“Hey, Grace, it’s Alex from the auto shop. I wanted to call and let you know you can stop by any time today to check on your car. Thanks, and hopefully we’ll see you soon!”

A few days had passed since I’d arrived in Chester. I hadn’t really left Judy’s house much since I’d come into town, and when I did, I ended up in The Silent Bookshop. Staying in one of those two places was the easiest way to avoid running into people.

I was making it my mission to avoid Autumn and Finn like the plague.

Yet now that Alex called, I had to force myself to leave my two havens and head over to the auto shop. After I slipped on my shoes, I headed outside and felt the summer breeze brushing against my face. There was nothing like the hot summers of Georgia and the way the trees exploded with the brightest shades of green.

Chester was the perfect sized town because everything was within walking distance. Though Mike’s Auto Shop seemed a bit off the pathway because it was right on the edge of town. The Emery men owned a lot of acreage—nowhere near as much as my family, but they had a lot more land than most people in town did. On the far-right side of their property sat a beautiful two-level home, and in the middle was the auto shop. In front of the shop, a few broken-down and rusted vehicles placed on top of spare tires were used as decoration. It was…cute.

A wooden sign, which read Mike’s Auto Shop, sat tilted against the front of the building.

Right beside the auto shop was a small cabin with a few bushes around the front. It was nothing special, but it did have that cute, homey feel to it.

When I used to dream of having a family, I always thought we’d vacation in a cute cabin like that each year.

As I pulled open the front door of the auto shop, it squeaked and dinged a bell above the door. I glanced around the shop, but no one was around. I walked to the front desk and hit the bell, hoping someone would notice my arrival. When no one did, I began walking around the shop.

Out of nowhere, a big black lab started walking in my direction. He moved so slow, though, wagging his tail. When he reached me, he sat down and kept wagging his tail.

“You must be the guy Josie told me about,” I remarked, bending down to pet him. He kept wagging his tail as his breaths sawed in and out as if the short walk exhausted him. I glanced at his dog collar. Tucker. “You’re adorable, Tucker,” I told him before he stood back up and slowly walked back to his dog bed.

What a sweetheart.

“Hello?” I called out, but no one answered. “Hmph.”

I waited a bit longer in the front lobby before I heard a loud banging. Walking toward the back of the shop, I saw an open door that led to the backyard. The banging grew louder and louder as I walked through the door, and there buried behind a few trees was an automobile that looked as if it had been tossed through a hurricane a few times. Standing over it with a sledgehammer, Jackson was slamming into the vehicle.

He stood shirtless and sweat dripped from every inch of his body as he kept pounding the car over and over again. Every muscle in his body was on full display, and I couldn’t help but notice. How could I not? Jackson might’ve been the town asshole, but his body was something worth worshipping. You didn’t come across men as handsome as he was very often—too bad his personality didn’t match his looks.

“Hey!” I called out to him, but he didn’t look up. He kept hammering away, aggression in every hit. He had earbuds in his ears, which didn’t help his case when it came to ignoring me. So, I moved in closer. “Hey!” I shouted, pounding my hand against the car. He jumped out of his skin when he saw me, dropped his sledgehammer, and within seconds, he was cussing up a storm.

“Holy shit!” he shouted, grabbing his left foot in his hand, the unfortunate place that the sledgehammer happened to fall. “Fuck, that hurts.”

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!” I claimed, covering my mouth with my hands. “Are you okay?”

“I just dropped a fucking sledgehammer on my foot. What the hell do you think?!” he barked.

I would’ve called him out on his sass level, but well, he did drop a sledgehammer on his foot, so his anger seemed warranted.

He grumbled, something he was a professional at doing, and gave me a harsh look. “What do you want?”

“I got a call from Alex saying I should stop in to check on the car, and no one was in the shop. Then I heard you doing”—I gestured toward the destroyed car—“whatever it is that you’re doing.”

