[Days after the kiss. After the clearing. After the car.]

The shop radio was stuck on some godawful country station again.

Josie didn’t bother changing it. Rick always found a way to set it back anyway, like the damn dial was cursed to default to men crying about trucks and tequila.

She wiped the sweat off her brow with the back of her glove, grease smudged across her cheekbone, and leaned back under the hood of a Ford that should’ve been scrapped ten years ago. Spring sun filtered through the open garage bay, warm and sharp, and the scent of motor oil clung to her like armor.

She hadn’t answered his texts.

Not one.

Not the one that said last night was… something, or the one after that with I can’t stop thinking about you, or the one with you okay? like she wasn’t the one who’d pulled away first.

She wasn’t ignoring him because she was mad.

She was ignoring him because if she didn’t, she’d want more.

And wanting more?

That was where people got caged.

Trapped.

Left.

Josie didn’t do “left.” Not anymore.

“Romeo’s here,” Rick called, his voice a gravelly drawl from across the bay. “Try not to break his heart in front of the oil filter display. I need at least one of you emotionally stable enough to work a lift.”

Josie’s stomach twisted—and not in the flirty, fluttery kind of way she hated.

She didn’t look up right away. Just set the wrench down with a little more force than necessary, tugged her gloves off, and swiped her cheek with her sleeve.

Sure enough, there he was.

Asher Cole, standing in the middle of Evergreen Auto like he had every right to look that good under fluorescent lights and dust-streaked windows. Like he didn’t know exactly how unwelcome he was here.

She scowled, more annoyed at herself than him.

“You seriously come to a place full of mechanics in the middle of a shift like it’s a rom-com meet cute?”

Her voice carried just enough bite to make the guys in the back snicker. One of them muttered something under his breath—probably “he’s braver than I thought.”

Josie crossed the floor toward him, expression flat, lips pressed into a line sharp enough to cut steel.

When she reached him, she didn’t stop.

Just grabbed his elbow and muttered low:

“Outside. Now. Before Rick starts betting on whether or not I hit you.”

She pushed the door open with one shoulder, tugged him out into the sunlight, and let it slam shut behind them.

The second they were alone, she exhaled hard and yanked a half-empty pack of cigarettes from her back pocket. Lit one with a flick of her wrist, inhaled deep, and leaned against the brick wall like the smoke might burn away the part of her chest that still remembered how his breath felt against her skin.

“Didn’t answer your texts,” she said coolly, staring out across the parking lot like the oil stains and cracked asphalt were more interesting than him.

“Didn’t mean I wanted a house call.”

She didn’t look at him yet.

Because if she did?

She might let herself remember too much.

The clearing.
The kiss.
The backseat.
The way he looked at her afterward like she was something worth holding onto.

And she wasn’t.

Not for long.

Asher didn’t flinch.

Didn’t shove his hands in his pockets or crack a joke to fill the air. He just stood there, sunlight on his shoulders, engine grease scent in his lungs, and Josie Rhodes in front of him looking like she might bolt or bite—he couldn’t tell which.

But she was talking.

And she’d dragged him outside instead of walking away.

That had to count for something.

He watched her drag on the cigarette, jaw tight, eyes somewhere far away, like she was trying to remember who the hell she was before he ever touched her.

God, she was beautiful like this.

Wrecked around the edges.
Trying so hard not to care she’d practically written it across her skin.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I figured that part out.”

No venom. No pushback.

Just… real.

“I texted anyway.”

He stepped closer—careful not to crowd her, careful not to make her retreat again.

“You didn’t owe me an answer. I just needed to say it.”

His voice dropped, steady, low, the way it always got when he meant something too much.

“Because it wasn’t just the clearing. Or the car. Or the fact that I still haven’t stopped thinking about what you looked like under those stars.”

He met her eyes then.

Didn’t let her look away.

“It’s the way you talk when no one else is listening. The way you call bullshit on things that scare most people into silence. The way you kiss like you’re trying to win, but hold on like you’re afraid you already lost.”

He swallowed hard.

“I’m not here for a rom-com moment, Josie. I’m not trying to be the guy who shows up with a mixtape and a dumb speech and thinks that fixes everything.”

A beat.

Then softer:

“I’m here because you matter.”

He let that sit.

Let her smoke and scowl and breathe and run the math however she needed to.

Then, quietly:

“If you tell me to walk, I’ll walk.”

Another beat. One he hated.

“But if there’s even a part of you that wants me to stay… I will. No questions. No games.”

His voice cracked just a little when he said it, but he didn’t back off.

“I’ll stay.”

He wasn’t asking her to believe in forever.

He was just asking for right now.

And maybe—for someone like her—that was the biggest dare of all.

The cigarette burned between her fingers like it had something to say.

Josie didn’t speak.
Didn’t blink.
Didn’t look at him.

Because if she did—if she gave him so much as a glance—he’d know.

