Page 94 of Sanctuary

“A broken nose, maybe? Minimum, a busted lip. Possibly a broken rib or two.”

“I’ll leave that to Tia. I don’t want to be the one setting a bad example for your kids.”

“I’m sorry for shooting my mouth off, Gabe.” Solo ran her hand through her hair and looked up. “I upset everyone and ruined the celebrations.”

Gabe tilted her head slightly. “You definitely did that. I should’ve told you that I hadn’t shared that part of my past with Lori, but you shouldn’t have shared something like that over dinner either.”

Solo frowned. “Why hadn’t you? Told Lori, I mean.” She shrugged. “I know your go-to is Shay, not me.”

Solo sounded more resigned than petulant, so Gabe decided to leave that be. “Lori’s past with her ex is complicated, and I thought that if I told her about Cynthia, she wouldn’t want to be friends, let alone more.” It wasn’t for Gabe to share the details of Lori’s story without her permission. She’d only told Shay because she knew Shay could be discreet, and Gabe needed her advice.

Solo nodded. “Still, I was a drunken asshole, and I’m sorry. Are we good?”

Gabe pulled Solo into a brief bro hug. “We’re good, but what was happening with you that night?”

Solo shook her head and pointed toward the rest of the balloons that needed filling. “That’s not important. Today’s opening day.”

She was clearly aiming for uplifting but missed the mark by a half-mile. Gabe followed her, and they were silent for a while as they worked through the remaining balloons and fixed them up outside.

“Is Janie dropping by today?” Gabe asked. Instead of Solo’s eyes lighting up, they seemed to darken with a tangible sadness, a marked difference to her usual reaction to the mention of her wife.

Solo stuffed her hands in her coveralls and sighed. “I don’t think so. She’s busy with a big case right now. She’s supposed to be in court most of the day.” She tapped her watch. “I haven’t seen RB and Woody. Didn’t they come in with you and Shay?”

“Woody’s upstairs doing some socials, and RB’s gone to Bonnie’s for coffee and bagels,” Gabe said. “Everything’s in place, so you can stop avoiding the issue and save us some time by just telling me what’s going on with you and Janie.”

“She’s…” Solo swallowed hard and turned away. She picked up the helium cannister and put it under the desk then came back around and sat on one of the leather couches in the waiting area.

Gabe joined her and sat beside her. “What’s going on, Solo? Are the kids okay?” She almost laughed at her instant concern for Solo’s family. She was actually beginning to take her auntie role seriously.

“The kids are fine. They’re with the new nanny… But apparently they’re part of the problem.” Solo glanced at her watch as RB came in the side door with a tray of coffees. “We’re opening in five minutes. Let’s put a pin in this and maybe chat at lunch, okay? I’ll be fine.” She stood and headed toward RB with a false grin and a too-cheery greeting.

Gabe rubbed the back of her neck to ease the building tightness. Solo and Janie were supposed to be a paragon of what a good family could look like. If they were floundering, did Gabe really have any hope of building anything with Lori after her own breach of trust? Or maybe it was just that families and relationships were hard, and required work, and could be incredibly difficult to navigate.

Shay emerged from the office holding up the key for the front shutters. “It’s time, my friends,” she said and looked around. “Where’s Woody?”

“Right here.” Woody jogged down the stairs and jumped the last few to hit the ground with a thud. “Free oil changes are live on our socials. Let the mayhem commence.”

Shay unlocked the shutters and hit the button to open them, then stepped back to stand alongside Gabe. The line of cars snaked around the block. Gabe pushed all thoughts of Lori to the back of her mind and grinned, but where Solo’s had been forced, her own was genuine. This was still her dream, and she wasn’t about to ruin it for herself.

The metal shutters rattled noisily against the ground, and Gabe dropped onto one of their waiting room couches, exhausted but elated. Their five bays hadn’t been empty from the moment they opened the shutters to forty-five minutes before closing time, when they’d had to start turning people away. It’d been a great opening day, and it was nice to see Mr. Jones, the old owner, drop by too.

She wiped her greased-up hands on her cargo pants before accepting the ice-cold beer Shay offered her. Woody, RB, and Solo flopped down, and all of them sighed heavily.

“I think I’d forgotten how to work that hard,” RB said. “Pushing paper in an office has made me soft.”

Gabe grinned. Of the five of them, she’d been the only one still used to hard physical work. “But it was mentally tough, wasn’t it?”

RB shrugged. “Only when the applications weren’t successful.”

Woody twisted the cap from her bottle and raised it in the air. “Cheers to us having a successful launch day.”

Their bottles met mid-air, and beer spilled all over the glass-topped engine block table. Solo dropped to her knees and pretended to suck it up.

“That’s so gross,” Woody said. “Aren’t you worried you’ll catch something and give it to the girls?”

Solo got up and sat back on a couch. “I didn’t do it for real, Woody.”

Woody laughed. “You say that like you haven’t done the exact same thing a hundred times before.”

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