He got the call that his truck was finished, and when he walked into the office at the shop, he did not even look up from his phone before calling, “Hey, Tracy! Mike said my truck was ready.”

“The ’89 F150, right?” A deep voice answered, and Nate’s head whipped up from his phone.

“Um.”

He almost let the phone slip from his fingers because sitting behind the desk was not Tracy. Tracy was a middle-aged, slightly round woman who always needed to dye her roots badly but never seemed to get around to it. Over the years that Nate and his family had been bringing their cars here, he had begun to wonder if it was a deliberate styling choice.

At any rate, it was not Tracy sitting behind the desk, shuffling through paperwork, but a boy with bright pink hair and a shit-eating grin on his face.

“Bailey?”

“The one and only,” he threaded his fingers together and propped his chin on them. “I know, I know. Who the hell would ever trust me around cars?”

He winked. With horror, Nate realized that his ears felt hot. Even in the sallow, fluorescent lighting of the shop office, Bailey’s skin seemed healthy and rosy beneath the halo of pink.

His braces were gone, too, Nate realized. He got them late in high school, and after that, Nate was always careful never to catch him in the cheek or jaw with a punch. Which really limited his ability to overpower him, because, as a boxer, hits like that were his bread and butter. They ended up grappling so much due to him not wanting to put a hole in the kid’s lip. And it meant Bailey had a fighting chance, which was always more satisfying.

Nate realized he was staring at Bailey’s mouth, where his straight, white teeth shone between his lips. He tore his eyes away. Bailey’s smile had not dimmed, but there was something strange in his eyes. Nate squared his shoulders and picked up one foot to put it in front of the other so that he could approach the desk like a normal human person.

“Don’t worry,” Bailey rolled his eyes and sat back to pull a packet out of a paper organizer to his side. “They don’t let me back in the work bays. You don’t have to check your transmission for loose screws. It’s the ’89 F150, right?”

Nate cleared his throat. “Yep.”

“Okay, so…” Bailey flipped up the first page of the packet, then started rattling off all the work they had done on the truck and the price of each thing. Mike, who did the work, had already told Nate about everything over the phone. This was good because Nate could not listen to a word Bailey said. All he could do was stand as still as possible and try not to give away the fact that his thoughts were at war. One side wanted to shamelessly watch Bailey’s lips as he spoke and the other was desperately trying to cling to sanity.

“So, in total, that’ll be eleven thirty-two.” Bailey let the paper fall back down to the desk and looked up. “How would you like to pay.”

“Um.” Nate buffered for a painful couple of seconds, then jumped into action, patting down his pockets to locate his wallet.

As he thumbed the credit card out, the actual number Bailey said hit him and he shook his head, muttering, “Christ,” under his breath. Helping his mom out over the summer was fine, but he really did need to get a job before all his savings from the various part-time high school and college gigs would run out. Plus, maybe he could save for a down payment instead of just a deposit.

“So,” he said as he handed the card over, “Where’s Tracy?”

“Apparently, she’s on some kind of three-month cruise,” Bailey shrugged and began entering his credit card information. “Mike knew I was looking for something over the summer, so…”

He had no clue how Bailey knew the shop owner, and did not really want to ask. Instead, he nodded and glanced around the office. It looked like any other car shop office. There was a worn couch and a table with a bunch of car magazines. A water cooler. A cat napping in the window.

“All done,” Bailey handed back his card with a flourish, pink nails vibrant against the dark blue. “Let me just get your receipt and…”

He plucked the receipt from the credit card reader and stapled it to the printout, then slid it and the keys across the desk. Before Nate could grab his keys, though, he plucked them up and dangled them in the air from his pointer finger. There was a sparkle in his eyes that tugged at a familiar irritation in Nate’s chest but also plucked at a new and unfamiliar thread of interest that ran straight down his spine.

“Cute keychain,” Bailey shook the keys, making them bounce. It was a little cat with two wicked-sharp ears, meant to be used as brass knuckles if the situation called for it. When Nate’s sister, Karlie, went away to college, he got her a pair and thought they looked badass, so he got one for himself.

Nate reached for the keys again, but Bailey just sat back, bringing the keys with him. He slipped his fingers through the two holes that were meant to be the cat’s eyes and closed his fist. The sight of his slender fingers poking through the metal and curling around it tangled together those threads of irritation and interest in Nate’s chest until he was confused and pissed off because of it.

“Can I just have my keys, back?” he asked, exasperated.

Bailey wasn’t about to start a fight with him here at his workplace, so there was no reason for him to poke and prod like this. And Nate’s sudden attraction to Bailey made him feel off-kilter. Although, perhaps most distressing of all, he had begun begrudgingly admitting to himself that the interest was hardly sudden.

The knowledge that there might have been more than one reason for him wanting to put his hands on Bailey all these years made him want to turn and walk out the door. Keys be damned. He could walk home.

But then he’d inevitably have to face Bailey again because he would have to pick up his truck sometime.

“Only if you say the magic word,” Bailey taunted, waving the keys around.

Pulling pigtails was so juvenile. Jared was right to be annoyed that they were still going at it like this every time they saw each other. Nate wondered exactly what Bailey was getting out of it at this point. He highly doubted that his needling was just to get Nate to look his way (the way that Nate was ashamed to admit his own had been). If Bailey wanted to flirt, he was already out and not the type of guy to be shy about that.

So, the fact that he liked to punch Nate instead of, well, anything else, was an obvious tell that all the flirting was exactly what Nate had always seen it as—him riling Nate up and laughing at him. That thought, in combination with the slowly dawning horror that Nate’s irritation with Bailey was grounded in attraction, was enough to make him snap.

“Bailey!” he spat, making another grab for them.

Bailey laughed and jabbed at him in a mock punch. But when he looked at Nate’s expression, and no doubt saw the rage boiling red hot in his eyes, his laughter died off into a satisfied chuckle. He slid the cat off his fingers to hold it out. Nate glared at him and slowly reached for the keys. This time, Bailey let him take them, and Nate did not hesitate to spin on his heels and make his escape.

“See you around!” Bailey called after him.