Chapter 30
Elias watched as Jordan went around his motorcycle, labeling the parts with the sticky notes he’d given the teenager as fast as he could.
Each time he’d asked to shadow Elias, to learn something, he’d make him label parts.
This was the first time he had him doing so for any part that could be seen.
Not only that, but he was timing Jordan.
Not that the teenager knew it. That would undoubtedly have made him nervous and caused simple mistakes he wouldn’t have otherwise.
For the parts he couldn’t see, Elias would have him match the name of the part to its function once he finished his current task.
“Done!” Jordan announced, and Elias stopped the timer on his phone.
He held out a stack of index cards to the teenager. “Take these and match the parts to the functions.”
Jordan took the index cards to the clean work table and began matching them while Elias started another timer.
He wasn’t timing him to see how fast he could do it.
He was timing him to see how confident he was while doing it.
That was a major part of any profession and building anything custom.
You needed to be confident in your work.
This was the first step for Jordan to gain that confidence.
Sure, he’d watched Elias build a couple of bikes and passed him tools, but he had done little hands-on work. Before he would allow the teenager to do so, he wanted to make sure he knew each part of a motorcycle inside and out, and what they were used for.
Elias technically wasn’t looking to take on an apprentice, but he didn’t see the harm in teaching Jordan a few things, while his interest seemed to fall into the realm of motorcycles.
He knew that at nineteen, one’s focus and what they wanted could change.
His hadn’t, but he wanted to make sure Jordan was serious before wasting either of their time.
“I’m finished,” the teenager informed after a couple of minutes. Elias stopped the timer and noted the time.
He stood from where he’d been seated, pocketed his phone, and approached the table. He looked over the cards, swapped two cards whose functions were similar, and nodded at Jordan.
“Good job. The rest are right. These two are tricky because the purposes are similar.”
Jordan nodded. “Okay, I got it. Can I have these?”
“Sure,” Elias agreed.
“So, I think my mom might be coming around to me getting a motorcycle without freaking out. Or at least, the last couple of times I’ve brought it up, she hasn’t told me I can do whatever I want to when I no longer live under her roof.”
“That doesn’t mean she’s coming around to it. It only means she’s said what she meant so many times that she doesn’t feel the need to say it any longer because you should know by now.”
Jordan sighed. “Yeah, I was afraid of that, but she let my uncle teach me how to ride. I don’t know what the big deal is with getting my own.”
“Did she let him? Or did he teach you and the two of you told her after the fact?”
“That’s…a good question. I mean, I assumed he got her permission, but knowing how my uncle is, and his better to ask for forgiveness than permission attitude, he probably didn’t. But if he hadn’t, I know she would have grounded me for it.”
“She probably laid into him since he was the adult in the situation at the time,” Elias supplied.
He knew Jordan had learned to ride a couple of years before.
“But I get where she’s coming from. Motorcycles can be dangerous, and since you don’t have the added benefit of airbags like you do in other vehicles, they’re risky to drive. ”
“You ride a motorcycle,” Jordan deadpanned.
“Not all the time, but when I do, I know acutely that I not only have to drive for myself but for everyone else on the road, too. And having to wait until you’re out on your own won’t kill you.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Jordan responded. “Did you have work you needed to do, or are you treating me to lunch?”
Elias raised a brow at him. “How is it that every time I see you, you’re roping me into buying you food?”
The teenager shrugged as he gathered the cards. “It’s the right thing to do.”
Elias didn’t respond and headed towards the door. It was lunchtime. He didn’t mind taking him to get some food before he needed to get to his first tattoo appointment.
“Ciao, Mamma,” Elias answered as he cleaned his station after his last appointment.
“Ciao, Figlio. Are you busy?”
“No, I’m getting ready to leave the shop for the day. What’s up?”
“Are you seeing Eri tonight?”
“I’m not,” Elias responded, but not because he didn’t want to.
She had her meeting with Koa tomorrow and was making last-minute edits on all the designs she’d created.
