Home stretch at uni. Please bear with me until its done!
"So that's what yer doin'."
Levy screeched and tipped backward in her chair as she jumped—only Metalicana's quick hand kept the seat's four legs on the ground.
Gajeel jerked his head up to stare at her when she yelled, but Levy only barely registered what was happening. A hand had flown up to her mouth after she shrieked, and her heart was trying to escape from her ribs as it knocked incessantly against her chest. There was a roaring in her ears, but just beyond that she caught the shop owner's hearty rumble echoing behind her.
"Oi, you lost it, old man?" Gajeel called from underneath her car. He wiped his hands on a grease-stained rag and raised a metal-studded brow.
Metalicana ignored him and pointed toward the desktop screen, leaning down so he didn't tower over her. Her heart slowed down gradually.
"You got it working?" he asked her, and she nodded mutely, still slightly in shock.
He made a waving motion, so she showed him what she had done to the database. Using her form as an example, she used the button to browse and selected the only other wheel bearing part on the list. Unlike the last time, it disappeared from the server and appeared on her form under the parts box, just like it was supposed to.
Metalicana laughed again and her chair wobbled. "Thought we had the parts we needed for yer car, but then when I looked again, there was only one. Was gonna head across town to get another, but looks like that ain't needed."
Levy's cheeks grew warm. She was suddenly aware that Gajeel was still watching her. "I'm sorry for messing with it!" she rushed out, burying her head in her hands.
Honestly, she hadn't meant to do more than look at the manual, but then she'd started clicking on the computer, and before she knew it, she was looking at the code for the program and tinkering with it. She knew better than to muck around with a business' stuff!
"Nah," Metalicana said, leaning up and heading toward the main room. "Been tryin' to figure it out for a while."
"If we'd left it to Gajeel, we'd still be using hand-written books," a new voice said.
Levy snapped her head up to see a tall, dark-skinned man wearing the standard coverall stride into the garage. He had a scar over one of his eyes but there were laugh lines on his face—plus, it was hard not to return the grin he wore. Gajeel scowled at the man and moved some things around on his cart.
"As you can see, Gajeel tries to kill as many trees as possible," the man said, waving at the notes on the desk.
Levy's eyebrows rose, taking in the scribbles on the paper scraps. She'd assumed they were Metalicana's, but apparently they were Gajeel's. Absently, she ran her fingers over one. He didn't seem like a traditional sort of guy.
A tool came down on the cart with a sharp bang, and Gajeel grumbled, "No one asked you, Lil'."
Levy rose as the man came toward the desk. "Levy McGarden," she said as she held out a hand to shake. He accepted and she added, "Mr...?"
"Just Lily is fine." He stopped to look at the desk and let out a low whistle. "How'd you do it?"
She twiddled her fingers together. "Languages are sort of my thing," she said after a pause. "Computer languages are sort of like speech—there are still patterns and codes to follow..."
Then, she lost herself in technical jargon, relating this system to her library's and all the intricacies of what she had done. She didn't realize she was sort of babbling until she caught Gajeel's bewildered expression as he rubbed the back of his head. Lily just laughed and thanked her when she finished.
Sitting back down, she noticed Gajeel still looking at her strangely, a wrench halfway in the air. She tilted her head in confusion.
"You're somethin' else," he said. "I have absolutely no idea what yer talkin' about."
Her blush climbed higher on her face at his words. Before she could comment—even if she'd had a response to that—he turned back around and continued work on her car.
The front door opened a couple times as more people started coming in. It had to be afternoon by now. A few of them looked at her through the hall door. Did her sitting here look bad to other people? Nobody said anything, but she couldn't quite shake the uneasiness that settled into her gut. Yet even though the shop was getting busier, they didn't ask her to leave the garage.
As Lily drove another car into the other bay, a few beams of light snuck in as the rain started to let up. The breeze blowing in was more humid, and combined with the generators and other machinery running, Levy could feel how warm the room had gotten. She brushed her hair back from her neck and lifted it out of the collar of the coverall, fighting the urge to lower the zipper just a tiny bit. If she slouched down behind a book, would anyone notice?
And she wasn't the only one feeling the heat. Gajeel swiped at his brow, smudging more grease on his forehead. She could see the slight sheen and how the edges of his headband looked damp. With all that lifting and moving around, not to mention triple the hair she had, he had to be dying.
