Page 6 of Wrong Number, Right Grumpy Mechanic

None of those reasons explain why I’ve redone my ponytail twice before I left.

The shop door scrapes open, and I step inside. The Silverado is gone. A Subaru is up on the lift now, and the radio is playing something low and country. Beck is at the workbench with the e-bike’s motor housing open in front of him, a new circuit board in his hand.

“Thursday,” I say.

He doesn’t look up. “Part came in this morning.”

“So you’re fixing it now. Can I watch?”

That gets him to look. Just a glance, quick and unreadable, before he goes back to the board.

“You want to watch me solder a controller board?” he asks.

“I want to know what was wrong with it. You said the MOSFET blew. I looked that up.”

He pauses. His hands go still over the board, and he turns his head just enough that I can see his profile. Strong jaw, a smudge of something dark near his ear, eyes narrowed like he’s trying to figure out if I’m messing with him.

“You looked it up,” he says.

“It’s a transistor. It acts like a switch for the electrical current. When the bike was climbing under heavy load, the current exceeded what the MOSFET was rated for and it burned out. Which killed power to the motor, which is why the bike died on the pass trail.”

He sets the board down.

I feel heat climb up my neck. “I read three articles. And watched a video. The video had a very soothing narrator.”

Beck leans back against the bench and looks at me. A real look, the kind that lasts long enough to mean something. His expression hasn’t changed, still guarded, still that permanent furrow between his brows. But something behind it has shifted. Like a door cracking open an inch.

“Most people don’t bother,” he says.

“Bothering is sort of my thing.”

He holds my gaze for another second, then picks the board back up. “Come here. I’ll show you.”

I walk over and stand next to him at the bench. Close enough that I can feel the warmth coming off him, which is considerable. The man runs hot. He smells like motor oil and metal, but there’s something underneath that is all…him.

I focus on the board.

“This is the new controller.” He points to a small black component. “That’s the MOSFET. This board’s rated for higher amperage than the stock one, so it won’t blow on a hill climb unless someone really pushes it.”

“You upgraded it.”

“Didn’t make sense to put the same part back in if the same thing’s going to happen next time some tourist rides it up the pass.”

“That’s…really thoughtful.”

“It’s practical.”

“It can be both.”

He doesn’t respond to that. He picks up the soldering iron and starts connecting the board to the motor wiring, and I watch his hands work. Steady, precise, careful in a way that doesn’t match the gruff exterior. He moves like someone who respects the thing he’s fixing. Not rushing, not forcing. Just doing the work the way the work needs to be done.

“How’d you end up here?” I ask.

“Grew up here.”

“No, I mean how did you end up doing this? Being a mechanic.”

He keeps his eyes on the solder joint. “I’m good at fixing things.”