The garage smelled like grease and old coffee and the particular sweetness of coolant that had been sitting in a drip pan for too long. Rowan Kincaid had been on her knees beside Mrs. Delgado's touring bike for the better part of two hours, and her back was starting to protest in that specific way it did when she ignored it for too long. She ignored it anyway. The work was almost done. Almost done was not done.

The radio on the shelf behind her was playing something with a good guitar riff, and she hummed along without thinking about it. Her hands moved through the final sequence—torque the last bolt, check the clearance, wipe down the housing—with the kind of automatic precision that came from twelve years of doing exactly this. She had started taking apart small engines when she was eleven. Her grandfather had handed her a wrench and said listen to it first, then touch it. She still did that. Every bike. Every time. Listen first.

"Go home, kid."

She looked up. Walter Grady was leaning against the doorframe of his office, arms crossed, coffee mug in one hand. He was sixty-two years old and built like a man who had spent his whole life lifting things that were heavier than they should be, and he had the kind of face that had seen everything twice and wasn't impressed by much anymore.

"I'm almost done," Rowan said.

"You've been almost done for forty minutes." Walt took a sip of his coffee. "It's Friday night. You're twenty-three years old. You should be somewhere better than a garage."

Rowan pulled the torque wrench free and set it down. "I like it here."

"I know you do. That's the problem." He walked over and stood beside the bike, looking down at her work with the critical eye of a man who had taught her most of what she knew. "Clearance looks good."

"It is good."

"Torque spec?"

"Forty-two foot-pounds."

He nodded. "Good. Now go home." He paused. "Or don't go home. Go somewhere. Give that boyfriend of yours a real birthday present."

Rowan felt her cheeks go warm. "Walt."

"I'm serious." He waved a grease-stained hand at her. "A young woman should not be spending a Friday evening elbow-deep in a carburetor. Not when she's got somewhere better to be."

She pulled off her gloves and tossed them onto the workbench. Her heart was doing that stupid little flutter—the kind she had been suppressing all day because she didn't want to lose focus on Mrs. Delgado's bike. But now Walt was giving her permission, and she let herself feel it. Tonight was the night.

Derek's birthday. She had been planning this for weeks.

The new black lace underwear was folded in her bag upstairs, tags still on. She had bought it at that fancy boutique on Fifth that she would never normally set foot in. She had spent forty minutes standing in the fitting room talking herself into it. It wasn't really her. She was more a sports bra and cotton kind of girl. But it felt right for tonight. Like an occasion deserved dressing up.

More than the underwear, there was the other thing. The real gift.

She had been with Derek for almost two years. She trusted him. She loved him. And tonight, she had decided, she was finally ready. She had spent twenty minutes in the bathroom this morning with a razor and a steady hand, shaping a neat little heart below her navel. A private joke. A declaration. Something that would make him laugh before it made him groan.

Tonight, she thought, kicking her locker open to grab her jacket. Tonight is going to be perfect.

Walt was still standing by the workbench when she came back from the locker room. He had finished his coffee and set the mug down next to her torque wrench.

"You know," he said, not looking at her, "I've seen a lot of guys come through here. Boyfriends. Husbands. Brothers. Fathers."

Rowan paused with her jacket half on. "Walt."

"I'm just saying." He picked up the torque wrench and examined it like he had never seen one before. "Some of them are worth the trouble. Some of them aren't. You're a smart kid. Smarter than most. You know the difference."

She pulled her jacket the rest of the way on. "Derek's a good guy."

"I didn't say he wasn't." Walt set the wrench down. "I said I've seen a lot of guys."

Rowan grabbed her helmet off the hook. "I'll see you Monday."

"Take tomorrow off."

"I have Mrs. Patterson's bike—"

"I'll handle Mrs. Patterson. You take the day." He finally looked at her, and his expression was the one he wore when he was being serious but didn't want to make a thing of it. "You're young. You're good at what you do. You've got a whole life ahead of you. Don't spend all of it in here."

She wanted to argue. She always wanted to argue with Walt, because arguing with Walt was how they talked. But tonight she didn't have it in her. Tonight she had somewhere to be.

"Okay," she said. "Monday."

"Monday."

The evening air hit her face as she pushed through the garage door, and the September chill felt like a starting gun. Her Kawasaki sat at the curb—black and low and gorgeous. She swung her leg over her like she was an extension of her own body. The engine caught on the first try.

Good omen.

The ride to her parents' house took twenty minutes. She took the long way, because she wanted to feel the wind a little longer, and because she was nervous in a way that felt good. The kind of nervous that came before something you had been waiting for.

She thought about Derek. About the way he laughed at her jokes even when they weren't funny. About the way he looked at her when she came out of the garage covered in grease—not disgusted, not confused, just her. About the way he had said I love you for the first time, six months in, standing in the rain outside a diner because he had forgotten his umbrella and she had forgotten hers and they had just stood there, getting soaked, laughing.

He was a good guy. He was.

She thought about her parents. About the way her mother always watched her get dressed with that slightly pained expression. You have a lovely figure, Riley, if you'd just let it show a little. About the way her father talked to her like she was a quarterly report—measured, assessed, found wanting. She had stopped trying to impress them a long time ago. She had stopped caring, mostly.

Mostly.

She thought about her grandfather. Harold Kincaid. The man who had taught her everything worth knowing. Listen to it first, then touch it. He had been dead for six years, and she still heard his voice every time she picked up a wrench. He had believed in her when nobody else did. He had looked at a twelve-year-old girl with grease under her fingernails and said you're somebody who knows what they're good at. That's worth everything.

She missed him. She missed him every day.

The Mustang was in the driveway when she pulled up. Derek's Mustang. She smiled. He was early—which meant he was eager. Which meant tonight was absolutely going to be what she wanted it to be.

Then she saw the other car.

Chloe's white Civic was parked at an angle behind the Mustang, like it had been pulled in fast. Her sister's car. Her sister, who was in her second year at State, two hours north of here. Her sister, who had no reason to be home on a random Friday.

Rowan's smile faltered.

She sat on her bike for a moment, engine ticking as it cooled, staring at those two cars together. Something tugged at the back of her neck. Not a thought exactly—more like a draft from a window you didn't know was open.

She probably drove back for the weekend, Rowan told herself. She probably wants to see Derek on his birthday too. It's fine.

She killed the engine and headed for the front door.

The Mechanic and the Giant — Chapter 1: The Last Bolt Before the Birthday

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