Scrap Metal & Love Reforged (Art of Love #3)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Troy

Iscrolled through the feed on my phone —or tried to, anyway. It’s tough when every swipe risks slicing open your finger on the cracked glass. This phone has had a hard life.

“How hard was it?” my inner voice chimed in.

It’s so hard that you could dig up the Crimean Peninsula, find a horse from the Charge of the Light Brigade, and probably unearth my phone beneath a shattered horseshoe.

Yes, my poor phone's tragic state was made worse by my lack of funds to replace it. So, I dealt with the broken, uneven screen despite cutting myself on it on more than one occasion.

The Bluehaven sales group wasn’t proving too fruitful. Usually, there were at least a couple of listings that had potential, and when your art was junk assemblage, (pretty junk made from ugly junk) it wasn’t like you had high standards.

I made my art from junk, from broken bits of metal and crumpled motors. Bits and pieces that other people ignore and toss away. I’d gotten pretty good hauls in the past from surveying these usual threads. But not today.

I leaned on the counter and glanced at the door.

No customers. There had been some earlier.

We’d had a freakish cold snap, merciless to both tires and batteries, so early in the morning the shop had been inundated with angry distressed customers.

But now it was three in the afternoon, and there wasn’t a soul to be found…

except for me, of course. And Janet, who was on the phone trying to figure out where a promised cabin air filter was that hadn’t come in for a customer.

I flipped to another tab and sorted through my Discord threads. There wasn’t much going on there either. I frowned and opened my private conversation with Godofdiscord.

Discord being a forum for friendly chat, I wondered why Godofdiscord was seemingly so conceited as to think he ran the place.

“I think I’ll die of boredom today,” I typed.

Godofdiscord didn’t appear to be online, but I could count on him saying something funny when he came on again. A pity, I’d have enjoyed a conversation.

Janet swore, and I glanced over my shoulder as she emerged from the back office.

She was five-feet-two-inches of hell on wheels.

Her face was flushed, her dark brown hair frizzed out and wild.

She’d probably run her fingers through it a few times.

She did that when she got frustrated. “This is fucking ridiculous!” she exclaimed. “Dammit!”

Yeah, she was definitely frustrated.

Janet had a mouth that would piss off a nun.

“Don’t tell me. Let me guess—the cabin air filter isn’t arriving tomorrow?”

“No, smartass,” Janet replied. “The vendor sent it to another mechanic! Can you believe it? There’s a Bluehaven Mechanics in Florida. Florida!! As far from us as you can get! They sent it there!”

I winced. “Is that Gloria’s part?”

Janet sighed. Her green eyes spoke volumes. It was Gloria’s freaking part. Son of a gun.

Of all the regulars we had in the shop, Gloria Dalloway was infamous around here.

I wasn’t sure whether it was bad luck or bad driving, but Gloria always had something wrong with her car.

Always. And it was always the shop’s fault, of course.

I’d seen her come in with her oil pan half-torn off and rattling along the ground as she drove in.

She climbed out and complained about the noise.

“If we’re lucky, Gloria will be out of town,” Janet said, “Forever.”

Somehow, I doubted it.

Janet ran her hands through her hair again. “I hate my life,” she muttered.

“You want me to call her?” I offered.

Janet sighed. “No. She hates you, remember? You rotated her tires when she didn’t ask, and now she thinks you’re sabotaging her.”

“It was a free rotation! And besides, Chris was the one—”

Janet sighed. “Tell that to her. Better luck arguing with a cadaver. No, I’ll call her back. With any luck, she won’t want to talk to me, either. Then, she can deal with Arthur.”

“Lucky man,” I said dryly.

Janet’s lips pursed into a small smirk. “Good. He always says I exaggerate how bad she is. Now, he can deal with her and see how he likes it.”

“He’ll be thrilled.”

Janet planted her elbows on the counter and leaned forward, cupping her face between her hands. “Serves the bastard right,” she muttered.

I said nothing. Arthur was the owner of the shop and frustrating to work with.

He seldom lifted a finger to help anyone and spent most of his time in the back office, and yet he micromanaged everyone.

So, about one day a week, he’d be in everyone’s face.

He had a habit of hovering over people’s shoulders while they worked, not budging.

I’d been looking for another job for months without success. I couldn’t be picky. I needed this job, and that meant keeping my mouth shut. It wasn’t that I thought Janet would rat me out to the boss. Not intentionally, anyway. But the last thing I wanted was her accidently blurting it out.

“How’s the art competition going?” Janet asked. “You’re still working on that, right?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “It’s going fine.”

Disastrously, actually. I needed about forty more hours in my week. As it was, I spent all my time at the shop, which left me too exhausted to even think about art. And a lot of what I did required me to go out and sift through stuff, too.

The roar of a Harley shattered the quiet.

I glanced through the glass door and watched the rider park.

My eyes wandered appreciatively over the bike.

It was a sleek, beautiful thing made of silver metal and red-orange fiberglass.

I sucked in a deep breath. It couldn’t be a Cosmic Starship, could it?

I’d only ever seen glossy photos of them in magazines, often accompanied by an outrageous price tag.

“Well, that’s obnoxious,” Janet muttered.

Not obnoxious, beautiful. I set my phone on the counter and watched as the rider pulled off his helmet. His dark hair was flattened unevenly, and, after placing his helmet on the seat, the rider ran his fingers through the disheveled locks, attempting to put them into order, but failing.

