Page 8 of Dirty Mechanic

“It’s all right. I can drop her off tomorrow. Oh, and this came for you.” He fishes something out of his jacket and hands it over. “Nana said it’s from mom’s estate lawyer.”

Fuck.

I should’ve torched that damn envelope the moment it showed up. Must have dropped it on my way out of their house.

“Guess Annabelle’s got better timing than I thought.” I mumble.

Blake frowns. “What do you mean?”

But I just laugh.

A bitter, low thing that tastes like dust and old memories. We made a deal, Annabelle and me. Sealed it with sweat and promises and a moan so sweet I still hear it in the quiet.

If neither of us were married by this year, we’d marry each other on the hundred-year anniversary of May Day.

And guess what, sweetheart? I’m about to cash in.

The next day crawls by, and I’m no better than a man trying to outrun his own shadow. Blake gets tied up with the farm, and I get tied up with my own damn mind.

By noon, I’m elbow-deep in someone’s busted engine, but mentally? I’m nowhere near this garage.

Nope. I’m stuck with her.

Annabelle.

She floats through my brain like smoke. Sweet, choking, and impossible to hold.

I scrub my forehead with my sleeve, smear a fresh line of grease across my temple, and groan. The woman’s a ghost I never laid to rest.

She used to stand in this garage with her hands on her hips and sass in her eyes, challenging me like I didn’t know my own damn torque specs. She’d swipe grease on my cheek just to see if I’d flinch. And then she’d laugh.

I loved the way she laughed.

I loved the way she trusted.

She gave me her virginity in the back of my RV, like it was a gift and a dare rolled into one. In my head, I’m back in that RV, holding her body, kissing her neck, and imagining a future that never got the right cue. She was young and fearless and everything I didn’t know I needed.

And then, the night she left. Without a word. Without a goodbye. A few months later, she texted some lame reason about going to nursing school in San Francisco, and there went my chance. I waited two more years until we caught up in the RV again.

And that was the end of us.

Or it should’ve been.

I lost Annabelle the first time when she was nineteen and I was a widowed twenty-six-year-old with an eight-year-old son. After giving me everything in the back of my RV, she left for nursing school in San Francisco. For six years, she barely came home. Then, at twenty-five, she returned for a whole year, and for a minute I thought we had it figured out. We took that RV across the country with Blake, building memories I couldn't let go of. But Huntz threatened her again, and she ran back to San Francisco. Four more years passed before she returned at twenty-nine, just long enough to break my heart again and shake up my eighteen-year-old son with one kiss. Then last year, she came home for Harvest Fest, stayed through summer, and nearly shattered me when we shot Huntz by the riverside to save our friends. Each time she returned, I fell deeper. Each time she left, I broke a little more.

And now, she’s coming back, ruling my brain like a Queen.

I tighten a bolt too hard and feel the wrench bite into my palm. You don’t get many do-overs in life. But if this is the one? It will be on my terms, and I won’t let her run.

The garage fills with the clangs of tools, the rumble of engines, and customers chatting about May Day and the race tonight. I nod where appropriate and keep my hands moving, but I’m not present.

At the track, they’ve got me in the pit tonight, hired as a mechanic. Nothing major, just enough to keep my hands busy and my bank account from slipping into humiliation. But I’m tempted to suit up and do another practice run. Win the damn race. Sell the trophy, borrow a bit, and finally buy the farm from Sarah’s uncle. Ignore my grandparents’ ultimatum to marry, and at the same time, marry Annabelle, because I want to.

I want to fucking take back what’s rightfully mine in every way.

Annabelle included.

But where there’s pride, there’s pain. Thousands of days I spent loving her… only to lose her.