Morning sits heavy on the trees, the kind of gray that turns everything into a silhouette. The hall coffee tastes like usual. I take two paper cups anyway and set them on the counter to cool. Sue is already at the whiteboard, making columns that will be full by noon.
"South line," Sam says without looking over. "Then errands."
"Copy," I say.
"Bring a box of rags to the shops," Sue adds. "Somebody keeps forgetting we own a washing machine."
Embry, passing, puts a hand over his heart. "I'm offended."
"Good," Sue says.
I stack the rags, tuck tape and flyers under my arm, and start the day. The line is steady, cedar, wet earth, the thin chemical thread of a boat engine from the river. I move quiet. I don't think about envelopes or the sound a door makes when someone leaves faster than thinking.
By noon, errands take me past the garage. The door is up halfway. Oil and old music at a whisper. I set the rags on the workbench just inside and wait a beat so I'm not a surprise.
Jacob is under the bike, forearms braced, jaw set. Grease dark on his knuckles. The jack holds. The front wheel hangs off. He looks like he's wrestling something he halfway wants to lose to.
"Hey," he says without looking, voice rough at the edges. "If that's more wedding mail, you can toss it in the bay."
"Shop rags," I say.
"Better."
He slides out, squints at me like he's remembering where he knows my face from and deciding it doesn't matter. The laugh is gone today. What's left is a quietness.
I nod toward the tray. "You want a hand or you want space?"
He wipes his palm on his jeans, then on a clean rag, then on his jeans again like none of it took. "Uh, no pep talks," he says, quick, like he's ripping off tape. "If you're gonna… y'know. Say it gets better. Or that I should breathe. Or..." He flicks his fingers. "Don't. I can't… I'm not takin' that kind of help."
"Okay," I say.
He waits. People usually argue with a boundary, even the polite ones. He watches my face to see when I start. I don't.
"I mean it," he adds, softer, as if he still has to defend the line he drew. "Don't fix me."
"I wasn't going to," I say. "I can hold a light."
He huffs out something that isn't a laugh and isn't not. It's air moving because it needs to. "Yeah. Okay. Light's fine."
I pick up the shop light and he lowers back under. The bulb hums. He points with his chin. "Angle it right there. Yeah."
We work like that. He names sizes in a voice that forgets to be tired—"ten mil… nah, twelve… where's the Allen" and I pass them. Metal ticks. A stubborn bolt thinks about its life choices and decides to show respect. He mutters thanks without looking. I don't make it into a moment.
"Why're you here?" he asks after a while, not accusing, just curious, like a guy checking a noise in the wall.
"Errands," I say. "Hall rags. And I was headed this way anyway."
"You always… talk like that?"
"Like what?"
"Short." He slides out, scrubs his face with the back of his wrist. "No fluff."
"Talking fast never helped me," I say.
He nods like that sits right. "Yeah."
Silence again. Not empty. Not heavy. Work-silence. The kind you can stand in without wanting to leave your own skin.
He rolls under. "Hand me the box wrench. No, other one. Yeah. Thanks."
We fall into a rhythm, the small shake of the light when my arm gets tired, his hand coming up to steady it without touching me, a quick "got it," then back to the bolt. Rain starts patrol on the metal roof and decides to stay. The smell of oil and wet concrete makes a map of the room.
He breaks a knuckle on a stubborn edge. Blood beads and smears. He doesn't swear. He just squeezes the finger once and keeps going.
"You want a bandage?" I ask.
"After."
"Okay."
He finishes the front assembly, gives the wheel a spin. It hums true. He nods, a tiny thing, at himself or the day.
"Water?" I ask, holding up my bottle.
He takes it without a word, drinks, hands it back with a clean "thanks."
We sit for a minute on opposite sides of the bike. My shoulder to the workbench, his to the frame. The radio on the bench spits static and then Sam's voice like a truck idling. "Check-in."
Jacob reaches up and taps the talk button without getting up. "Shop."
"Line's clear," Leah says, somewhere out in the trees. "Stop flirting with wrenches."
Jacob's mouth tugs. "Rude," he says into the air. "You jealous?"
"Of your life choices? Sure," she replies. Embry whoops on another channel. The radio goes quiet.
Jacob glances at the door, then back at the wheel. "You're… Ana, right?"
"Yeah."
"Branch family."
"Yeah."
"White."
