Men Who Should Know Better

My brother's best friend just got under my hood…and under my skin. My car dies three blocks from Jax's shop. It's Sunday. He's supposed to be closed. But there he is—all greasy forearms, stubbled jaw, and the kind of hands that make a girl forget how engines work. I've been crushing on him for two years, and today we’re alone. When I trip and he catches me falling off a stool, he holds on a little too long.

She showed up mad in tiny shorts. He showed up scarred, silent, and completely unprepared for her. My best friend's brother has been keeping me up at night. His angle grinder kicks in every evening like clockwork, sending sparks across my ceiling and ruining every good intention I never had. So I march next door to give him a piece of my mind. One look at those scarred forearms and graphite-dark eyes, and I forget every complaint I rehearsed. He's fifteen years older. A man built from silence and steel, who lives alone in a trailer behind the shop.

She had a five-year plan. It didn't include a baby or an electrician who calls her kitten. My outlet exploded and now the hottest electrician in the county is in my house. He's sixteen years older, built like a fantasy, and I've been obsessing over those forearms since I met him. I know it’s a bad idea, but I still drop my sundress and dare him to be my first. Turns out my electrician knows exactly how to handle a live wire—on my thrift-store couch, and with a fruit leather snack I'm never going to look at the same way again.

I broke his bed frame. Then I broke his control. My dorm is under construction and now I'm crashing in the spare room of a six-foot-four carpenter who smells like cedar and makes me grip the counter every time he reaches for the top shelf. He barely talks. He jaw-clenches instead. I've been cataloguing every single one. There are eighteen years between us. I used to date his son. I live under his roof. None of that stops me from dropping down on his workshop floor and asking him to be my first. His restraint snaps like cheap lumber.