Page 71 of Ace of Spades

“What happened?” I ask through gritted teeth.

She holds a hand to my chest, heating my skin under her touch.

“Just promise you’ll let me take care of it.”

Theo looks at me like a kicked puppy. He’s already beat himself up about whatever it is that happened.

I hear my phone ringing off the hook back in my office. And I just don’t have it in me to have to take on my son’s problems at the moment.

Not when I have the issue of Evie and Josie and this damn shop all looming over my head.

If Sienna says she’s going to handle it, then fuck it. Let her handle it.

“Fine. It’s your problem, and if you can’t fix it, the cost is coming out of your paycheck,” I say.

Her lips form a straight line. “Fine.”

I march back into the shop to handle the business I need to be focused on at the moment.

Hours later, once the anger has settled, I’m standing just around the corner of the shop, pretending to check a part order on my phone, pretending I haven’t been listening for the last five minutes with my heart in my goddamn throat.

They don’t see me.

Theo’s voice carries.

Not loud. Just...earnestin a way I haven’t heard from him in years.

And Sienna? She listens to him. Not like she’s humoring him, but like shecareswhat he thinks. What he feels. Like she sees him.

I know my son. I know every version of him.

Angry. Silent. Joking to cover something deeper.

But this version? The one I just saw?

I’ve never seen himcarelike that. Not about a girl. Not like this.

I watch the way his shoulders drop as she smiles at him. The way his whole posture shifts. He looks young in a way he rarely lets himself be.

And I hate myself.

Because she should be his.

Not mine.

Not the broken-down, too-old, too-complicated mechanic who kissed her like she was salvation and then kept finding excuses to push her away.

Not the man who raised Theo, who should know better. Whodoesknow better.

And still I can’t stop.

I want to be the bigger man.

I want to step back and let them have a shot at something simple and good.

But the truth is... I just can’t.

Because when Sienna’s around, I feel like I can breathe.

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