Page 27 of Grease & Grips
Those last few minutes with him happened so fast and all I want is to stretch them out, slow them down, make them last a little longer.
Maybe forever.
“Mack,” Gary calls from the back of the shop as I step back inside, “You spill some oil back here or something?”
The laugh that rips out of me is too loud and almost crazed. It starts in my chest but catches in my throat, spilling over into something that sounds a lot more like a sob. Then another. Whole-body shakes hit and I can’t stop.
Gary rushes over, panic in his eyes. “It’s okay,” he says, hands up like he’s approaching a wild animal. “We can get it cleaned up.”
Wiping my nose on my sleeve I sniff hard. I’m laughing even harder now. A full-blown, absolute wreck. Gary looks like he’s not sure if he should call someone.
“Jesus, Gare,” I croak, flopping onto the couch. “I’m just tired.”
He hovers watching me like I might spontaneously combust and he’s seconds from ducking for cover.
“How was the recital?” I ask, patting the space on the couch beside me. “Tell me about it.”
His eyes go wide, caught off guard. Like he’s trying to figure out if he heard me right.
“Your daughter,” I say, clearing my throat. “Didn’t she do a tap number?”
“You remembered,” he says, face softening into the biggest damn smile. “Mack, she was so damn good. I don’t know how anybody moves their feet that fast.”
He eases down next to me and launches into the story and I let him. I let myself listen to every word. To the joy in his voice. The warmth. The love. The kind of love that makes you sit up straighter just hearing about it.
While he talks, I think about the man already halfway down the highway. Think about how close I came to calling it nothing. To letting it slip away.
The only proof he was ever here is the coffee cup in my trash, the motor oil stain on the concrete, and the ache low in my belly that I know ain’t just from the sex, but I don’t move from thatspot. I stay right there on the busted old couch that still smells faintly of oil and yesterday.
Gary keeps talking, voice warm and steady beside me, and I just... let it wash over me. I let myself feel all of it. The grief. The want. The gratitude. Like maybe if I sit still long enough, the ache won’t feel so sharp. Or maybe it will, but I’ll know I survived it.
It hurt finding something good in all the mess, but I guess if you lean into it anyway, sometimes you get to see what might be waiting past the worst of it.
8
ONE YEAR LATER
“Well, the delay definitely ruined my day.”
I hadn’t really been paying attention. Not since they pushed my flight to New York back for the second time, and I’d resigned myself to lukewarm airport coffee and pretending not to exist, but even with a dozen angry voices barking at the gate agent, I catch one voice loud and clear and somehow, I know it like muscle memory, even though I’m pretty sure some part of me stopped believing I’d ever hear it again. It’s got a direct line to something I buried a long time ago.
I glance up from my phone, and there are two gold-flecked amber eyes I was sure I’d only ever see again in dreams, and just like that, the whole damn airport disappears.
It’s him.Andrés.
“Long time no see,” he says, tongue flicking out to wet his bottom lip before he pulls it between his teeth, grinning wide.
Long time no seeis right.
It’s been close to six months since either of us said anything on our barely breathing text thread. It was active for both of us until it wasn’t. At first he’d tell me about his day on set, and I’d tell him about mine in the shop. He’d explain the chaos ofcommercial shoots, and I’d walk him through what a spark plug does.
All the while, I’d wait.
Every damn day, I’d check my phone like it owed me something. Needy as hell for whatever scraps he was willing to toss my way.
I got in the habit of sending him things that reminded me of him. He’d get songs, memes, photos, and dumb little quotes I found at two in the morning when I couldn’t sleep. Stuff that probably didn’t mean much on its own, but it all felt like tiny ways to stay connected.
Which, honestly, was probably too much and too intense for a guy I’d only spent maybe nine hours total with, but he stayed on my mind all the time.
