“Sorry I’m late!”
“Bullshit. You’re not.”
Alec Moore rolled all of his considerable bulk out from underneath a pickup truck he was fixing. His angular features, barely softened by the reddish blond beard he sported, were streaked with grease. Even from where he lay supine on the mechanic’s gurney, his gray-eyed glare still held impact.
He had known this man for over fifteen years, and yet that glare still made Lind squirm—not that he would ever admit it out loud. He walked past Alec and grabbed his overalls from the back.
“I am sorry,” he called out as he put them on. “I lost track of time.”
When he came back out, he found Alec standing and wiping his hands on a rug that once must have been white. His friend was smirking in spite of his grumpy attitude.
“Yeah, I can imagine,” he said. “I can only remember when Linda and I used to lose track of time.”
“Oh, come on,” Lind said, picking up the folder on Alec’s desk to look at his schedule for the day. “I’m sure you still do.”
“With two six-month-old-babies in the house?” Alec barked out a laugh. “Yeah, right.”
They soon fell into a well-known routine. It was just the two of them this morning, being the week when the garage would have normally been closed in order to give its staff a break. Neither Alec nor Lind were very fond of vacations, however, and so they kept things going while everyone else took some well-deserved time off. Alec, on his part, could be such a workaholic that he would have happily skipped lunch if it were up to him. Thankfully, since Linda, it wasn’t, and he would begrudgingly sit down and eat the lunch his old lady had prepared for him. Lind suspected his friend had come to look forward to and even relish that break during his day.
Lind’s lunch today consisted of the French toast he had not eaten for breakfast. He couldn’t help but think back on the glorious vision of Eve standing in his kitchen with only his t-shirt on as she prepared the meal.
“So,” Alec said, as they both dug into their food, “this being late thing has become sort of the norm.”
Lind huffed in annoyance, but he didn’t protest too much; after all, in this scenario, Alec was his boss. “I said I was sorry,” he said. “I’ll try to be more careful.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Lind looked up curiously.
“I mean, yeah, sure, I wouldn’t mind if you were on time more often,” Alec said pointedly. “But I was more commenting on the fact that you and Eve seem to be spending a lot of time together.”
Lind shifted in his seat, suddenly uncomfortable. “So?” he asked defensively.
“So, I was wondering if you ever think about…you know.”
Lind arched an eyebrow. “No,” he said, slowly and deliberately, “I don’t know. What are you talking about?”
Alec took a deep breath. It was clear that he was also quite out of his depth, which made Lind wonder why on Earth he had chosen to venture on the subject in the first place. “Is she your old lady?”
Lind’s eyes all but popped out of his head. He must have looked quite ridiculous—because Alec burst out laughing.
“Ok,” he said, raising his hands in a pacifying gesture. “I see this is a touchy subject.”
Lind glared openly at him. “You think?”
Alec shrugged, sinking his teeth into a massive BLT sandwich. “I just figured after almost six months, maybe you had thought about where this thing is going, that’s all.”
“Since when do you wonder about where anything is going?” Lind retorted. “Linda had to practically tie you to a chair to make you talk about your relationship.”
Alec grinned. “I’m a changed man.”
“Provided you’re still a man at all,” Lind grumbled.
Alec’s gray-eyed glare came back in full force.
“Just stop asking women’s questions, ok?” Lind said. “Back off.”
Alec huffed. “You’re so fucking touchy, Lind. I hope you get to ‘lose track of time’ again tonight, maybe that’ll calm you down.”