Page 124 of Rising Heat

“Looks good on you.”

Her eyes meet mine, neither of us saying anything for a while.

Then she smiles.

“So…”

She nods toward the Grand National.

“You do this a lot?” she asks. “Just…come down here at night?”

I can’t help the smirk I feel spreading across my face.

“When something needs doing.”

“And tonight?”

I set the torque wrench down and look at her. She’s already watching me, that natural curiosity on her face like she’d rather have the real answer than the easy one.

“My hands needed something to do.”

She bites her lip and I fight the urge to follow suit.

“Something on your mind?”

“Something like that.”

She looks down at her hands, picking at her nails, like she’s weighing her next words carefully.

“Is it weird? For you?”

She doesn’t have to explain what she means.

I think about it for a second.

A week ago I would’ve said yes without hesitation. I’d have told myself we’d complicated things for no good reason.

Instead she’s sitting on the stool in my garage while I work, laundry forgotten beside the washing machines, and it feels normal.

“No,” I say.

Her eyebrows lift.

“No?”

I shake my head.

“Not weird.”

That makes her smile.

I pick up the torque wrench and go back to work. She doesn’t fill the silence or reach for her phone. She just sits there watching while I finish tightening the last bolt, asking the occasional question whenever curiosity gets the better of her.

She heads back upstairs around ten-thirty, laundry basket balanced against one hip, finally remembering why she came down in the first place. I hear the basement door close, then her footsteps cross the ceiling toward the kitchen.

The garage settles around me once again—the car, the tools, the occasional clank of metal.

For a long time this was the place I came when I needed to clear my head. Tonight, for the first time I can remember, it isn’t the thing I’m looking forward to coming back to.