Wrong Number, Right Grumpy Mechanic (Wrong Number, Right Grump)

Steamy grumpy-sunshine romance with a mountain mechanic who fixes everything for everyone and never gets seen—A seasonal outfitter employee dials the wrong number, reaches the grumpiest man in a Colorado ski town, and falls into instalove certainty, wrong-number banter, and the kind of recognition that cracks open when two people who’ve never been seen finally look at each other.

She chased a ski dream nobody believed in. He was the first person who asked what her teaching specialty was.

CALLIE The e-bike is dead and my boss hands me a number. I dial it wrong. The man who picks up is rude. Genuinely rude.

I describe the bike as “the green kind” and he responds with the most irritated silence I’ve ever heard.

He walks me through a diagnostic anyway and tells me to bring it in even though I’m not his customer. I fold the sticky note and put it in my pocket. I don’t need the right number.

I already have the wrong one. Beck Meyer fixes trucks and fire engines and snowmobiles and anything else Copper Peak drops at his door. He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t take my coupon.

He walks through the Trading Post every morning, past me, into the coffee shop, back out. Then I wheel in the dead e-bike and something shifts behind that permanent scowl. He gets gruffer.

His hands get less steady. He tells me to come back Thursday. I come back Thursday. I tell him I looked up what a MOSFET is. I tell him I’m going to be a ski instructor.

I wait for the polite nod, the “that sounds fun” that really means “that’s not a real job.” He sets down his soldering iron and asks what my teaching specialty is. Nobody has ever asked me that.

Not my mom, not my roommate, not the last guy who called it a vacation job. Beck asks like it’s the obvious question. He says skiing isn’t a vacation. It requires skill.

Says it the way he tells me the circuit board is fried. Just a fact.

Then he drives me up the mountain, unlocks the service road with his own key, and shows me the runs where I’ll do my teaching practicum. He doesn’t bring me up for the view.

He brings me up to show me my future.

The problem is I’ve spent my whole life being the bubbly girl everyone likes and nobody takes seriously. Wanting someone to see past the sunshine feels like admitting the sunshine isn’t enough.