My eyebrows pull down as I walk through the door. There’s no loud music playing and no sound of metal clinking against metal. I walk through the shop and search him out, hoping he’s actually here.
I follow the sound of a bouncing ball and find him leaning back in a desk chair, facing the wall as he throws a tennis ball at the wall. It rebounds once, bounces on the ground, and comes to a stop in his hand. Then he throws it again, and again, and again.
I walk up behind him and place my hands on his tight shoulders. “Hey,” I murmur.
He jumps and sucks in a quick breath before realizing it’s just me. My eyebrows pull down, concerned about what the hell is going on with him. I’ve never got the jump on him. He’s known for always being so calculating and on the ball. It’s like an unspoken rule, no one can sneak up on this guy, but I guess that’s not true after all.
“What are you doing here?” he questions, letting the ball fall from his fingers and roll across the floor until it comes to a stop under the Miura. He spins his desk chair around until he’s facing me and pulls me in between his legs, taking my waist in his hands.
“Just wanted to see you,” I tell him. “It’s been a while since we just… did nothing.” A softness creeps into his eyes as he watches me. “What’s going on?” I question. “Something’s on your mind.”
“It’s nothing,” he says. “I just miss you.”
I sit down on his lap and twine my arm around his neck, leaning into him and pressing my lips against his warm cheek. “I’m right here.”
“I know,” he says, running his fingers up and down my back. “It’s… it’s hard to explain.”
“Try me.”
He holds me a little tighter and presses his lips into a firm line. “I don’t like how things are between us at the moment,” he says, making me sit a little straighter as I begin to panic. He notices instantly and rushes to soothe me. “No, no,” he says. “I don’t mean it like that. It’s just, I’m always busy here and you’re always studying or in class.”
“I can’t help that,” I tell him.
“I know,” he says. “I’m not asking you to. I just… I think we need to find somewhere in between.”
I nod my head. “I’m not going to lie. I’ve been feeling it too,” I tell him. “If I didn’t have you sneaking through my window at night, I’d probably be a mess.”
“Not possible,” he says, running his fingers through my hair.
“I promise,” I whisper. “We’ll make this work. We always do.”
He watches me with those soft eyes for a beat before pulling me back into him. He rests his forehead against mine. “You know, I love you, right?”
A beaming smile cuts my face in two. “Oh, I have a slight inkling,” I tease. “Are you finished here?”
He looks around and I see from the cringe that rips across his face that the answer is no, but he goes and surprises me anyway. “It can wait,” he tells me. “I’d rather take you home. Mom is out with John for the weekend.”
“So, we’d have the place all to ourselves?”
“Well, apart from Jesse,” he says. “We could go back to your place?”
I shake my head. “Jesse is having girl problems. He’s with Kaylah and my place is a hard pass. Lukas is there, testing my self-control.”
“That guy is such a douche.”
“You can say that again.”
Nate gets up from his chair and places me down on my feet as he goes around and closes up his shop. He flicks the internal locks for the office and meeting room while flicking off the light and turning off the massive industrial fan above our heads.
A few minutes pass as we stand before both the Camaro and Mustang, playing a game of eeny, meeny, miny, moe. “I mean, which one are we supposed to take?” I ask him, feeling completely torn.
“I don’t know,” he says. “Is this what it feels like when someone asks a parent to choose which is their favorite kid?”
“I don’t know. I guess,” I wonder out loud. “I’m an only child.”
I dive under the Miura and search out the tennis ball as Nate continues studying his choices. “Hey, Nate,” I call. As his head whips around, I throw the ball as hard as I can between the two cars and watch his reaction.
His eyes widen as though he can’t believe I just threw a ball at his babies, but then he shuffles his body towards the Camaro, leaving the Mustang defenseless as he catches the ball.
“What the hell?” he grunts.
“We’re taking the Camaro,” I tell him.
“Huh?” he questions, scrunching up his face.
“You stepped in front of the Camaro,” I explain. “The Camaro is your favorite child.”