I’d always dreamed of having somewhere to work on cars but I’d never had a workshop of my own until I moved to Mount Mercy to join Stormfinch. It’s one big room with two bays for cars, a huge workbench and big roller doors. What it doesn’t have is any living space, but it has a sort of gallery overlooking the workshop, and I’d put a bed up there. I loved it. Most women probably wouldn’t be so keen on the idea of sleeping in the same room as a bunch of greasy, half-disassembled engines but when I brought them back there the lights were off. And the next morning…well, I’d never see them again, so who cared what they thought?

As I opened the door for Erin, though, I was weirdly nervous. It was the first time I’d shown a woman my place with the lights on and for some reason, I did care what she thought.

She ventured slowly inside, her nose wrinkling at the smell of gasoline and rubber. She walked over to the engine I’d been working on and examined it curiously, standing on tiptoe to look down inside it. I happened to glance up and noticed a pair of panties dangling from one of the overhead lights. Oops. I snatched them before Erin saw. They must be Lauren’s, from the night before. No, wait…I remembered that color. They were Bree’s, from three nights ago: I’d undressed her upstairs, but I remember tossing her panties over my shoulder. I stuffed them quickly into my pocket.

Erin was on the move: she was squirrely, never staying in one place for more than a moment. She looked at the tool rack, the tire inflation gear, and finally arrived at the workbench. I turned on the lights for her and the whole length of it lit up nice and bright. “This is a good workspace,” she mumbled.

“As promised,” I told her. I put the kettle on and, by the time I’d made two steaming mugs of tea and changed into coveralls, she’d brought tools and spare parts from her car and arranged them on the workbench around the remains of the laptop. She pulled out a stool and hopped up onto it: she was so small that her feet dangled well clear of the floor. She nodded her thanks for the tea, picked up her soldering iron and pushed her glasses up her nose….

“What?” she asked, sounding worried.

I blinked and realized I’d been staring at her again. “Nothing.”