He didn’t want to distract or pull her focus away from it when he knew she was excited and nervous, and wanted everything to be perfect.
“Will you talk to her tonight?”
“I will. Did you need me to tell her something, Mamma?” Regardless of what she was doing, she always called him before she went to bed when they weren’t together. Even if they only spoke for a few minutes.
“Yes, give her my number and ask her to call me.”
Elias furrowed his brow. His mother’s tone of voice told him she was up to something. “Why?”
“That’s not your business,” she countered.
“Mamma, if I pass along your message, don’t do anything to make her…” Want to break up with me. “Uncomfortable.”
“I would never,” she replied, offended. “If you must know, Lorna and I were thinking of doing a mother-in-law/daughter-in-law day sometime soon, and I wanted to ask if she wanted to join us.”
Elias contemplated whether he believed her.
“Fine, I’ll pass your message on, but no talks of marriage or grandbabies with her.
That falls under the realm of making her uncomfortable.
” He thought he should put that out there because he didn’t put it past his mother to try to weasel a grandbaby out of Eri if she thought she could.
“You have no faith in me.”
“Not a lot. No,” Elias replied. “I’ll talk to you later, Mamma,” he then said, not giving her time to respond to his first statement.
“Bye, Figlio.”
He pocketed his phone, shaking his head. Even though he’d told her not to bring it up, he was sure she would find some way to slip it into the conversation.
“Zia Lucy is trying to spend quality time with Eri?” Marco asked from where he was sketching in Javier’s empty chair.
“Yes, and it could go great or terribly. You know my mom is worse than Zia Lorna when it comes to trying to settle me down and materialize grandchildren.”
Marco chuckled. “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure she won’t bring it up this early in your relationship, and besides, Avian wasn’t shy about telling my mom we wouldn’t be gracing her with grandchildren for a few years, regardless of how much I might be trying.
I don’t see Eri having an issue doing so either, if she has to. ”
“Let’s hope you’re right,” Elias responded. “I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon.”
He exited the shop and got into his car. It was almost seven, and he needed to stop by the store to pick up two ingredients he needed for what he was making for dinner that night. Then, he would wait for Eri to call him to relay his mom’s message.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
“Eri, these are amazing!” Koa complimented as the two sat in the corner of the coffee shop they’d met at.
Eri hadn’t wanted them to meet at either of their houses.
Not because she thought either of them would be unsafe, but because it felt unprofessional.
The coffee shop felt like the best option.
It was public, but the tables were spread far enough apart for them to have the desired privacy without being overtaken by the sounds of the other patrons.
If and when she expanded into taking more local clients, she would need to look into renting a small office space.
“Thank you. I wanted to ensure that I followed your specifications, but also had plenty of options for you to choose from,” Eri replied.
“You’ve made choosing hard. I like them all.
” Koa paused briefly. “I think these five would be great as designs for my everyday merch. Things I would sell year-round. I love this one for T-shirts and hoodies,” she said, pointing to the screen of the laptop where Eri now had all the designs in a collage.
“This one for coffee mugs and tumblers. These two are for keychains, and this one is for hats and beanies. Those are the things I plan on offering,” Koa informed, pointing to each design on the computer screen as she listed it off, and Eri made a note of it on her tablet.
In their initial meeting, the other woman had asked Eri for three designs. Two of the ones Koa chose, Eri had suspected she would pick.
“These,” Koa then started pointing to two other designs.
“I think these would be good for a limited-time drop. That’s what I did the first time I dropped merch.
It would be perfect for an October drop for Halloween with the orange, black, and dark purple color scheme.
It’ll work out perfectly because I have a mini-series I’m animating for that month, and the limited design can drop at the same time. So, I’ll take these as well.”
Eri wrote the notes on her tablet as she tried not to dance in her seat. She was so excited that Koa liked all the designs. She’d been so nervous about it. Not only because it was her first major client, but also because she enjoyed Koa’s animations.