With a cheerful grin, he entered the shop. My pulse jumped.

He might’ve been the most handsome man I’d ever met. And that mattered more than I wanted to admit. Jaw tight, I forced myself to look away, even trying to feign disinterest, which was really stupid. I wasn’t even out yet. Why bother looking this guy over at all?

But he was hot. And he clearly had good taste in bikes.

“Hey,” Janet greeted.

“Hello.”

His hazel eyes darted around the shop with interest, although there really wasn’t much worth looking at.

All we had out here were a few seats, some pre-packaged snacks for guests, and a TV.

There were a couple of air fresheners by the counter, but we only kept those up front because the one-week Arthur decided to micromanage ordering, he’d ordered them by mistake.

“Is there something we can help you with?” Janet asked.

The rider smirked like he had a secret he was dying to share. He looked like the sort of man who thought a lot of himself.

Probably a total asshole, I thought.

In fairness, though, if I’d been that attractive, I’d probably be an asshole, too.

“I’ve never been here before,” he said. “I wanted to come in and look around. I’m thinking I might need some work done on a couple of my bikes. But I wanted to see the place first, check out the staff. I’m very protective of my bikes.”

A couple of his bikes; a couple??! Sheesh…yep…asshole.

“I haven’t seen you in here before,” Janet said. “Are you new in town?” sounding like a pickup line.

The man shook his head. Without warning, his eyes seemed to snap to me. I looked back evenly and tried to keep from noticing how nice the man’s face was. Whatever he saw looking at me was impossible to tell, but he looked pleased and smug about it.

“No,” he said. “I’ve been around Bluehaven for a while now, and I always take my bikes to Mallory’s, but he sold the shop. It’s all gone downhill since, so I’m on the hunt for a new mechanic. Someone who will really respect my bikes.”

“He’s the bike man,” Janet said, jerking her head toward me.

“Is that his legal name?” the man asked.

“That’s almost funny. I can speak for myself, thanks,” I said dryly.

“Of course,” he replied. “Friends call me Seth. Enemies prefer ‘Unholy Abomination’. What do your friends call you?”

What friends?

“Troy MacCarthy,” I said.

“Like High School Musical?”

Right. Like I hadn’t heard that one before.

“My dad was really into Homer,” I said.

“More people should be into Homer,” Seth said flippantly. “He’s the more tolerable of things the teachers made us read in high school.”

Seth wandered along the counter, pausing occasionally to tilt his head and survey some of the pictures hanging on the wall. Janet exchanged an awkward look with me. We’d never really had someone come in and just stand around looking the place over, like automotive window shopping—minus the windows.

If Seth needed someone to work on bikes, I could sure do that. Actually, I was the best qualified in the shop when it came to motorcycles. I glanced at the beautiful bike parked outside.

“That was a nice bike you rode in on,” I said, trying to sound casual.

Seth tore his gaze away from a picture of Arthur proudly standing before a cherry-red Ferrari.

It wasn’t even Arthur’s car, but he liked to brag to customers that it was.

After all, it wasn’t like most people in Bluehaven drove cars like that.

Maybe some rich guys in the financial district, but they never came into a little shop like ours.

But if that was a Cosmic Starship, why was Seth here?

“It’s new,” he said, his hazel eyes brightening. “Did you want to see her up-close?”

“Sure,” I replied, my voice belying my enthusiasm.

It wasn’t like I had anything better to do.

I followed Seth from the shop. He came to stop proudly beside his bike and grinned at me.

It was even more beautiful up-close. I let out a low whistle.

My hands ached to touch the curves of the metal.

I had a wild, sudden impulse to ask if I could ride it, even though I knew that was inappropriate. A fireable offense, even.

“I used to call her Isis, after the goddess of life, because I was going through an Egyptology phase when I bought her,” Seth said, “But obviously, that name didn’t age very well.”

No kidding.

“So now, she’s Debbie.”

“Do you know what it is?” Seth asked. “I don’t imagine you have many of these come through.”

“We don’t,” I replied. “Lots of Harleys, but you’re the first Cosmic Starship.”

Seth smirked. “You recognized it?”

“I’m not an amateur,” I replied.

“I don’t recall saying you were,” Seth said. “I just want to be sure I’m leaving my babies with someone responsible. That’s all.”

“I’d treat your bikes like I’d treat my own,” I replied.

And letting anything happen to a bike like that was unthinkable.

I knew this bike was probably worth at least a million bucks.

What the Hell did he do? Probably a trust fund baby, wealthy parents.

But why was he here, at a tiny shop like ours, when he could probably hire his own crew of mechanics to up-keep his vehicles?

“What kind of bike do you have?”

Nothing nearly as impressive as his.

“A Kawasaki Ninja,” I admitted, pointing.

Seth followed the gesture and slowly sauntered over to my bike.

I felt a hot flood of embarrassment and wondered if Seth was going to scoff at my poor bike.

It was sleek and dark blue with scratches along the finish.

My poor bike had suffered a few door dings before I’d even gotten it.

But she drove well. My bike was dependable, and that was what I needed. It didn’t matter if she was pretty.

But would this affect Seth’s opinion of me? Sure, he would be bringing in his bikes for mechanical problems, rather than body work, but still.

“Well,” Seth finally said, “I’ll be in touch.”

That sounded like, “No,” or even, “Hell no.”