Page 7 of Shifting Gears

The mechanic is alsohot.

It’s not in the way Eleanor is used to, exactly. Eleanor’s type has always been strictly defined, governed by her own self-imposed rules as well as her father’s expectations. Clean-cut, presentable, and educated. Discreet and unattached enough not to expect much from her. Once she finally decided to do one small thing for herself and started dating women exclusively and openly, that criteria didn’t change, although it seriously narrowed her dating pool.

This woman is so far the opposite of every point as to be almost comical.

She’s wearing a jumpsuit, for starters. An army-green mechanic’s jumpsuit—horribly stained and unbuttoned so that the sleeves hang around her hips—with a similarly dirty ribbed white tank and a scuffed blue ballcap. Eleanor idly wonders why one would even bother wearing white in an auto shop, considering it’s almost not recognizably white anymore, but before long she’s distracted by what’s underneath the shirt.

Beneath her tank top and faded tan lines, this mechanic is muscular. And sweaty. And, frankly,broad. She’s taller than Eleanor by a few inches, and solidly built in a way Eleanor isn’t used to. Her wide shoulders and thick midsection are offset by the slight swell of her hips under the jumpsuit when she strides forward. When she reaches up to remove her hat and wipe at her brow with her forearm, a defined bicep flexes appealingly.

Eleanor tries very hard not to be affected by that, or by the adorable red line the cap leaves across the woman’s forehead.

“Hi! I’m Dani. Owen said your Porsche gave out?”

Dani reaches a grimy hand out to shake, and Eleanor hesitates only for a moment before taking it in her own. She expects it to be sweaty from the warmth of the garage, but despite the dark shop residue staining Dani’s pink fingertips, they’re dry and just a tiny bit calloused.

“I’m…Nora,” Eleanor manages to say. She pulls her hand back when Dani lets go, clenching it at her side.

Eleanor hasn’t gone byNorasince she was seven, when her father told her it sounded too common. She’sEleanor. She’s named after her paternal grandmother, a woman her father made sure to remind her was the reason he grew up to be so strong-willed. A woman whose ambition was halted only by the restrictions of her time, who instilled that ambition into her son, and whose name shouldn’t be tarnished by nicknames.

It’s a name Eleanor has never quite been able to live up to.

Once Eleanor has said it,Norafeels like the right choice in the circumstances. She doesn’t need anyone recognizing her by name, as unlikely as that might be. Part of her project here is to determine if the locals could be persuaded to welcome CromTech’s presence or if they’re going to need to fight against a reluctant population, and given the grocery store clerk’s reaction to a simple key chain, Eleanor would rather not pursue that question further right now.

“Nice to meet you,” Dani says, seeming unbothered by Eleanor’s attitude.

“You as well.” Eleanor clears her throat. “Can you fix it?”

“I can fix anything,” Dani says with a wink.

Eleanor swallows hard. Dani’s eyes are a startling greyish blue, and her smile bright and earnest. There’s an uneven black smudge across her cheek, curving down to the strong line of her jaw. Her hair is coming loose from its ponytail and sticking to the side of her neck. When she puts her hat back on, Eleanor can see that its bill is frayed and dusty.

She’s not Eleanor’s type in the slightest.

And yet.

“She’s not lying,” Owen says, startling Eleanor out of her thoughts. “I’ve never seen Danielle Cooper find anything she can’t put back together with her bare hands.”

Eleanor tries to ignore the accompanying image. She absolutely does not need to know what Danielle Cooper can do with her bare hands.

Eleanor gives Owen a tight smile and follows Dani across the shop floor, ducking under a row of hanging tools and picking her way across stacks of tires and piles of oil-stained rags to where Owen has backed the Porsche into the garage. Dani moves easily—as if navigating the chaotic layout is second nature rather than a gauntlet of tripping hazards—and Eleanor can’t help but focus on the rhythm of the mechanic’s movement.

Dani takes up space. She leads with her shoulders, shifting her body around obstacles without engaging much in her hips, and, yet, never losing balance. A confident, grounded way to move through the world.

In contrast, Eleanor has almost fallen three times before she makes it to the car.

Dani lets out a low whistle when she approaches the Porsche, tapping a gentle finger on the hood. “Sweet ride. Not often that I get to treat something this expensive.”

“It gets me from A to B.”

“I think we have very different A’s and B’s,” Dani says, grinning as she reaches inside the open window to pop the hood. Her shoulders shift under the ribbed tank. “Let’s take a look, eh?”

Eleanor’s hand clenches hard around her keys.

The diagnosis goes quickly. Dani explains the issue in a way that lacks the condescension Eleanor is used to from most mechanics, and she seems pleasantly surprised to findthat Eleanor can keep up. The problem is the transmission, apparently. Luckily the part required is generic, and Dani can take care of it right away.

“Pretty rare that we see a machine this nice come through Riverwalk,” Dani says, sliding out from underneath Eleanor’s car on what looks like a wide skateboard. Eleanor hands her keys over to Owen and tries not to wince as he climbs onto her leather seats in his shop-stained pants to back the car onto the hydraulic lift.

“It seems like it’s mostly trucks and tractors out here,” Eleanor quips. She’s oddly gratified when it makes Dani laugh. Dani’s teeth seem brighter against her smudged skin. The bottom ones are crooked, but the imperfection only makes her more endearing.

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