I MARRIED A MECHANIC TO RUIN MY FATHER'S PLAN

Chapter Four - First Look

"Hello?" I call, my voice carrying farther than I expect, thinner against the open space.

No answer. I take another step, then another, heels striking the concrete with a precision that feels too sharp for the environment.

From deeper inside comes the sound of movement, metal clinking, a low curse, the scrape of skin against concrete. I round the corner and see boots first, worn and practical, then legs, then a man halfway under a car, one arm extended, his attention fully claimed by the work rather than by me.

"Excuse me," I say. "I need help."

No response. My jaw tightens.

"Now."

A pause. Then he slides out slowly, deliberately, as if even that pace is a choice. He sits up, reaches for a rag that has long since surrendered any claim to cleanliness, and wipes his hands with methodical care before he looks at me. Dark greenish black grease streaks his face along one cheekbone. His eyes are dark blue, steady, the kind that measure without comment.

"What's wrong with it?"

No greeting. No apology.

"My car," I say, pointing back the way I came. "I think it died."

He tilts his head slightly. "That's descriptive. I could put it on a diagnostic sheet. Cause of failure: it died."

"I don't have time for this. I need to fix the car tonight."

"That's not up to you," he says. "It's up to what's actually wrong with it."

He rises to his feet, taller than I expect, broader through the shoulders. He neither crowds me nor steps back.

"Keys."

I hesitate, irritation flaring, then drop them into his palm harder than necessary. He doesn't react. He walks past me without looking back. That irritates me more than if he had. I follow him to the car, heels sharp against the concrete. He crouches, inspects the bumper, runs his fingers along the c***k, checks the alignment, listens before he even opens the hood.

"How bad is it?"

"Bad enough that you shouldn't have kept driving it."

"I need it fixed tonight. Whatever that costs, I'll cover it. Double your rate."

He doesn't even look up. "No."

"Triple, then."

"Still no."

"You haven't even told me a number."

"Doesn't matter what the number is. I'm not rearranging my night because you're panicking about something that isn't the car."

The answer hits harder because he says it flat and gets it right.

"I am not panicking."

"You've offered to pay me three times what I'd ask before I've even checked out the problem or said a single price. That's not generosity. That's someone trying to make a problem disappear before anyone important notices it exists."

"You don't know anything about my life."

"I don't need to. I just need to fix a car, which I can't do faster by being paid more to do it."

"Everyone has a price."

"I have a rate. It's not the same thing, and I'm getting the sense you've never had to learn the difference."

The answer needles me. "You're insufferable."

"You're the one who hit a guardrail hard enough to need a new bumper and Lord knows what else, and you're negotiating with the mechanic instead of calling whoever's going to ask why."

"Nobody's going to ask."

"Then why do you keep offering me money like someone is."

I don't answer fast enough, and he clocks that too.

"Five thousand," I say. "Cash. Tonight. No paperwork."

He doesn't even blink. Doesn't stop wiping his hands.

"Seven," I say, hating how thin my voice sounds even to me. "And I never come back here again. You never see me. Clean transaction."

He looks at me a long moment, expression unchanged. He sets the rag down, like the number itself earned nothing but a thinner grip on his patience. "You could offer me the deed to the building and my answer wouldn't move. I don't work faster for money. I work faster for good reasons, and 'your father might find out' isn't one I can bill for. I don't even have a line item for it on the invoice."

"I never said anything about my father."

"You didn't have to."

Heat crawls up my neck. "You're infuriating."

"You've said that already."

He almost smiles.

"Leave it," he says. "Come back tomorrow."

"No."

"It needs a proper look."

"I can't leave it overnight."

"You will."

"I said no."

"And I said tomorrow."

I exhale sharply, recalculating, reaching for the one lever I know how to pull. "Ten thousand."

"You're not actually listening to yourself right now, are you."

"I'm offering a reasonable solution to a problem."

"You're throwing money at a feeling and hoping it lands somewhere useful. It won't. Not with me."

Worse, he's right.

"How much would it actually take," I say, quieter now, "to make you understand this matters."

"It already matters. That's not the part you're missing." He wipes a streak of grease off his knuckle, unbothered, unhurried, the single most irritating person I have ever negotiated with in my life. "The part you're missing is that it doesn't cost extra to matter to me. It just does or it doesn't."

"Fine," I say. "After hours. No record. I wait. I don't interfere."

His phone buzzes on the workbench before he can answer. He glances at it once, and something crosses his face I can't name, not irritation, closer to relief with a complaint folded inside it. He doesn't answer right away. Somewhere behind him, something drips steadily into a metal pan.

I don't have an answer fast enough. Edward knows it.

The turn gives me actual whiplash, from immovable wall to inconvenient yes in under a second, but I'm not about to question a door that's finally swinging open. I take it and run.

"I follow terms."

"Good."

He gives them. I agree.

"You're not going to ask why I was speeding."

"Wasn't planning on it."

"Everyone asks."

He shrugs. "Not my business what you're running from. And I don't care enough to ask." The flat disinterest is almost a relief.

"I didn't say I was running from anything."

"No," he agrees. "You didn't."

Relief slips through before I can stop it. I turn.

"Lily."

I still. How did he know my name? He holds up my license.

"Found it on the floor of your passenger seat."

My gaze drops, then lifts.

"Glove compartment," he adds. "You should keep it there."

A pause.

"Locked."