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She’s so damn cute.“Can’t I?”
“No, you can’t.” She moves a few paces to place herself more firmly between me and the kitchen door.
“Convincing argument.” I take a step closer to her.
“You are infuriating, do you know that?” She takes a step back.
I step closer. “I’ve been told.”
Allie moves again, letting out a frustrated snarl whenshe backs into the counter.Did she just try to growl at me? Adorable.“You can’t do it today.” She gestures around the coffee shop as she regains her hands-on-the-hips power stance. “I’m slammed.”
There are seven people here, and we’re two of them. She’s hardly slammed. When I move closer this time, her lips press together and the pupils in her doe eyes flare.
Strange thing to hold her ground about, not having her faucet fixed, since it was three minutes ago that she told me to fix it. I look over her head at the kitchen door and back at her dilated gaze and remember the conversation I overheard.She’s having a shit day.
Raising one hand in a signal of surrender, I back away from the counter. “I’ll be back tomorrow.” Walking away toward the jammed back door, I resist the desire to look back for her reaction. She is incredible. Beautiful, feisty as hell, and not someone I need to concern myself with. I have mountains of work ahead of me getting two businesses off the ground. The last thing I need to think about is Allie Walker, no matter how much I want to.
The door to the parking lot is more pressing than a dripping faucet. I need to ensure it’s safe. The steel lid to my army green toolbox opens with the same creak I’ve been hearing since my childhood. The toolbox was my grandfather’s, and it went to me when he passed.
Light shines off of the glossy black-and-white photo of him that’s taped inside the lid. In it, Grandad’s leaning on his motorcycle, the same 1955 BMW R69 that he taught me to ride on decades later, at a gas station surrounded by desert mountains and palm trees. The photo fell off of the lid a few months ago, and I read the back for the first time.
Ernie, Station 19, Palm Springs, 1961
When I read the location, I had to go in person to see the place I’d carried around a photo of for years. Three hours later, my Honda CB had taken me from Ventura to Palm Springs. I was expecting to drive by a gas station that had been renovated to current standards or to find that it had been knocked down completely and replaced with condos. Instead, I found that not only was Station 19 still here, but it had been split into two spaces.
I had to have it. Grandad left me money that I got access to a month ago on my thirtieth. The timing couldn’t have been better. The location is perfect. The fact that it comes with a stunning coffee shop owner who doesn’t like me yet is just an added bonus.
It only takes ten minutes before I’ve fixed Allie’s door and I’m crossing back into the side of the building that will soon be my shop. My phone rings as I flip the switch for the overhead fluorescent lights. The half that aren’t burnt out flicker on. “Hey.”
“Hey, Luke!” The energetic voice of my best friend, Cam, comes through. “How’s day one of owning the most badass motorcycle shop-slash-bar around?”
“It’s something.” I put in my wireless headphones and slide my phone into my pocket.
“That good, huh?”
“The fierce little brunette who owns the coffee shop next door has another six months on her lease, so the bar is going to have to wait at least that long.” I look around the dusty shell of a gift shop. There’s a whole wall of puke-green Formica cabinets in disrepair, worn brown carpet, god-awful wallpaper on every wall covering the original brick, and a dozen empty glass shelves and an oak desk that Mel left behind. “I’m about to start clearing out the shop side. It’s not much demo. Should hopefully be done ina few days.”
“Fierce little brunette?” he asks, unsurprisingly.
“Turns out she wanted to buy the building, and I ‘stole her dream.’ She’s pissed.” Looking through the window, I catch Allie trying to glare at me from behind her counter.Does she not realize how cute it makes her look?I lift my chin in her direction in acknowledgment, and she quickly turns away, cheeks flushed and brown ponytail bobbing.
“Sucks for her,” Cam says.
“The guy I bought the building from said the community wouldn’t miss her place. Looks like he lied. There was a line out the door this morning.”
“I can hear in your voice that you already feel bad about this. I won’t allow it.”
I flip on the mostly burnt-out lights in my office that currently holds three boxes of broken shot glasses, calendars for every year but this one, a stack of empty cardboard boxes, and all the tools I unloaded earlier this morning.
Cam’s voice grows even more animated than usual. “You’ve gotta look out for you for once, Luke. It’s not your fault someone you don’t know wanted the building, too. It’s business.”
“I know,” I grumble.
“You can be a charming guy if you want to be. You’ve just got to turn it up a notch for this girl. That’ll make life easier, I promise.” Cam carries on the conversation without me while I organize my demo tools, giving me unwanted advice about women and catching me up on all the racing stories I’ve missed this year. He’s in the middle of his competitive race season, and it’s the first year I haven’t been out there on the track as a mechanic.
“Cam,” I interject. “I’ve gotta go.” Love the hell out of him, but I need to get back to work.
Cam ignores me. “What are you gonna call the bar?”
