Free Promise Rock 03 - Living Promises (MM) by Amy Lane

Joshua had been bored to tears in retirement from a job in middle management until he'd seen Collin open the garage. Apparently, cars had always been Joshua's secret passion. He'd hung around constantly as Collin had set up, offering advice, giving orders, and even hauling stock and setting up equipment, until Collin had finally said, “Goddammit, old man, if you want a job, you're going to have to wait for me to get some fucking customers!”
Joshua had looked around the garage appreciatively. “Customers I think you'll get, but if you don't mind, I'd prefer they do their fucking someplace else.”
“I can't pay you squat!”
“Don't want squat. Give me some fucking cash when you can afford it, and we'll be just goddamned fine.”
Collin had started out paying him minimum wage, cutting the check apologetically and feeling like shit when he calculated the taxes. Now, though, he paid Joshua a full mechanic's salary, which Joshua used to take his wife on cruises and spoil his grandchildren rotten. Underneath the hood of that family crap-mobile was the grizzled-headed, pottymouthed, god-fucking-damned salt of the fucking earth.
The first time Collin had flirted with a man in Joshua's presence, the old man had raised his eyebrows. Collin had looked at him challengingly. “You got a problem with that, old man?”
“Got a problem with your pick-up lines, asshole. You couldn't pick up a picnic basket with that bullshit. Just because you're pretty doesn't mean men are going to swoon at your feet, you know. Men got better sense than that!”
Collin had laughed. “And women?”
Joshua had harrumphed and repositioned his red ball cap on his bird's nest of iron-gray hair. “Women humor us into thinking we're worth something. You probably got the right idea, hotshot. You go after men, at least they know we're all frauds with a pecker, so you're on a level playing field. Now go away. I want to finish this tune-up so I can go home and be fooled by my wife some more.”
Collin had left that day, but not before realizing that he may grow to love this old man with most of his cynical black heart.
Today, Joshua would work on this car until he liked its chances of running for a while before it came back. If they'd had other cars waiting, he would have done them first and then gotten back to the minivan in the interim, but they didn't, and the old man just liked working on cars. Collin got the feeling that the garage was the same for him as it was for Collin: refuge, sanctuary, and home.
And he could swear like a trucker there, and nobody would think twice about it. Collin was pretty sure that was a plus in the old man's book too.
But right now, Joshua's extensive four-letter vocabulary was not what Collin wanted to hear about. Right now, he wanted to hear about Jeff and what had made him look a thousand years sad.
When he got back to the diner, coming in from the door closest to the street, none of Jeff's friends had returned, but the mess had been cleaned up, the table had been set right, and all of the dishes had been bussed to the kitchen. The other table sat vacant, the knitting still on it, but most of the cups had been taken away and the leftovers neatly boxed. Collin made a frustrated sound, wondering, because Jeff's little blue Mini Cooper was still out in the front, but Jeff was nowhere to be found. “Mom…?”
Natalie looked around the corner, her dyed red hair pulled back into a fuzzy ponytail and her lightly lined oval of a face still serene and dear. “He's out back, sneaking a cigarette. Turn down the libido for this one, okay, Collin? Whatever that little scene was all about, I think he just got a solid kick to the balls.”
“Mom, I've loved this guy for five years—believe me, I'm not gonna rush things now!”
“Loved?”
Collin didn't want to deal with his mother's shock or her questions or any of the crap he knew she could throw his way, so he just sprinted through the restaurant to exit out the back door. Sure