The morning sun hadn't even finished rising when Elena rolled up the garage door. The air was cool, still laced with the scent of last night's rain and motor oil soaked into concrete.
She was already in her element—hair tied back, sleeves rolled, grease smudged on her forearm like war paint. The hum of her favorite socket wrench in hand. Her hands worked while her mind drifted.
And then it happened.
Just a flicker.
A pause.
His face.
The club. The Crowd. His eyes on hers.
She hadn't thought about it when she woke up. Not consciously. But now, elbow-deep in gears and grime, his image ghosted across her mind like smoke in the corner of a mirror. Uninvited.
She exhaled sharply through her nose and shook her head. Nope.
"Focus," she muttered to herself. Grease, bolts, torque. That's what mattered. Not strangers with perfect posture and eyes like cold fire.
"People lie, engines don't."
The scent of oil had been familiar to Elena since she was twelve. Her dad ran a small garage out in the valley—just him, a dog named Axel, and a shop radio that only played 80's & 90's and static. Summers were long and hot, and she learned fast that fixing engines was easier than fixing people.
By sixteen, she could drop a transmission before most boys her age even found the hood latch. By eighteen, she was running the shop when her dad got sick. By twenty, it was hers—whether she wanted it or not.
She never talked much about what came after. The long nights. The missed calls. The hospital visits. The quiet funeral. How everything started to feel like static after that.
And how she didn't cry. Not once.
Elena was often alone because people thought she was cold. Carmen used to say she had a poker face made of stone and steel. But she also knew better. She knew Elena felt things—she just didn't let them out. Not easily. Not often.
Now, grease under her nails was comfort. The weight of a socket wrench in her palm, the sound of an engine coughing to life—those were the things she could trust.
Men? Not so much.
She's had her distractions. Quick flings, short stories, hands that touched but never stayed. No one to too close. Not since.
And that was fine. That was safe.
So when her mind flickered—just briefly—to the man in the club, the one with the quiet eyes and the fitted black shirt, she didn't dwell on it. Didn't let herself go there.
It was just a look. Just a night. And she had work to do.
She slid beneath the car she was working on, the scent of rust and oil grounding her again. Cool metal against her back. Silence around her. Everything exactly how she liked it.
The low growl of an engine pulling into the lot barely registered. Customers came and went, no reason for her to pay attention—until the sound changed. Stuttered. Coughed.
High-end. Powerful. wrong.
Elena rolled out from under her car, wiping her hands on a rag as she stepped into the light.
There was a 1969 Mustang. Black. Beautiful. Classic lines, chrome still intact. The kind of car that made people turn their heads—if they knew what they were looking at. And clearly, this one had seen miles. Fast ones.
It coughed as it pulled in. Something under the hood was protesting. The car came to a stop, engine ticking, one headlight slightly fogged.
Then the door opened.
And he stepped out.
Same frame. Black shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows. Calm, composed, like the heat didn't touch him. Eyes hidden behind sunglasses that didn't belong in a garage.
Her heart stuttered for just a second.
And then he looked straight at her.
And gave her absolutely nothing.
No flicker or recognition.
No trace of the night before.
"Engine light came on," he said, his voice even. "She's running hot. Figured i'd get her looked at before she gives up on me."
Elena raised a brow. Her chest was still. "Good instinct," she said, voice dry.
He nodded toward the Mustang, then back at her. "You think you can get me a mechanic?"
A beat passed. She didn't blink.
Then she grabbed a rag from the workbench and slung it over her shoulder.
"You're looking at one."