man sitting on the floor in front of me was someone I hadn't fully met yet.
My performance died in my throat. The funny drained out of the room.
"Could have told you that," he said.
"You did, actually. In a few words. At Dottie's. Really illuminating. The specificity was overwhelming."
The corner of his mouth moved. Barely. Then it stopped.
"He's not what he looks like, Jess."
"I know that now."
“No. You don't." Low. Level. The words carried weight I could feel in my sternum. "Be careful. I mean it. I know you never listen to a thing I say, but listen to me now.”
The workshop was quiet. The truck engine ticked as it cooled. His eyes held mine, and the look in them was something I couldn't fully read — serious, yes, but more than that. Layered. Something pressing against the surface that he was keeping down with visible effort.
I should have pressed him. Because Hunter Blackwood didn’t tell me what to do. Not ever. Not like that. And the fact that he was saying it now — twice, the second time harder — should have told me everything I needed to know.
I didn't push. Pushing meant staying in it. Staying in it meant sitting on this bench looking at his face while he talked about another man wanting me and something about the geometry of that felt like standing too close to something I wasn't ready to name.
I hopped off the bench. My hand found his forearm on the way past — bare below the rolled sleeve, warm skin over hard muscle that tensed and released beneath my fingers in a single, involuntary pulse that I felt in my palm like a heartbeat.
Gravel crunched beneath my boots as I went to my car.
The late sun was warm on my arms. Hunter’s forearm was still warm on my fingertips.
And driving home with the window down and the dust-sweet air filling the cab, the two sensations sat side by side in my body like two different languages — Garrett's palm on my back that my skin was still trying to scrub off, and Hunter's arm under my hand that my fingers were still holding onto.
One burned. One held.
And the difference between those two things was a locked door and an open one. One door held a room someone else furnished and the other a space where I could breathe.
My body knew which one it wanted to walk through. My body had known since the moment I fixed his collar my first night here.
I just wasn't ready to reach for the handle.
And the waiting — the not-reaching, the not-hearing, the stubborn refusal to look at what my own hands were telling me — was going to cost me more than I could possibly have known.
More than I was equipped to imagine, driving home that evening with the window down and the dust on my skin and his voice still sitting in me like a warning I'd swallowed whole.
Be careful. I mean it.
He meant it. He meant it more than he'd ever meant anything. And I wasn't listening — not the way I should have been. Not the way that would have changed what came next.