Page 76 of Man of Lies

I was starting to worry that it never would.

Gideon finally broke the silence with a grunt and the metallic click of a socket wrench. “You know,” he said, bracing the fairing stay with one hand as he tightened the bolts, “this would go a hell of a lot faster if you let a specialist handle it.”

He didn’t look much like a priest today. Grease streaked the front of his faded T-shirt, sweat darkened the collar, and his jeans were torn at the knee. His forearms gleamed under the low-hanging barn light—sinewy and slick, working steadily withthe grit and grace of someone who knew how to rebuild things that didn’t want to be fixed.

He wasn’t wearing his watch. I’d noticed straightway, but then again, I wasn’t wearing mine either. Not for work like this.

I kept wiping chain grit off the swingarm with an oil-dark rag, each pass rougher than necessary. When I didn’t reply quick enough, he kicked at my ankle with the toe of his boot.

“Yeah, well.” I kicked him back, exhaling hard through my nose. “She’s my baby. I wrecked her…so I should be the one to fix her. At least as much as I can.”

He hummed thoughtfully in the back of his throat but didn’t push.

Gideon leaned back on his heels and wiped the sweat from his brow with the inside of his forearm. “You can’t always force a fix, Mase. Sometimes, you just need to let go and leave it in someone else’s hands.”

“Like who?” I asked sarcastically. “God?”

“For starters,” he said, biting back a smile.

I dropped the rag into the pan beside the tire and glared at him. “Is that what you’re doing with Dominic?”

Gideon didn’t even flinch, but he slowly picked up a socket and tightened the bolt he’d torqued once.

“That’s different,” he said simply.

That was it. No lecture. No pushback. Just silence—and the steady rhythm of his hands staying busy while I sat there and felt like a goddamn asshole.

A few minutes passed. Sweat rolled down the back of my neck. The cicadas droned. A screen door slammed somewhere up at the house, and a dog started barking. When did we get a dog? I’d been so wrapped up in my heartache that I hadn’t even noticed.

“Letting go isn’t in my nature,” I grumbled. I bent things until they fit, and I found a way to shoulder it if something broke. Even when it wasn’t mine to carry.

The rag slipped out of my hand, landing on the dusty concrete floor, and instead of picking it up, I just stared at it, lost in thought. In misery. Eventually, I realized I hadn’t moved in several minutes. It felt like I might’ve stayed that way forever, if not for the phone buzzing in my pocket.

I wiped my hands on my jeans and pulled it out, smearing the case with grease from the edge of my thumb. Light refracted off the screen through the slats of the barn roof, and I squinted down at it to make out the name.

That’s when I stopped breathing.

I didn’t even have the chance to say hello.

“That silence,” Silas murmured in that whiskey-soaked voice I knew so well. “That’s how I know it’s you, counselor.”

That voice. That damn voice. Still rough and rich as sin, steeped in that slow, teasing drawl that had my whole body flushing hot all at once. I shuddered. My nervous system recognized him before my mind had even caught up.

“You always breathe like you’re bracing for impact,” he mused. “Makes me wonder what you think I’m about to do to you.”

My throat worked around his name, but I couldn’t speak. He was already in my blood again, just from the sound of him.

“You gonna say something, or you need another minute to get your heart rate under control?” he teased, soft and deadly smooth.

I licked my dry lips and finally managed to find a response. “Silas.”

“Mm.” He gave a satisfied rumble that had always made me feel like prey. “Yeah, I missed that.”

“Where… you’re back?” I tried to keep the question clinical, but it came out thin and off-balance. No matter how tight I locked it down, I couldn’t disguise my hurt.

“For now,” he said. “But I might stick around…if I find something worth staying for.”

I rubbed a knuckle over the ache in my chest, but it didn’t ease up. It was just a wound I’d learned to work around by this point. Still tender when touched.

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