Secret and oil stains
796 Words
⸻
That morning, her mom had slammed a cabinet door so hard it cracked. Celeste Kingsley, once composed and polished, now chain-smoked on the fire escape and cried when she thought Lana wasn’t looking. They barely spoke. The silence between them wasn’t angry—it was defeated. Lana missed her father too, but part of her hated him for putting them here. For disappearing into legal chaos and leaving her to pick up the pieces.
Lana arrived earlier at work. Each night, she left later. And somewhere between the busted spark plugs and overdue invoices, she stopped feeling like an outsider.
Customers began to recognize her. Jayden stopped hovering so much. She learned how to log inventory, refill coolant, and even swap out an alternator—with supervision, of course.
But most importantly, she and Jayden had started talking. Really talking.
Not just teasing jabs and sarcastic quips, but quiet conversations over lunch or after closing—when the garage fell still and the smell of rubber and engine grease gave way to something gentler.
One Wednesday afternoon, the shop was quieter than usual. Lana stood at the front desk, flipping through receipts, when Jayden appeared beside her, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his arm.
“You’re getting the hang of this,” he said, nodding toward the way she’d just balanced the books. “You sure you weren’t secretly running your dad’s business?”
She chuckled. “Honestly, I didn’t even know how to check my own bank balance before all this. I had people for that.”
Jayden raised an eyebrow. “Must’ve been nice.”
Lana shrugged. “It was… easy. But not real. I didn’t earn any of it.”
He studied her for a moment. “You’re earning it now.”
That simple phrase made her heart do a little flip.
⸻
That night, after the last car pulled out and the sun dipped behind the skyline, Jayden stayed behind to finish up a job. Lana stayed too, claiming she needed to organize the tool drawers—but really, she just didn’t want to leave.
The two of them worked in companionable silence for a while. Then, as Lana wiped down a shelf, her curiosity broke through.
“You never talk about your sister,” she said softly.
Jayden froze for a second, then stood upright from under the hood of the truck. “Yeah. I guess I don’t.”
“She okay?”
He wiped his hands, the grease leaving streaks on his forearms. “She’s better. College now. Nursing. First in our family to go.”
Lana smiled. “You’re proud.”
“Of her? Always.”
“And your mom?”
Jayden hesitated, then his voice dropped. “Passed two years ago.”
Lana’s heart ached. “I’m sorry.”
He gave a small nod. “Cancer. Quick. We didn’t have insurance, and everything just… spiraled.”
That quiet sentence hung in the air like smoke.
Lana wanted to say something comforting, something meaningful, but all she could offer was truth.
“I’ve never had to face anything like that.”
“I know,” Jayden said. “But I think… you are now. In your own way.”
There was a pause. Then he added, “You don’t give up. That’s something.”
She looked at him, really looked—at the lines of exhaustion under his eyes, at the hands that worked so hard for everyone but himself, at the guarded way he opened up just enough to let her in.
She stepped closer, standing just inches from him now. Her pulse skipped.
“Jayden…”
He looked at her then, his dark eyes unreadable.
It would’ve been so easy to lean in. To let the moment carry them. To kiss him.
But he pulled back slightly, his voice quiet.
“You sure this isn’t just about being saved?”
Her brows furrowed. “What?”
“I’m not your fix-it project, Lana. And I’m not some rebound from your old life.”
She felt heat rise to her cheeks—not just from embarrassment, but from how wrong he was.
“I don’t want to be saved,” she said. “Not anymore.”
He studied her face, his jaw tense.
Then finally, he nodded—barely.
“Good,” he murmured. “Because I’m not a prince. Just a guy with a socket wrench and a lot of baggage.”
She smiled softly. “That’s okay. I travel light now.”
A slow grin tugged at his lips, then he turned back to the truck, but something in the air had shifted.
No kiss. No big confession.
But something deeper had sparked.
And neither of them could deny it anymore.
- Writer
