Chapter Two
Spike
With great reluctance, I took the offered coffee and the little box of Timbits.
Yum, my favorites.
But I wasn’t going to let this guy see that.
I couldn’t put my finger on why, but my hackles rose at him.
Something about his friendly greeting rang hollow.
And with the fancy button-down shirt, pressed khaki slacks, and…oh my God, were those loafers? Even his glasses screamed geek.
Now, I wasn’t one to pass judgement.
Geeks owned motorcycles, too.
Well, I’d known a couple. Um, yeah, one. Marvin—the accountant who did my taxes back in Surrey. Most of the guys I was used to dealing with were biker dudes. We’d operated in that part of town.
But here? In Mission City? I hoped to cater to a different clientele.
Enthusiasts who rode for fun.
This guy? Discomfort radiated off of him.
Probably thought the grease would magically leap from my hands to his pristine clothes.
As I sipped the black coffee he brought—my favorite—I scrutinized his dirty-blond, close-cropped, slightly spikey hair and those dark-blue eyes virtually hidden behind the black, plastic-framed glasses.
“Well, thank you for the welcome.”
He continued to watch me intently.
Heat rose in my cheeks and I tried to hold his stare.
Something about this guy irked me, but what? His welcome to the neighborhood didn’t ring true.
The coffee and Timbits were nice, but this didn’t feel like a genuine reception.
“You haven’t told me your name.”
He fluttered his hand through his hair.
Ha, so not unaffected.
“Dickens.”
“Yeah, okay, but what’s your first name?”
“Dickens.”
With a slight bite.
Ah, so a little touchy about his name. I could relate. I took another sip.
“And your name?”
Another slight bite.
“It’s on the front door.”
His brows shot up. “Your name is Spike? That a family name?”
I crossed my arms.
He took a step back.
Well, that was easy. Except, did I want him to back up? The guy was fucking gorgeous, and the more time I spent looking at his lips, the more I wanted to know if they were as soft as they appeared. I wanted to rub myself against him to see if he was as supple as he looked. I wanted to grind my cock into his to see if we could generate some friction.
“Sure, Spike’s a family name. Whatever.”
Of course it wasn’t, and we both knew it. But I wasn’t admitting my true first name to anyone in the world. And if my mother hadn’t chosen it, I’d have changed it years ago. But it felt wrong to want to dump something she’d selected with loving care. Even if it had been the source of never-ending bullying and torment for most of my life. Someone at the old shop said I was as spikey as a hedgehog. I later learned the expression was prickly, but spikey caught on, and soon everyone called me Spike. It stuck. So when I struck out on my own, it made sense to keep the name.
“Yes, well, as you say.”
He ran his hand through his hair again. The strands were becoming as spikey as my name. “I just…do you think…?”
He faltered visibly.
“Spit it out, man. I don’t have all day.”
Despite having just opened officially this morning—to exactly zero fanfare—I already had three machines to work on, plus my own beauty needed a tune-up. I’d racked up quite a few miles, coming back and forth between Surrey and my new place. Movers delivered everything Friday, and now, Monday morning, I was set and ready to go.
“I…”
He took a deep breath. “I’m wondering if you could keep the noise down?”
I blinked. “Come again?”
“Well, you know, we like a peaceful downtown, and your, uh, bikes are very loud.”
He was serious? “Look, Dickens, I don’t know what you’re talking about. People drive down First Avenue all the time. And there’s parking on the street. Also, in case you haven’t noticed, the train whistles go off all the time.”
Now he blinked. “They’re part of the fabric of our town and its history. We’ve always had industries that rely on the railway. And the commuter train, of course.”
“Of course.”
I scrunched my nose. “So all that noise is okay, but not the occasional motorcycle engine.”
His spine visibly stiffened as he stood straighter. “Occasional? It’s been revving all morning. And those things—”
He pointed with obvious disdain, “—are designed to be a menace. People make them deliberately louder than they need to be just so they can disrupt the peace.”
Well, I couldn’t argue with that. Did I encourage people to do that? Of course not. If they wanted it, did I dissuade them? No to that as well. “I haven’t been revving anything all morning. I needed to check out this baby’s carburetor to make sure she was working properly.”
I pointed to the Kawasaki. “That one’s next.”
He took a sip of his drink and scowled.
“Problem?”
“It’s cold.”
Ah. Mr. Prissy didn’t like cold coffee either. Well, if he hadn’t stood around whining, it wouldn’t have grown cold. I, however, was not going to point that out. “Look, buddy, I have to get back to work. I’ll try not to be too loud.”
Totally impossible promise to make, but I really wanted him to take his uptight ass off my property and back to wherever he’d come from. “Hey, where do you work?”
“The Owl’s Nest.”
The…? Oh, right, the shop next door. The one with books all over the front window. “That’s a bookshop, right?”
“Of course.”
Guy actually rolled his eyes. I couldn’t think of him as Dickens. The name was just too pretentious. Well, on the other hand, it suited him. But I didn’t want to think about Dickens because that’d remind me of my mom, and I so didn’t want to go down that particular path. “Well, head on back to your bookshop. I have work to do.”
He harrumphed.
Actually harrumphed.
Then he pivoted and stomped out of sight.
Except loafers on the cement sidewalk didn’t have the same effect as, for example, high heels clacking on hardwood. He reminded me of my old boss, Gia. She’d inherited the shop when she was barely twenty-two. Her old man passed suddenly of a heart attack at age fifty. She shucked the biker-babe persona and became a businesswoman. She ran a tight ship and there’d been no bullshit around her place.
All that being said, she loved her high heels and short skirts. She remarried a year ago to my accountant. He brought his bike in for a tune-up, and she strutted out of the office on those spikey heels and, voilà—as my mom would say—they hit it off and three weeks later wore matching leather bike outfits to Surrey City Hall and got married. Gia didn’t mellow and Marvin didn’t swagger, but they did all right.
I had Gia’s unconditional support to start my own place. Fifteen years I worked in her shop. Fifteen years of scrimping and saving every dime so I could build something from the ground up.
So how dare he? How fucking dare he come by and ask me to keep the noise down? Really? People drove down First Avenue, and they weren’t quiet. More than a few motorcycles passed by—one of the reasons I knew this location was perfect. Trains went by all day and night. They rumbled and blew their whistles. More than once the past few nights I’d awoken to the sound. It’d take getting used to.
Just like fucking Dickens would get used to my revving engines on occasion. Wasn’t like I was doing it to intentionally irritate him.
Tempting as that might be.
I washed my hands and then dug into the box of Timbits, demolishing all but the birthday cake one with sparkles. I’d save that for dessert. I eyed the Harley with a mixture of frustration and envy. She was a beauty, but she was being a beast.
Time to tame her.
And put the gorgeous, blue-eyed blond out of my mind.
Or at least try to.