Page 15

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he looks almost concerned, maybe protective? That damn beard is making it hard to read his tells. I used to remember the way those dimples would pop, or the muscles in his jaw would tense if he was nervous or upset. Now, he’s so stoic he’s virtually impossible to read.

I roll my eyes and wave dismissively, trying again to pretend like he isn’t the source of my current inner turmoil. “It was nothing. We were just friendly neighbors at a campground. It came over to ask for a cup of sugar.”

He squints at me, not giving away anything resembling an emotional cue. “It asked for sugar?”

I shrug. “I mean not literally. It was eating a snack bar I left outside and kept bumping into my van.”

It’s almost imperceptible, but I swear I see his posture tense. “You know you aren’t supposed to leave food out in bear country.”

I take a step toward him in challenge. “You think I don’t know that?”

I tilt my head to look up and right at Sly, searching his face for some kind of emotional reaction. It might also be a trap because the scorching intensity of those eyes somehow finds a way to melt my icy cold exterior and open a door, right into the depths of my mind. If I hold his gaze any longer, I worry that he might see the feelings that still linger deep inside.

Thankfully, the sound of Eddie clearing his throat ends this unanticipated stare-down.

“Well, I’m glad Josie’s here and didn’t end up as bear food.” He leans forward in his chair and props his elbows on his knees. “You took so long I was starting to wonder if you got lost between here and the office. What are you doing out there?”

That’s when I notice the brown paper bag in Sly’s hand. The scrutiny of either my eyes, or his dad’s, or both, makes him shift on his feet. “I needed to run next door to grab something. We were out of sodas,” Sly grunts, reaching into the bag.

His dad quirks a brow at him. “No, we aren’t. I just refilled the fridge yesterday. We have⁠—”

Sly stares daggers at him before tossing a can of root beer at Eddie. “I said we were out.”

I’m starting to wonder what weird soda-fueled father-son argument I just got in the middle of when Sly reaches back into the bag. He produces a glass bottle in one of those burly hands and takes his keys in his other hand, cooly popping off the cap with a satisfying hiss.

“Here,” he mutters before extending it out to me.

I look down at the glass bottle in his hand, and my stomach does a weird flippy thing. Not because of the way his hand engulfs the bottle or because I wonder if those hands would still make me melt the way they used to. It’s not even the chorded forearm covered in tattoos that I can finally make out. His entire forearm is wrapped in a landscape I would recognize anywhere. It’s the mountain overlook we used to hike to because the views were so mesmerizing, even more so now that it’s inked into his skin.

Still, none of those are the reasons my stomach and heart are doing things that would probably be medically concerning on a normal day.

It’s the bottle’s borderline fluorescent red contents. Sly hates the deliciously sweet red cream soda that I always loved. I don’t know who exactly got me addicted to it as a kid, but I should probably be mad at them for the amount of questionable ingredients I’ve consumed because of it. One thing I do remember is that no one else in his family drank it growing up. Even his brother, Sutton, with his childlike sweet tooth didn’t like it, but the Sterlings always had some in their fridge because I was around so often.

Grabbing the bottle from him, my fingers brush against his. The contact is brief, and despite his rough calluses, I feel that jolt of heat that courses up my arm and through parts of my body that I wish it wouldn’t. Looking up into his eyes, I see that cool indifference that borders on irritation from before. Outside of the slightest bob of his throat—almost entirely obscured by the beard the jury is still out on—he displays almost no reaction at all.

Message. Received. No lingering feelings for him.

The icy calmness of his reaction, or lack thereof, makes it clear that those are long gone. I wish it were indifference I felt, because this combination of anger and horniness is downright dangerous. Just like this garage filled with volatile fumes from gasoline and oil, it feels like one stray spark might light me into a raging wildfire.

“Thanks,” I manage to muster. I guess he’s just being polite, definitely not something I should be reacting to the way I am.

Fortunately, Eddie interjects again, sparing me from my own internal spiraling. “She was just telling me about her next van trip before you got back.”

“Yeah, I was.” I flash the elder Sterling a thankful smile before turning back to the younger, surlier one. “Speaking of my van, do you know what’s wrong with it and when you can get it back up and running? I know the transmission light came on, and it was shifting a little funny before it broke down, but it was just serviced.”

Sly’s head tilts and this time the corner of his lips tug up into something that could possibly be called a smile, or at least a sign of approval. “Well, whoever you had it serviced by might owe you a new transmission because yours is beyond repair.”

My body tenses and I furrow my brows at him. I do not like the sound of that because one, I always have it serviced by a dealer, if possible, and two, this does not sound like an easy fix. “What do you mean beyond repair?”

“I mean—” Sly pauses to pull out a can of soda from the bag. He pulls one finger back to open the tab with a loud pop. “—it’s literally cracked open. Most of the fluid had drained out and by the time you stopped, the gears and bearings were already shredded.”

I don’t know if it’s that I’m getting the worst-case scenario news in general, or if it’s because I’m getting the news from him, but indignation surges in me. I fold my arms over my chest and glare back at him. “Are you even qualified to work on these vans? What makes you so certain?”

“Because I’m right,” he says, stepping toward me. If there’s one thing about him I doubt has changed, it’s that he was always confident and rarely backs down from a challenge, especially when he knows he’s right.

I prepare myself for the confrontation, but it never comes. Instead, he simply brushes past me and his dad, casually taking a sip of his soda while he walks over to the front of my van. He stops at a little cart next to the passenger side, setting his can down and talking over his shoulder. “For the record, I’ve worked on dozens of these, and this isn’t the first one I’ve seen like this.”

“Mm-hmm.” His dad hums beside me. “Servicing these sorts of vans became a cottage industry for us the last few years.”