car. The engine is a mess of cables and steel and things that I’d likely break upon impact. I should have paid more attention the last time I saw someone do this.
“Is everything all right over there?”
I jump at the voice and the hood slams shut with the sound of steel on steel, narrowly missing my fingers.
“Shoot. You okay?” Standing on the other side of the fence is Ethan. I glimpse the shiny black lacquer of a car behind him.
He’s in a suit.
For a second, that simple fact makes it difficult to craft a reply. How could I, when he looks as if he’s poured into the fabric? No tie. Undone top button, a slice of tanned skin in view. Thick hair that’s just as messy as it was the day before. And eyes that look increasingly concerned as I play mute.
Nodding, I force out a response. “Yes. Well, no, not really. My car won’t start.”
He runs a hand along his jaw. “Problem, that.”
“Yes.”
“Do you know why?”
“I suspect it’s the battery,” I say. “It’s done this before. I was warned it would happen again. I didn’t listen.”
“Do you have jumper cables?”
“No.”
“Right. Well, I’ll be over in a second.” He disappears from view, speaking to someone on the other side in too low a voice for me to make out.
This was not at all how I’d planned out our next interaction! After the brownie-hello two days ago, my mind had raced ahead to a summer of polite exchanges and charming smiles. To waving at him from the side of the pool as he worked on the treehouse. To potentially—sometime around week seven—slip into conversation that I study system engineering. One of the few women at Washington Polytech doing that, in fact.
But no. Now I look unprepared at best and downright negligent at worst.
Ethan reappears at the bottom of my driveway, holding a set of cables, still clad in his suit. “I’ll back up my own car,” he says. “It should be a simple fix. Do you have somewhere you need to be today?”
“Yes, a meeting.” I smooth a hand over my tailored slacks. “Thank you so much for helping me. Are you sure you have the time, though? I don’t want to keep you from—”
He waves away my protest. “Not a problem. Besides, your brownies were excellent, so I owe you one. Let me be your knight in shining armor.”
I lift up the hood to my car and he fastens the strut. Broad, tan hands grip the ends of the jumper cables. A white shirt peeks out from the sleeve of his suit jacket.
“Wait,” I say, my hands flitting forward to grip his wrist before he can touch my engine. It’s firm under my touch. “You might get grease on your shining armor.”
His lips twitch. “You’re right. A knight can’t have that, can he?”
“It would look very unprofessional.”
He shrugs off his suit jacket and I take it from him, folding it over my arm. It’s warm from his body heat. And then the worst of all—he rolls up his shirtsleeves, unveiling inch after inch of muscled forearms.
“Better?” he asks.
“Uh-huh.”
Still smiling, he bends to attach the cables to my engine. I watch this time, remembering where he’s attaching them. It’s bound to happen again. “You really know how to do this,” I comment.
“I’ve had a fair bit of practice,” he says. “Spent a lot of time with my head under the hood as a teenager.”
“Oh.”
“I take it you haven’t, though?” Shaking his head briefly, he rests his fingers on a box-like thing in the engine. “You definitely need to change your battery.”
“Oh, I know. I just never got around to it.”
“There’s a mechanic in Greenwood, down by the strip mall. He always has time for locals.” Ethan bends over the engine again, a smile in his voice. “Though I can’t think of a mechanic who wouldn’t make time for you.”
I blink at the broadness of his back. “Oh?”
“They love pretty faces.”
My mind goes completely blank at that.
“Daddy!” a young voice calls. “Can we watch? Please?”
A little girl stands at the base of my driveway, hands clasped behind her back, bouncing on the balls of her feet. Her hair is a mess of curls, the exact same honey shade as Ethan’s, minus the faint salt and pepper.
Ethan straightens. “Watch me jump-start a car?”
“Yes!”
He turns to me. “All the cartoons in the world, and this is more interesting,” he comments, rubbing a hand over his neck.