Page 26 of Stuck with my Mechanic Daddies

“Okay.”

I held the door open, and she stepped inside.

It was a small thing. A simple thing.

But my pulse was racing like I’d just done something way bigger than invite a beautiful woman in for a drink.

Aurora hesitated just inside the door.

The noise, the lights, the easy camaraderie between everyone—it was a lot. I could see it in the way her shoulders tensed, the way her eyes flicked around like she wasn’t sure she belonged here.

I knew that feeling, too.

So I didn’t push. Didn’t crowd her. Just turned toward the bar and said, “What's your drink?”

She blinked at me.

“Oh. Uh,” Her hands tucked into the sleeves of her coat. “I don’t know. I wasn’t really planning on staying.”

I shrugged. “Then it doesn’t count.”

That earned me a small, skeptical smile. “That's not how drinking works.”

I leaned on the counter, nodding toward the bartender. “Beer? Wine? Something fancy with an umbrella?”

She rolled her eyes but didn’t look quite so tense anymore. “Just a cider, I guess.”

I ordered two. Handed her one.

She took it, fingers brushing mine for half a second.

Warm. Soft. She looked at me like she’d felt it too.

“Come on,” I said. “You can sit with me.”

Aurora glanced at the group by the lanes. The guys were still talking trash, Lila was leaning against Jaxon’s side, and Mason was flipping through the scoreboard with his usual intensity.

It was chaos in the best way.

But I got it. She wasn’t there yet.

So I led her to a quieter corner by the high-top tables. Out of the center of things, but still part of the atmosphere. I pulled out a chair, and after a small hesitation, she sat.

“Okay,” she said, tilting her head. “So, do you do this often?”

“What?”

“Find women wandering the streets and lure them into bowling alleys with alcohol?”

I smirked. “Only the ones who look like they could use a drink.”

Her lips twitched, but then her gaze dropped to her cider. She traced the rim with her finger, and something about the movement felt uncertain.

“You okay?” I asked.

She didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Then, “I don’t really do this kind of thing.”

“What, bowling?”

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