Grace blinked at him, confused.
“Wait, really? You’ll help me? I told you I don’t have any money tonight.”
“I didn’t ask for money,” Daniel said, already walking back toward the garage to open the big door. “Just get the car inside before it gets any colder out here.”
Grace stared at him for a second longer, like she couldn’t quite believe what was happening.
Then she hurried back to the driver’s seat and carefully rolled the car into the garage.
The engine made a rough clunking sound the whole way, but it moved.
Once the car was inside, Daniel pulled the garage door down behind them, and the bright shop lights flickered on overhead.
He grabbed his toolbox and got straight to work, kneeling beside the engine.
Grace stood a few feet away, watching nervously and wrapping her jacket tighter around herself.
“You don’t have to stand there shivering,” Daniel said without looking up. “There’s a chair by the desk. Sit down. This will take a few minutes.”
Grace didn’t move right away.
“Why are you doing this? You don’t even know me.”
Daniel paused and looked at her.
There was something in her question that felt heavier than it should have, like she wasn’t used to people helping her for nothing.
“Because you’re a kid stuck on the side of the road at night,” he said simply. “And because somebody helped me once when I really needed it, back when I didn’t think anybody would.”
That seemed to be enough for her.
She sat down slowly in the old office chair by his desk, still watching him work.
For a while, neither of them spoke.
Daniel focused on the engine, tracing the source of the leak, checking the hose clamps, and running his fingers along the belts to make sure nothing else was damaged.
Grace watched in silence, but every few minutes, she glanced at her phone, checking for messages that never came.
“She still hasn’t called back?” Daniel asked, noticing.
Grace shook her head.
“She works in the emergency room. Sometimes she can’t check her phone for hours. I don’t want her to worry, but I also don’t want her to find out I took the car without really asking first.”
Daniel raised an eyebrow.
“You didn’t ask?”
“I mean, I told her I might need to run out for food,” Grace said quickly. “I just didn’t tell her I’d take the car that far.”
“There’s this diner near my old school that has my favorite soup, and I wanted to surprise her with dinner since she’s been working so much lately. She’s exhausted all the time.”
Something about the way Grace said it made Daniel pause his work for a second.
This wasn’t some reckless teenager joyriding around town. She was trying to do something kind for her mother, and now she was stuck here, crying in a stranger’s garage, afraid she had made everything worse.
“Sounds like you were trying to do something nice,” Daniel said, going back to the hose. “Bad luck that the car picked tonight to act up.”
Grace let out a small, shaky laugh.