"Unfortunately."
He snorts. "Looks cool."
I don't say anything. He feels the non-answer and lets it go.
A beat. Then, like he pulled the words out with pliers: "I saw you at the beach. Other night."
"I was at the edge," I say.
"Yeah." He toys with a socket, rolling it under his palm. "You were quiet."
"Trying to be."
"Good at it."
"I've had practice."
He waits, like maybe I'll give him a story. When I don't, relief passes over his face, the quick kind a person gets when the test was easy for once.
"People keep..." He stops, presses his thumb into the socket like he wants it to leave a mark. "They keep sayin' stuff. Like… like I'll be okay. Or that I dodged something. Or that I'll look back and laugh." He shakes his head. "I don't need that."
"I won't say it," I tell him. "I don't believe it yet."
"Huh." He nods to himself. "Okay."
He stands, checks the chain again, wipes his hands. He grabs the little first-aid box off the shelf, digs until he finds a bandage, and sticks it over the cut without finesse. The red pools one more time, then slows.
He turns the key just enough to wake the lights. The bike answers with a soft click. He doesn't start it. Not yet. He sets the key back and leans on the bench.
"You run?" he asks, tilting his head toward the tree line like that's a different world and not ten yards away.
"When Sam says," I say. "With Rina."
He nods. "Good. He's..." He searches for the word and gives up. "He's Sam."
"Yeah."
"Paul givin' you hell?"
"He's consistent," I say.
That pulls a real smile, quick and crooked. "That's one word."
We stand there and let the rain talk. Every now and then a car passes on the road outside, tires on wet gravel, slow. The garage smells like a place that has been useful all day.
After a while he pushes off the bench and sets the tools back with the muscle memory of someone who knows where everything lives. "I'm..." He starts, stops. The words do not want to be made. "I'm good. You don't gotta babysit me."
"I know," I say. "I wasn't."
He looks over, measuring. "Did you… follow me yesterday?"
"Yes," I say. No fuzz. "From far back. Just to make sure you didn't take the creek drop."
He huffs through his nose. "Sam tell you?"
"Yeah."
"Smart." He looks at his knuckles. "Thanks for not… sayin' anything."
"You said no pep talks," I say. "I heard you."
"Yeah." He scratches the back of his neck, suddenly younger. "Appreciate it."
He steps to the door and lifts it higher. The rain is lighter now, a steady sheet. He grips the edge and watches it fall like it's the only movie in town.
"You can sit there," he says, nodding at the stool by the bench. "If you want. Or not. I'm not… I don't need company. But it's fine."
"Okay," I say. I sit. I don't fill the space with anything. My body remembers the hospital and a silence that felt like drowning. This isn't that. This is a room where a person breathes and the rain keeps time.
He picks up a rag, drops it, picks it up again. "It's weird," he says, half to the door. "How quiet it is after you stop yelling."
"Yeah," I say.
We keep the quiet. It doesn't hurt. It isn't easy. It's better than noise.
After a long minute, he nods once like to himself, not to me and turns back to the bike. He checks two things that don't need checking and sets the cover over the seat.
"You should head back before Sue sends a search party," he says, not unkind.
"Right," I say, standing. "You need anything?"
"No." He looks around the shop like it can answer. "I'm good."
I set the light on the bench, coil the cord neat. He watches my hands like that fact calms something.
At the door, he says, "Hey."
I look back.
"Thanks for… y'know. Not doing a whole… speech."
"I don't have any speeches," I say. "Just hands."
He nods again, slower. "Yeah. Okay."
Outside, the rain is a thin curtain I can walk through. The road back to the hall is short and smells wet. I don't look over my shoulder. I don't need to. I can feel the day settle behind me the way a tool finds the drawer it belongs to.
Sue glances up when I come in, eyes skimming my face like a weather check. "You look like you stood in a garage longer than necessary," she says.
"Maybe a little," I say.
"Good," she says, like I passed a test I didn't know she made. "Put the sign-up sheet by the door."
I do it. The pen squeaks over the paper. Outside, the rain evens out. In the distance, a bike coughs once and then rests. He didn't start it. Good.
I take a breath and hold it for a beat, then let it go.
No pep talks. No fixing. Just a quiet room, a light held steady, a socket passed without comment. It isn't much.
It feels like the start of something small and real: trust, planted deep enough to matter.