I lost a bet tonight, and the forfeit was to send one message to a stranger on here. You are the stranger. I should warn you that I write romance novels for a living, so I tend to notice when someone is trying too hard.
A low, metallic hum follows my voice as I lean back in the garage chair.
Trying too hard. That's a bold opener for someone who just admitted she's here because she lost. Come closer and say it again.I am not close. I am a screen and a bad decision away. But fine, I will bite. What does a mechanic do at this hour that makes him worth a forfeit message?
I wipe oil from my hands with a rag that does nothing for the shine on my knuckles.
Right now I'm fixing a lift that's been groaning all week. You'd groan too, if I had you up on it. Stay where you are and keep talking.That was almost poetry. Almost. For the record, I do not groan on command, and I do not stay anywhere just because a man tells me to.
The rag hits the bench and I take a slow step toward the camera anyway.
You will. Not tonight, maybe. But you came here with your forfeit like a good girl already. What's one more order to you.You are very sure of yourself for a man I have not even seen. Show me something real and I will decide whether you are worth the ink. Otherwise this stays a funny story I tell at book signings.
I tilt the camera down just enough: scarred jaw, cybernetic forearm resting across my thigh, fingers flexing once.
Real enough. Now answer me straight. When you write those novels, is the man who pins the heroine down always right, or is he sometimes cruel.He is honest, which is rarer than cruel. The cruel ones are boring. The honest ones make me lose my train of thought at two in the morning.
I laugh, low and rough, and the sound crackles through the mic.
Two in the morning. That's when I'd have you over the workbench, wrists in one hand, telling you exactly what I'm going to do next. And you'd write it all down after.Bold of you to schedule my insomnia for me. I have a chapter due Friday and a very smug protagonist who would not approve of a mechanic with a God complex.
I drag the chair closer until my face fills the frame, close enough to feel.
Then tell your protagonist to move over. You lost a bet, sweetheart. I haven't decided what the real forfeit is yet.