And do what? I can't afford my own place. I don't have the capital to start something. Gordon's the only reference I have after seven years.
Toby:You have skills. You have a culinary degree. You have a reputation. Sarah would go with you in a heartbeat.
Sarah has two kids and a mortgage. She can't take that risk.
Toby:I'm talking about YOUR risk. When are you going to take a chance on yourself?
I put the phone down. Roll over. Pull the covers up.
The whiskey Vaughn pushed across the bar is still warm in my chest.
I fall asleep thinking about that. About a man who gives me exactly what I need without being asked and without making a production of it. About how that's the scariest thing anyone's ever done to me.
Chapter 4
Vaughn
Thursday morning. The garage is quiet except for the radio and the sound of me doing what I do best — taking things apart and putting them back together.
There's a Heritage Softail on the lift that came in yesterday with a clatter in the primary drive that the owner swore was "just a little noise." It's not just a little noise. It's a compensator sprocket on its last legs, which means pulling the primary cover, the clutch assembly, and about three hours of work that the owner's going to complain about paying for because people always think the diagnosis is the easy part.
The diagnosis is the whole job. Anyone can swap a part. Knowing which part to swap — that's the skill.
I'm elbow-deep in the primary when Jason comes through from the bar kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel. He's been prepping lunch — something with lemon and garlic, based on the smell — and he's got that restless energy he always gets when Ash is running errands and not around.
"Knox wants a second opinion on his rear brake. Says it feels spongy even after he bled the lines."
"When'd he bleed them?"
Jason shrugs. "He said recently."
"Knox's definition of recently is anywhere from last month to three years ago." I grab a socket wrench. "Tell him I'll take a look after lunch."
Jason lingers. He does this — hovers in the doorway between the kitchen and the garage, one foot in each world. He's a decent mechanic when he focuses, better than he gives himself credit for, but his heart's in the kitchen. He cooks for the pride the way I work on engines — because it's how he says the thing he can't put into words.
"You eat yet?" he asks.
"Coffee."
"That's not food, Vaughn."
"It's a food-adjacent beverage."
He disappears and comes back two minutes later with a plate — scrambled eggs, toast, some kind of roasted tomato thing that smells unreasonably good. Sets it on my workbench without comment. I eat with greasy fingers because washing my hands would mean admitting I needed the food and I have a reputation to maintain.
Knox is upstairs with Toby. I know this because I can hear them laughing through the floor. Months since the storm that blew Toby into the bar and Knox has barely come up for air. Not that I blame him. Toby's the kind of person who makes a room warmer just by being in it.
Ezra's doing inventory in the back. I can hear him counting bottles, the scratch of pencil on clipboard. Silas is in his corner booth with a book — something with a ship on the cover today, thick enough to stop a bullet. This is Silas's version of socialization, and we've all learned not to push it.
I know Ezra's been restless lately, pacing the halls upstairs at odd hours, which usually means he's got energy he can't burn off. I know Jason's been stress-cooking heavier when Ash spends the day at the range instead of at the bar — Jason likes having him close, and Ash is still figuring out what retirement looks like when your whole adult life was the military. I know Silas reads faster when he's anxious, and he's been averaging a book a day this week.
And I know that Robin Martinez drops off extra pastries every Thursday afternoon before he heads to story hour at the library, and that I've been aware of what day it is since I woke up this morning.
He shows up at two. The bar door swings open and the smell hits first — butter and sugar and vanilla, the portable version of Robin's entire personality. He's carrying two bakery boxes stacked on top of each other, balanced with the casual confidence of someone who's carried trays through professional kitchens for a decade.
"Delivery!" He sets the boxes on the bar top and flips the lids with a flourish. "Lion-shaped sugar cookies for story hour. Because I'm hilarious and also extremely talented. I know, we've seen these before, but I improved the recipe and I expect honest feedback."
They're beautiful. Golden-brown sugar cookies shaped like lions, each one hand-decorated with orange royal icing, piped manes, little dot eyes. Sixty of them, at least, each oneslightly different — this lion is roaring, that one's sleeping, this one looks vaguely judgmental.