He grumbled some more, finally dropping his foot back to the ground, and he started toward the shop. I stood there for a moment, uncertain of what I was supposed to do as he limped away.

He glanced over his shoulder at me and huffed. “Are you coming or what?”

“Oh, okay,” I replied, hurrying in his direction.

Once we got inside, he walked over to my car, and said, “Alex had to run out to tow someone.” His face was sporting a bit of a five-o’clock shadow, and he brushed his hand against it. “He told me to update you on the car if he wasn’t back.”

I placed my hands on my hips and stared at the car. “So how is she doing?”

“She?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow. “Cars don’t have genders.”

“Cars definitely have genders. Just because you can’t pick up on it doesn’t mean that they don’t. Rosie, here, is definitely female.”

“You would be the type to name a damn car.”

“And you would be the type to complain about someone naming a car,” I remarked.

He grumbled again, and I smiled. I felt as if my smiling irritated him, and I somewhat enjoyed annoying him because he somewhat liked to be mean to me.

“The car’s a piece of shit. Alex should’ve tossed it into the scrapyard,” Jackson stated. “You wasted your time coming down here. It’s junk.” I took a deep breath, and he held his hand up to me. “I swear to God, princess, if you start crying, I’m going to lose my goddamn mind. I’m the one with a broken foot probably, and you don’t see me getting emotional.”

I sniffled and tried my best to hold my emotions together. “Sorry, it’s just that Rosie and I have been through a lot.”

“Stop calling your car a human name.”

“Stop calling me princess.”

“No.”

“Then Rosie stays, too, and I’m going to call you Oscar.”

“What the hell does that even mean?”

“Because you’re grumpy—just like Oscar the Grouch.”

He gave me the blankest stare. “Oh, how creative, princess.”

“Thank you, Oscar. Because ya know, calling a woman princess is really outside of the box,” I mocked.

“You’re annoying.”

“And you’re a grump. But…” A knot formed in my gut, and I rubbed my hands against the back of my neck. “I am really sorry, ya know. About your foot. If you want, I can have—”

“Nope,” he cut in.

“What?”

“I said no. We aren’t doing this. Let’s make something clear, this isn’t something—our back and forth interactions. This isn’t a thing.”

His response perplexed me. “I never said it was a thing. All I was saying was—”

“Don’t. Don’t say anything.”

“Stop cutting me off!”

“Then stop talking. You think I don’t see how you look at me every time you’re in that bookshop? Like there’s something about me that you can’t figure out? Well, there’s not. So if you could just please leave me the hell alone, that would be great.” And, like normal, he grumbled once more. “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Crying.”

What? Dangit!

“Hot. Mess,” he breathed out. “Just wait for Alex to get back,” Jackson muttered. “I don’t want to deal with you anymore.”

Wow.

I think I hate you.

I went to the waiting area and sat down, leaving my purse on the table as I waited for Alex to come back. When he walked through the front door, he gave me that same bright smile. “Hey, Grace! Thanks for coming in! Have you been helped yet?”

“Not really. I mean, Jackson spoke to me, but he wasn’t really helpful, per se. He told me the car was a piece of crap and not worth saving.”

Alex crossed his arms. “Where is he?”

“He’s outside banging a sledgehammer against some car like an insane man.”

“Oh.” Alex frowned and shook as if a chill had run over him. “Don’t take it personally. He’s having a bad day.”

I sarcastically laughed. “How can you tell? It seems as if he’s always in a mood.”

“Yeah, but…” Alex frowned. “When he’s out there, hitting those cars, it means he’s in a bad mood. Like, really bad mood. There’s no getting through to him when he’s like that.”

“He’s not the easiest person to deal with.”

“That’s true, too.” He snickered and nodded, walking toward my car with me. “He’s not as bad as everyone says.”

“No,” I agreed. “He’s worse.”

“That’s just because you don’t know him. The Jackson I know is one of the nicest guys, but he doesn’t show it the same ways as others do. If you watch closely, you’d see it every now and then.”