“I’m renting this place… Being a Lock makes it a very safe place. Nobody would dare mess with my family. Cheaper than buying an entire block to keep something precious safe.” She winks.
“Something precious?”
We reach a large metal door, and Roxy punches in a code and then uses her thumbprint on a pad. The engine buzzes, and the door slides open.
“Holy fuck.” I don’t wait for permission, and enter what I now see is a garage.
Though judging by the number of vintage cars parked here, it could double as a warehouse.
Fuck that; this is a cathedral.
The air is cool, conditioned, and filtered, carrying the clean bite of polished metal and old leather. The lights are warm, spaced like someone actually cared about how the chrome catches the glow.
And the cars… Christ. I move around, not even sure what to admire first.
“Easy there.” Roxy laughs.
Vintage bodies in perfect lines, each one angled as if it belongs in a museum, not tucked away in an industrial alley in Brooklyn. A deep burgundy coupe with curves that look sinful.
A pale silver roadster that practically purrs while standing still.
A dark green beauty with a stance that says, “Don’t touch.”
My pulse ticks up like I’ve walked into someone’s private obsession.
I turn slowly, taking it in. “This is yours?”
Roxy strolls in behind me, as if she brought me to her kitchen. Like this is normal. As if she doesn’t have me one breath away from dropping to my knees and proposing to her and the entire collection.
“It’s mine,” she breathes out with pride. Reverence. Ownership.
I glance over my shoulder. “It’s impressive.”
Something flickers across her face. The kind of micro-expression I’ve learned not to miss on her—the moment praise lands where it was never properly allowed to land.
She clears her throat and walks past me, heels clicking on the clean concrete like punctuation.
“Who cultivated this in you?” Because she didn’t learn this on Instagram, and certainly not from her father who’s been missing in action when it comes to parenting.
Roxy pauses by a black classic convertible, her fingers hovering over the hood without touching it.
“I used to play in my grandfather’s garage,” she says, her voice quieter now like she’s speaking to the space instead of me. “Not the kind of playing my father approved of.”
I take a slow step closer, careful not to crowd her. “Your mom’s father?”
She nods. “My mom’s side.” Her mouth tightens for a second before she forces it loose again. “He didn’t care what I wore. Didn’t care if I got dirty. He just… let me be there.”
The way she sayslet me be theremakes it sound like it was oxygen. Like it was mercy.
“I’d sit on his workbench with my legs swinging, watching him polish them. He’d hand me things. Rags. Tools. Old bolts he didn’t need anymore.” Her lips twitch. “I thought I was essential.”
“You were,” I say automatically.
Her gaze snaps to mine, like she didn’t mean to invite that in.
“You still are essential,” I add. “Then and now.”
A beat passes. Then she exhales, as if letting the truth exist costs her something.
