Callie
Itell myself I’m just checking on the bike.
I have a perfectly good reason to go back to Beck’s shop. Several, actually. It’s Thursday. He said the part would be in by Thursday. Kendall needs the rental unit back for the weekend. Two-minute walk from the Trading Post. Totally logical.
This is professional. This is responsible. This is me being a good employee.
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.”
“That’s not really an answer.”
“It’s the answer I’ve got.”
I lean my hip against the bench. “Can I tell you something?”
“Probably can’t stop you.”
“I’m going to be a ski instructor.”
He looks up from the board.
“I got my PSIA Level One certification last winter,” I say.
“I’ve been skiing since I was four. Raced in high school, taught my college roommate on a weekend trip to Breckenridge, and realized I liked the teaching more than the racing.
I’m waiting for snow season to go for Level Two.
The outfitter job is just off-season. Keeps me connected to the mountain, keeps me around gear, keeps me learning.
But teaching skiing is what I actually want to do. ”
I wait for it. The response I always get.
The slight smile, the polite nod, the “oh, that sounds fun” that really means “that’s not a real job.
” My mom does it. My college roommate did it.
The last guy I went on a date with literally said “so, like, a vacation job?” and then asked if I wanted to split the check.
Beck sets the soldering iron in the stand and looks at me straight on. “What’s your specialty?”
I blink. “What?”
“Your teaching specialty. Moguls, park, racing, adaptive? Level One is general but most instructors start leaning toward a discipline by the time they’re going for Two.”
My mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. Nobody has ever asked me that. Not one person in the entire year since I got certified has asked me a follow-up question that assumes I know what I’m talking about.
“All-mountain,” I say. “Specifically intermediate progression. Getting people from pizza wedge to parallel, building confidence on steeper terrain. That transition where people either fall in love with skiing or give up. I want to be the reason they fall in love with it.”
He nods slowly, like he’s actually processing what I’ve said. “Intermediate progression is where most instructors burn out. Beginners are easy. Advanced skiers already know what they’re doing. The middle is where the real teaching happens.”
“How do you know that?”
“I grew up in a ski town. Half the guys I went to high school with taught lessons.” He picks the soldering iron back up. “Skiing’s not a vacation. It’s a sport. It requires skill.”
My throat goes tight. Not from sadness. From the relief of someone saying the thing I’ve needed to hear for so long that I’ve stopped expecting it. He says it like it’s obvious. Like it isn’t even worth debating. Said it the same way he told me the MOSFET blew. Just a fact.
I don’t trust my voice for a second, so I watch him finish the solder joint. Clean, precise, no excess. He reconnects the motor housing and seats the battery and presses the power button. The display lights up, green and alive.
“Fixed,” he says.
“Fixed,” I repeat.
He stands the bike upright and holds it by the handlebars, and when I reach for it, our fingers overlap on the grip. His hand is rough and warm and he doesn’t pull back. Neither do I. The contact lasts maybe two seconds. Maybe three.
My pulse is doing something reckless.
“What do I owe you?” I ask. My voice sounds almost normal.
“Tell Kendall it’s handled. She sends enough business my way.”
“You know Kendall?”
“Everyone knows Kendall.”
I roll the bike toward the door, then stop. Turn back.
He’s watching me. Still at the bench, rag in his hands, that furrow between his brows a little softer than it was ten minutes ago. He looks like a man who’s been caught off guard and is trying to pretend he hasn’t been.
“Beck.”
“Yeah.”
“Thank you. Not just for the bike.”
He doesn’t ask what I mean. He just nods once, slow, and looks away, and I walk out into the sunlight with a fixed e-bike and a feeling that’s less like damage and more like a window opening.