Page 23 of Until Ireland

“Just start the work,” he said, and I could sense a bit of impatience in his tone. It set my back teeth on edge.

“You don’t know what I found or how much it’s going to cost.”

“Listen, cupcake, unless you’re about to tell me it’s going to cost me a hundred grand, not particularly. It needs to be repaired. Gareth recommended you, and I trust you and the garage to do the work correctly.”

“It’s not a hundred thousand,” I said and gave him the breakdown of the parts and labor before I rushed to get the rest out. “Labor cost might change. You never know with these antiques what’s going to happen.”

“Yeah, baby, I understand,” he said, and my belly wobbled in excitement from the amusement in his tone. “Go ahead and get it going. I’ll stop by in the next day or two to sign off on any paperwork you have.”

“Okay,” I responded, somewhat in shock.

Never in all my years of doing this had a customer not cared about the cost of repair or argued with me about labor costs. Mack was the first.

“Was the auction house right in their assessment?” he asked, sounding slightly distracted.

“Well,” I started. This was a slippery slope I’d found myself on. If the auction house was one Mack used often, I didn’t want to throw their people under the bus for one inexperienced assessment. “Honestly, I think the clutch just needs to be adjusted. It feels new.” I tapped my pen up and down on the file. “Now, that being said, I did give myself time to give the tranny a better once over while I’m under it to double-check. Did you get a chance to drive the Aston?”

“Up onto the hauler was about as far as I got,” he admitted. It was possible, even with that short distance, he could’ve figured out they were wrong. Especially if he was as knowledgeable about cars as I suspected he was.

“Once we figure out where the parts are coming from and which ones need to be fabricated, I can give a firmer date. I’m hoping we’ll have all of them before the end of the month—if not sooner. Mechanically, it should be done in a week once they arrive. Two weeks tops, since it needs a paint job too. Hunter will order the paint tomorrow, and he’ll start that once I’m done.”

We were a full-service shop, and Hunter was as much of a genius at painting as he was at fixing. I knew how to paint—we all did. I just didn’t have the patience for the tedious work of prepping the vehicle.

“Whatever. My buyer is aware it might take some time. Listen, Ireland, I wanted to invite you and your brothers to a birthday party I’m throwing at my house for my not-so-little sister’s birthday.”

I pulled the handset away from my ear and stared at it. Did he just ask me to meet his family and vice versa? I sat there, unable to form an answer. As much as I didn’t want to give up Mack, I couldn’t say if I was ready to meet his family. Then again, maybe I was the one making too big of a deal over it.

“Ireland?”

I quickly brought the receiver back to my ear. “Hmmm. What?”

“Birthday party,” he said slowly. “My house—”

“House?” Wait…didn’t he live above Flame?

“Yeah. House. I have one of those too. The pad above Flame is not my home, per se. It’s a place to change clothes in an emergency or a somewhere to sleep after a late night,” he replied. “You wanna come?”

Was it bad my thighs clenched and my heart raced while my palms became sweaty? I wanted to scream yes. After a debate with my internal voice, I decided it was, in fact, bad form to do so. “Ahhh…sure. What time?” I wasn’t digging the fact that I sounded like an idiot during this call.

“Saturday. Around one o’clock. But if you’d like to come over around noon, I wouldn’t turn you away,” he suggested.

My heart fluttered. My belly wriggled with nervous butterflies. I wanted to see him again, but I also wanted to play it cool. I couldn’t appear too desperate, after all. “I’ll have to find out from my brothers if they’re interested in coming,” I told him, knowing full well they would be.

“Do that and get back to me, yeah?”

“Okay.”

“Listen, cupcake, I wouldn’t mind spending another couple of hours talking to you, but I was heading into work. How ‘bout you ask your brothers and give me a ring later in the week to let me know their answer?”

“I can do that.”

“Alright, then I’ll speak to you soon.”

“Mack—” I said before he disconnected the call.

“Yeah?”

“Anything I can bring?”

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