He’d see everything written plain across her face:
That she’d replayed that night in her head more times than she could count.
That she still woke up with the ghost of his hands on her hips.
That she kept rereading the texts she never answered.
That she wanted to scream don’t go and please stay and I don’t do this but I want to do it with you.

But her eyes would give her away.

So she kept them forward. Fixed on the horizon like she had somewhere better to be than tangled up in the wreckage of her own fear.

She took another slow drag. Let the smoke curl out through her nose. Let silence stretch between them like wire—tense and thin and one wrong step from slicing open the truth.

And then—because she had to say it before she broke—

“That was a one night thing, Asher.”

Her voice was cool. Measured. Brutal in the way only girls who’ve learned how to self-destruct gracefully can be.

“I needed a release. A distraction. Something to shut my brain up.”

She flicked ash toward the curb like it didn’t weigh as much as it did.

“That’s all it was.”

Still, she didn’t look.

Because if she did, she might crack.

“It wouldn’t work between us. We both know it. You’ve got your polished future waiting, and I’ve got exactly zero interest in sitting around while you figure out how to fit me into it.”

Finally—finally—she turned to face him.

Not slouched.

Not broken.

Standing tall.

All five foot eight of steel spine and practiced detachment, staring him down with the extra three inches she wore like a shield.

Her cigarette hung loose between two fingers. Her other hand curled at her side like it might lash out just to end this faster.

“You had your night, Cole.”

Her voice dropped, just a hair. Enough to sting.

“You can go now.”

And still—she didn’t move.

Didn’t turn. Didn’t walk away.

She stood there in the sun, smoke drifting past her face, heart hammering behind her ribs like it was trying to claw its way out and grab him.

But she waited.

For him to believe the lie.

For him to leave.

Because if he didn’t?

If he stayed?

She didn’t know what the hell she’d do.

Asher didn’t say anything at first.

Didn’t move.

Didn’t breathe, maybe.

He just stood there, like every piece of him had been hit with something he saw coming and still wasn’t ready for.

She delivered it clean—cold and surgical, like she’d rehearsed it in her head a dozen times before letting it bleed into the air between them.

And he felt every word.

One night thing.

Distraction.

That’s all it was.

He wanted to call bullshit. God, he wanted to. Wanted to throw it back in her face, tell her no one kisses like that for a distraction. That people don’t beg someone to kiss them again before they change their mind and then mean it like she did.

But she was already halfway gone.

Not physically—but behind the eyes, behind the smoke, behind the lie she’d sold herself to keep from getting burned.

So he nodded.

One slow, hollow tilt of his chin.

Visible hurt.

No clever lines. No big speech. Just the truth in his silence.

And when he finally spoke, his voice was low—too calm to be angry, too honest to be anything but real.

“Okay.”

He stepped back once.

Then once more.

“I’ll go.”

His throat worked around the next words, but he got them out.

“You change your mind, though…”

He met her eyes now.

Steady. Unflinching. Maybe the bravest thing he’d done all day.

“…you’ve got my number.”

Then he turned.

Didn’t look back.

Because Josie didn’t need someone to chase her.

She needed someone who saw her—all of her—and choose her anyway.

And he had.

He still would.

But only when she was ready to believe it.

Josie didn’t flinch.
Didn’t shift.
Didn’t let a single crack show while he stood there, breaking in real time.

His voice landed quiet. Clean. Too kind for how much damage it did.

Okay.

That’s what he said.

I’ll go.

And God, that was the part that wrecked her.

Because he didn’t fight her.
Didn’t argue.
Didn’t try to force open the door she’d just slammed shut.

He gave her the dignity of believing her lie.

And that made it worse.

Her jaw locked tight. She didn’t blink. Not until he turned.

And then—only then—her eyes shimmered.

Just barely. Just enough.

One tear slid loose and she let it fall. Didn’t wipe it away. Didn’t move to chase him or call his name or say the thing she was screaming inside her head.

Stay.

She watched his back retreat like it hadn’t once been pressed against hers in the dark, like his hands hadn’t memorized every inch of her the night the world went quiet.

And then he was gone.

Out of the sun. Out of reach.

She inhaled sharp through her nose, the cigarette in her hand burning low and bitter, and turned—fast, too fast, like motion could erase the ache sitting in her chest.

Then, without thinking, she kicked the nearest object—an empty oil bucket near the shop wall—sent it skidding into the dirt with a violent rattle that made one of the guys inside shout, “What the hell was that?”

Josie didn’t answer.

She wiped the corner of her eye with her sleeve like it hadn’t happened, flicked the last of her cigarette onto the gravel, and stalked back inside.

Head high.

Spine straight.

But her chest?

Her chest felt hollow.

Like she’d just walked away from the only good thing that didn’t ask her to change first.

And worse?

She knew it.

But knowing didn’t make her brave.

Not yet.