Page 63 of Molly's Mr. Wrong
“It smells of grease, oil and fuel.”
Molly shrugged. “Guess I’m a grease, oil and fuel kind of girl.” She was also still a touch nervous being there. No, not nervous. Self-conscious. Finn in his own environment was a bit overwhelming. Being in the shop seemed to double his Finn-ness, his basic masculinity, and parts of her were starting to pay close attention. Was it possible that she would never move past this physical connection? What had attracted her to him in high school before she’d known one thing about him, still attracted her, would possibly always attract her, despite logic and reason to the contrary. And there were viable reasons to the contrary.
While she didn’t really think Finn lacked substance, she knew he’d never fit into the world she was building. The nice quiet world where everyone knew where their next paycheck was coming from, nobody spent too much time hanging in bars. Where careers were settled. Life was settled. Boring. Sedate. Wonderfully comfortable.
Finn didn’t make her feel comfortable. He made her feel the way she’d felt when she first met Blake, and that was a red flag of ample proportions.
“About that metalworking?”
Finn jerked his head toward a bench with pieces of sheet metal on a rack nearby. “We’ll just do some practice hammering today.”
“And if I’m good at it?”
“I’ll put you to work. Double my production.”
“Tempting, but I have enough on my plate. More now that my observation is coming up.”
“Observation?” Finn took a smallish piece of sheet metal off the rack and took it to a disk-shaped piece of equipment sitting on a sturdy bench.
“Part of my professional evaluation. I get observed once formally, several times informally. Two student evaluations. If I pass the first evaluation, then I get evaluated once every six semesters.”
Finn placed the metal next to the disk. “What happens if you don’t pass?”
“That won’t happen.” Molly spoke automatically, because it wouldn’t happen. Even with a tiny ripple in the student evaluation area, she knew she was good at what she did. There was always room for improvement, but as far as the basics went, she had them down. “If it did happen—to someone else—they’re put on probation and have opportunities to remediate. Or they get fired.”
“That would sting.”
“Yes.” For a brief moment she teetered on the brink of telling him about the horrendous student review that was now in her file. She hadn’t told anyone, not even her sister, but to let it out...to have someone say, “One review? How could that possibly matter?” would make her feel better.
She couldn’t do it.
Finn picked up a pair of safety glasses large enough to cover her own glasses and instead of handing them to her, carefully slid them onto her face, then stood back to judge the effect. “You appear suitably bug-eyed.”
“Always a goal of mine.” Not. It had been hell being the girl who wore glasses, but contact lenses bothered her. Finn grinned and then bent over to dig around in a bin beneath the bench, coming up with a thick pair of gloves.
“Keep you from getting metal cuts.”
Molly put on the gloves and held up her hands. “Awkward.”
“You’ll be glad of them later. You come more often and I’ll see if I can dig up a pair that fits you.”
“You think I’ll need to take out my frustrations often?”
“Is Jonas your student?”
“Point taken.” But she couldn’t see herself coming to Finn’s private lair all that much, not when she kept breathing just a little more deeply to draw in his scent.Bad Molly.
Finn gestured toward an array of hammers, ball peens and some with odd flat heads. “This is a chasing hammer. Metal moves away from the area you pound, thinning.” He put the sheet of metal over the disk and started tapping away at the center and moving out. “As you hammer, you pretty much chase the metal as it thins and it shapes to the dolly, the form, that is.” He handed Molly the hammer.
“Have at it.”
“Okay.” Molly started tapping away, felt the metal give beneath the hammer.
“Move it in this direction...”
Molly followed Finn’s instructions, hammering from the center out until her flat circle was now a lovely, relatively smooth dome.
“I made a hubcap.” She laid down the hammer and picked up her handiwork.
