Page 57 of The Pucker and the Princess
“Yes. And I got everything installed. The engine’s basically put back together. I just need to finish with the interior, and she’ll be done.”
“Are you planning on selling this one too?”
She shrugs. “Probably? I’ll need the space for my next car, after all.”
“You haven’t thought about keeping one to drive?”
She grins. “Maybe someday. This one was fun, but if I were going to keep one, it’d be a sixty-seven Mustang Shelby. That’s the car I’ve always dreamed of rebuilding.”
“Why haven’t you done one yet?”
She shifts a little, and I give her leg a squeeze, hoping to communicate that I’m asking out of genuine curiosity and not judgment. “It’s complicated, but there are a few big reasons. One, I haven’t found a body for sale that I can rebuild. At least not when I’ve been looking for one. And two, I always felt like I needed to get good enough to deserve to work on one of those, y’know?”
I arch an eyebrow and glance her way. “Uh … kinda? I mean, I get what you’re saying, I guess I just don’t quite understand why you’d think you aren’t there yet. You’ve rebuilt how many cars so far? Basically from scratch. Plus all the cars you helped out on when you worked at your dad’s shop. I mean, you helped rebuild your first car. So you’ve been doing that for … what? Fifteen years?”
She dips her head. “Something like that.”
“And that’s not even counting all the years you spent helping him as a kid before that.”
“Eh … I’m not sure how much that counts.”
I cut a look in her direction. “Please. You’ve basically had a lifetime apprenticeship. Once you finish this car, you should start looking for your dream car. Give it all the bells and whistles you want. You deserve it.”
She’s quiet for long enough that I look her way again. “Okay,” she says at length, her voice so quiet I almost can’t hear her. “I will.” She looks out the window, but it feels different than before when she was looking away to avoid me. This feels more like I’ve given her something to think about and she needs time to process.
It’s strange to me that someone as confident and amazing as Marissa wouldn’t see herself as the badass ball-buster that she so clearly is.
But I know there’s more to the story. She mentioned not being able to handle more rejection and feeling like she’s never measured up, and the pain in those words makes my heart twist, and I squeeze her leg again, needing to try to communicate some amount of reassurance, no matter how much it doesn’t really matter what I think.
I mean, it does matter. But my approval won’t change whatever happened in her past to make her feel like she can never be enough.
After a moment, she sucks in a breath and turns back to me, her smile looking a little forced. “What about you? How was your week? I’ve been so busy, I haven’t kept up very well. I saw you won at least once while you were away, but I didn’t catch more than that.”
When I give her a suspicious glance out of the corner of my eye, she squeezes my hand and rubs my arm, communicating without words that she’s fine and really wants to change the subject now. Which is fine. We can talk about me for a bit. We’ll circle back to her eventually.
“We did. We lost one, won two, and you saw our game tonight.”
She rubs my arm some more. “It seemed like you guys were struggling out there.’
I blow out a frustrated breath. “Yeah. More than we should’ve been. They were playing better than normal, I think, but even so. We were pretty off tonight.”
“What’s that like?” she asks, turning a knitted brow in my direction. “I mean, I played sports growing up, but just softball, and I stopped in high school, so it was never at a very high level. What happens when you’re having an off night? What goes on behind the scenes?”
Glancing at her, I raise my eyebrows. “Are you asking if the coach screams at us in the locker room?”
She giggles, and the sound makes me feel like my chest is full of champagne, bubbly and light. “Something like that. I dunno. You see movies where they’re down and the coach gives a rousing pep talk and the team miraculously pulls out a win. Is that what happened tonight?”
Chuckling, I shake my head. “Not even close. And in movies, those are always at super important games, like the championship or whatever. Not a regular season game.”
“True, I guess. But it’s the regular season games that get you to the championship. Aren’t all the games important?”
“Now you’re sounding like Coach!” She laughs. “It’s true, though. His favorite thing to hammer on is that all the games, game one to the Stanley Cup, are all important. If we don’t have enough wins, we won’t even get a shot at the Stanley Cup. And obviously if we don’t win there …”
“You don’t win,” she finishes.
Laughing, I nod. “Exactly.”
“Okay. So tonight. You guys were struggling, but you managed to pull it out in the last period. Your coach didn’t give you a rousing speech to get your heads in the game and make you realize youneed to start playing like a team?” She pumps her free arm like she’s giving her own pep talk.
