Emily

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I was doing everything all wrong. I was supposed to walk into Riggs Auto, all cool and collected. I was supposed to calmly apologize to Luke for the way I’d treated him the other day, like a civilized person. I was supposed to collect my car. And then I was supposed to leave.

None of that was happening, and it was my fault. I was being Crazy Lady again, and I knew why. It was his stupid sexy body, his gorgeous arms with the ink on the right one, his gorgeous face with the high cheekbones and the dark eyes. He wasn’t wearing a baseball cap today, and his black hair was tousled. There was a dark shadow on his jaw like he hadn’t shaved in a day or two. Even his hands were hot—big and capable with a few faint smears of grease on the backs of the fingers. His hands. I was such an idiot.

He led me back to the bays where the cars were—ugh, God, his ass in jeans was just as amazing as it had been at eighteen—and pointed to my car, which was up on a hoist. “There,” he said in his low drawl. “Now you’ve seen it.”

I crossed my arms and stared up at the underside of my car, unwilling to admit that this was a pointless exercise, even though he already knew. “It looks fine to me,” I said, faking it. “I don’t see the problem.”

“Yeah?” I turned to see Luke leaning one hip on a stack of boxes, watching me stare up at my car. His expression was calm and slightly amused, though it was still closed off. I wondered if that meant he was still angry. “Is that your expert opinion?” he said.

Past his shoulder, I could see one of the other mechanics in the shop watching us. “Okay, fine,” I said to Luke. “I admit I don’t know what the underside of my car is supposed to look like. But I can’t have you fix it, because I can’t afford it.”

That made Luke frown. “How are you going to get around?” he asked.

“I borrowed Lauren’s car,” I said. “I can work something out with her, maybe. Or my parents might lend me theirs.”

“And then what? You get a new car? You have the money for that?”

“It doesn’t matter, because I don’t have the money for this.” I pointed to my car.

“You do if I don’t charge you for the repair.”

I stared at him. It was completely unexpected, and for some reason that made my defenses go up. “You’re not going to charge me? For a repair this expensive?”

“No.”

“Why not?” I said. “What do you want instead?”

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew they were stupid. Stupid, and—this sounds weird—unworthy. Luke and I had a lot of history, most of it dirty, but never, even at eighteen, had he treated sex as a transaction. No matter how hot and heavy we got, sex had always been something we did together for fun.

It made him mad again. I could see it. We’d had exactly two interactions since we’d both come back to town, and both times I’d made him mad. Two for two, Emily. I didn’t know why I couldn’t stop treating Luke like he was something he wasn’t. Like I’d never met him before. Like I didn’t trust him.

He slapped the palm of his hand on the box he was leaning on and stood up straight. “We’ll discuss this in the office,” he said, his jaw tight.

He headed across the garage to a door in the back. The mechanic was still watching us—actually, now everyone in here was watching us, and I’m not going to lie, these guys were kind of creepy. I followed Luke to the door, my cheeks going red.

When he shut the door behind us, he turned on me. “Jesus, Emily,” he said. “I’m trying to do something fucking nice here.”

We were in a small office, furnished with only a desk, covered in papers, and a chair. There wasn’t even a computer on the desk. “I know,” I said to him. “I shouldn’t have said that. There’s something seriously wrong with me.”

He watched me with narrowed eyes, like he suspected a trap.

For some reason, that was the worst thing—that he looked at me like that. No matter what drama I inflicted on him, Luke usually looked at me with quiet amusement, lazy indifference, or flat-out lust. Not like he thought I was going to kick him in the nuts without warning.

“I’m stressed out,” I said. “I’m back in Westlake because I have no job and nowhere else to be. My last job was an internship that paid peanuts. I’m literally living in my childhood bedroom, sleeping in a single bed, with my parents in the bedroom next door—and I’m twenty-six. There’s something wrong with Lauren, and she won’t talk to me about it. I’ve spent two days in a hair salon, trying to figure out Lauren’s business and inhaling hair spray. I’m getting rides because my car is fucked and I have no money to fix it. And apparently I’ve decided to take all of it out on you.”

He crossed his arms. He was wearing a black T-shirt and jeans. God help me, Luke Riggs in a black T-shirt and jeans was the best thing I’d seen in seven long, sworn-off-men months, though I hated to admit it. “That it?” he said, his voice still curt. “Are you done?”

“Dumping on you?” I said. “I hope so. I mean, I know you have your own problems, because you’re running a business all of a sudden and your dad is in prison. And on top of all that, you’re trying to do something nice for me.”

“Trying,” he said with a poker face.

“I’ll pay you,” I said.

“Do not fucking pay me.”

I ignored him and pulled out my wallet. I knew I had exactly one hundred dollars in it, mostly in fives and tens—money I had planned to buy groceries with, since I was mooching my parents’ food. Instead I pulled out the bills and put them on the desk.

Luke looked at the bills, his dark eyes swiftly counting them. “A hundred bucks?”

“It’s a down payment.”

Now he sounded like he was getting mad again. “Christ, have you always been this stubborn? I’m trying to remember, but all I can recall is you moaning in my ear.”

“I do not moan,” I said.

His eyebrows went up, because that was a flat-out lie and we both knew it. With him, I had moaned. A lot. In fact, we’d never argued at eighteen—we’d only fucked. We had the same thought at the same time, and for a second the room was silent, the temperature between us going up and up.

“How long since you swore off men, Parker?” he said.

For a second I thought he was psychic, but then I remembered he’d heard me tell Ed MacGregor this at the gas station.

“Or was that a line?” Luke said.

“It wasn’t a line,” I snapped.

“Then how long?”

“Seven months.” Because apparently I was an idiot who answered all of Luke’s personal questions.

He shook his head in pity. “Seven months without dick. I know you, Em. You can barely go seven days.”

“That isn’t true.” It had only been true with him, which I would not admit under pain of torture right now. “I get along just fine, believe me. I’m much happier. I don’t need dick, as you put it.”

His voice went down a notch. “It always sounds dirtier when you say it.”

Was that a come-on? My brain didn’t know, but my body gave a little throb of excitement, focused right between my legs. It was a familiar refrain pulsing through my blood: Luke Riggs! Yes please! Right here! Right now! But no. That was not happening. Even though eighteen-year-old Emily would have pushed down her jeans and hopped up on the desk and—no.

I cleared my throat, surprised I was still able to see through the testosterone haze in the room. “My car,” I said, trying to sound businesslike, though my voice came out low and throaty, like a lounge singer’s.

“Will be fixed,” Luke said, finishing my sentence. “You want to give me your hundred bucks, fine, I’ll take your hundred bucks. We’ll work out the rest.”

“Okay,” I said. “Thank you.”

“You got a number?” he said. “I’ll call you when it’s done.”

So I gave him my number, and he texted me one word—hi—to give me his.

I had his number now, but I wasn’t going to use it. Business only.

That was what I told myself when I walked out the door.