Gajeel twisted around, and the piercing on his arm flashed from the overhead light. Levy bit her lower lip. Absently, she leaned forward and rested her chin in her palm as she watched him. He really wasn't so bad once she got past the caustic first moments.
A cough caught her attention. Snapping up straight, she saw Lily wave. He followed her line of sight to Gajeel and then grinned at her. Mortified, Levy tried to disappear into her coverall.
"Miss Levy, would you mind hitting that switch on the wall for the fan?" he asked, amusement dancing in his eyes.
She stood sharply, berating herself as she turned the fan on. What was she, some silly high-schooler with a crush? That's what she was acting like. As much as Lily's noticing it was embarrassing, he at least had the decency not to tease her—openly at least. So far.
Gulping, she returned to her seat and picked up the database manual. She really needed to step her game up. If only it hadn't been so long since she'd been on a date.
.
.
Gajeel could admit that this wasn't his fastest job ever—but that wasn't his fault. He was a little distracted.
Distracted by a five foot nothing midget wearing one of his damn coveralls.
Every few minutes, his eyes would track over to where she was sitting—or standing, since she'd been nosy a few times. The bookshelf got rearranged too. He couldn't tell from under her car, but it looked pretty neat and might actually see some use. Gajeel didn't care, and the old man wouldn't mind—after the database thing, he was pretty sure she could do no wrong. The bastard had been in more of a cheery mood all day than he had in the past week.
And okay, maybe Gajeel was a little impressed. Or at least intrigued. He'd tried to figure that thing out for weeks and was ready to smash it with his favorite wrench before Shorty came along.
He tightening a stupid fussy bolt when Lily came through the hall door with a Styrofoam cup of coffee and set it down on the desk next to the shrimp. She quietly thanked him but didn't stop reading—it was sort of creepy how she focused solely on that manual. He kinda doubted it was interesting enough for that sort of intensity.
Was that how she did most things in her life? The thought twisted his lips upward slightly.
Catching him staring, Lily gave him one of those looks. The kind that warped his scar and raised Gajeel's hackles. He could do without Lily's stupid grin too. Reminded him too much of his old man.
The woman reached a hand out for the coffee without looking at it. Honestly, he expected her to refuse it—if she didn't look at it, at least after she tasted it. He knew what their coffee was like. It was gritty and black as they could stand, and his old man was pretty tolerant. Gajeel could barely even stomach the stuff.
Besides, didn't her types like that girly coffee with lots of flavors and fancy shit?
But when she took a sip and calmly set the cup back down, Gajeel could only stare. There was no spitting, disgusted curl of her lips, or crunching of the nose. She drank it and didn't even blink. Well shit.
And dammit if she didn't look at home among all the grease and dirt, too, perched up at that desk like it was in any old office or classroom and not at a mechanic's. It was a little unsettling. The shop was like his lair if he'd been some magical predator—and everyone knew dragons were the most badass. Shorty should've been an intruder, but she fit right in. And he wasn't that bothered by it.
It was probably the view.
She'd pulled glasses out of somewhere, and somehow, instead of pushing them back up her nose when they slid down, she was too absorbed and leaned forward. The chair was a bit higher than the desk, and the way she squeezed her shoulders together to hold that book made sure to emphasize the triangle of skin under her neck and shoulders. Hair was swept back too, in all the right ways.
It was that damn collarbone again.
Shorty scratched her nose but didn't notice the dark smudge it left behind. Gajeel laughed quietly to himself—served her right for laughing at him!
But the streak of grease on her face returned him to that world with the low-cut top and wrenches. Dammit. He needed a distraction from his distractions.
"Any other problems with it?" he called out before thinking. Thinking hadn't done him any favors today.
She stuck a bookmark on her page—one of his hand-written notes—and thought for a second before answering. Finally, she shook her head. "Heirloom from my dad, but I haven't had any trouble. Unless that line has problems I don't know about?"
Gajeel shrugged and reached up into the wheel-well. "Just watch it. Had a car once that ate bearings—got expensive."
Her beaming at him should not be so self-satisfying. Glancing over to the side, Lily gave him another look with two raised brows.
Gajeel scowled at him.
Thank you for reading and to the anonymous reviewers!