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“Do you love him?”
“How can you love someone in such a short time?”
The ratchet twisted and clicked some more, and then he stuck it out under the frame for me to take. “Sounds like there’s your answer. Can you hand me the 5/8, please?”
I moved over to the tool box and switched wrenches, then returned with the new one for him. “It’s not that simple.”
“Tell me what’s not simple about it. A guy asks you to marry him, but you don’t love him, so it seems pretty clear.”
“Yes, but…” I gestured helplessly. “I wonder if I could love him.”
Dad snorted from under the car. “If you could, you’d already know.”
“I’m not so sure. I feel like Austen’s the kind of guy you need to take your time with, peeling back all the layers. I see flashes of brilliance in him, things I really admire and could adore. Just… not all the time.” I grabbed another wrench from the toolbox and tapped it idly against my palm. Dad would want this one next when he put the skid plate back on.
“Well, that sounds fine, then. If you love him twenty-five percent of the time, that should be good enough.”
I rolled my eyes. “Come on, Dad, be serious.”
He rolled out from under the car. “I am serious. If you have to talk yourself into caring for this guy, he’s not the one.”
I gazed steadily into my dad’s eyes, reading the intensity of his love for me in every dear nook and crag of his face. “I just don’t want to throw something away without being sure,” I whispered.
He sighed and sat up off his creeper. “Pass me my soda, will you?”
I reached for the glass bottle of Coke sitting on the toolbox. Dad liked having the vintage pop bottles out here in the garage, maybe because it felt old-fashioned and nostalgic to him. It was the only time he even drank pop. He tipped it back for a long, refreshing swallow, then gasped in satisfaction. “That’s good. I like a cold Coke when I’m working.”
I tightened my lips and nodded. “I know.”
“Reminds me of when I was a kid. My dad would take me to town and give me a quarter, and we’d watch the high school football team practicing. Made me love football.” His gaze grew unfocused, and he took another swallow. “Made me love a cold Coke, too.”
I huffed a little laugh. “I suppose it would.”
Dad set his bottle down. “But it wasn’t really football and Coke that I loved. I loved spending time with my dad. The rest was just the association. I still think of him when I pop a bottle top.”
I folded up my knees and rested my chin on them. “Kind of like I’ll never work on a car without thinking of you.”
He chuckled and caressed my cheek with his blackened fingers, probably leaving a dark smear. I didn’t even care. He was the reason I’d never object to the smell of engine grease and automotive paint—because the first man I ever loved smelled like them all the time. “You know, honey, I wonder if it’s really something about Austen that just reminds you of what you’re truly looking for. It’s not actually him, is it?”
“I don’t know.”
He tilted his head and gave me that long look that had always made me fess up to my crimes when I was little.
I sniffed and slowly shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
Dad’s chin puckered in one of his gentle half-smiles. “So, what is it? What about him makes you want to see if there’s more?”
I clamped my upper lip between my teeth and toyed with the wrench in my hand. “I like it when he opens up and shows me what’s underneath. I just wish he would do it more. It’s like he’s wearing a mask all the time.” I wrinkled my brow and stared at the wrench like it was a key to unlock my thoughts. “No, that’s not quite it. It’s more like he’s two different people.”
Dad climbed up off his creeper with a grunt for his creaking joints. “Sounds like he needs medication, not a girlfriend.”
“Not like that,” I giggled. “In person, he’s so… I don’t know. Full of himself. Cocky. I’d have never given him the time of day if I hadn’t had a chance to see the other side of him.”
“And that is?”
I shrugged, still looking down. “I like the sensitive man I see once in a while, the one who can make a sunrise sound like a new world and make me feel the cold from a winter’s morning with just a few words.”
“And why does that appeal to you?”
