Page 18 of Wrong Number, Right Grumpy Mechanic

I’d proposed the week before. On one knee in the shop, ring in a socket tray, grease on my hands. She said yes before I finished the question. We picked up the license at the county clerk’s office the next morning. Colorado lets you solemnize your own marriage, no officiant required. Just the two of you and your signatures.

Snow was falling on her hair and her nose was red and she was wearing ski boots under her dress because she said it was the only thing that made sense.

She was right. It was the only thing that made sense.

She’s a Level Three now. Took her exam and passed on the first attempt, which surprised nobody except her. She runs the intermediate progression program at Copper Peak’s ski school, exactly the way she told me she would in my shop that afternoon.

Callie is the reason people fall in love with the mountain. I’ve watched her do it. I’ve watched nervous tourists in rental gear follow her onto a blue run and come back grinning, and every single time, I think about the girl who researched MOSFETs on her lunch break because someone mentioned a word she didn’t know.

That’s who she’s always been. The world just took a while to catch up.

It’s July now. The shop is busy with summer maintenance. Ski patrol wants all the snowmobiles serviced before fall, the fire district has a pump rebuild on the schedule, and two trucks from Prospect Street are waiting for oil changes. Normal Thursday.

Except nothing is normal because my wife told me something this morning over coffee at Lea’s, and I’ve been useless ever since.

Pregnant. Eight weeks. She’d slid the test across the counter between our coffee cups and burst into happy tears before I could even process what I was looking at. And then Callie was grinning—that wide-open, no-armor grin—and I just sat there staring at a plastic stick thinking about a little girl with her mother’s laugh and my complete inability to function.

She already has a plan. She always has a plan. She’ll teach through the fall, transition to the lodge counter once ski season starts, handle sign-ups and registration where it’s warm and flat and safe. Once the baby comes, she’ll be back on the mountain by the following winter. She told me this in the same tone she’d used to explain MOSFET failure to me five years ago. Calm, researched, already three steps ahead.

I’m not three steps ahead. I’m approximately zero steps anywhere. I’m under an SUV replacing a catalytic converter and thinking about baby names, which is not a safe combination.

The front door scrapes open.

I still haven’t planed it down. I never will. The two-second warning is the best feature in the shop.

“We’re closed,” I call out.

It’s noon. We’re not closed.

“Since when?”

Her voice. Five years, and it still does the thing to my chest.

“Since right now,” I say from under the truck. “Go away. I’m busy being emotionally compromised.”

“That’s why I’m here.”

I hear the front door lock click. Then nothing. No footsteps, no voice. Just silence, which is not a thing that happens when Callie is in a room.

I roll out from under the SUV.

Callie is standing in the middle of my shop in nothing but a black lace set I’ve never seen before. Her clothes are folded on my workbench. Folded. She’d taken the time to fold them. The bay doors are down and the afternoon light is coming through the high windows and my wife is in my shop in lingerie, and I’m on the floor holding a ratchet.

She’s smiling at me. That smile. The one that ruined my life in the best possible way five years ago and hasn’t stopped since.

“Hi,” she says.

“Callie.”

“Yeah?”

“What are you doing?”

“I believe the technical term is ‘surprising my husband.’” She takes a step forward. “You’ve been weird all day. You texted me four times asking if I was eating enough. It’s been six hours since we found out.”

“You should be eating enough.”

“I had two muffins and a sandwich. Beck. Look at me.”