Epilogue
Five years.
Five years since a girl called the wrong number and described an e-bike as “the green kind,” and I’m still not over it. I don’t think I’m supposed to be. I think some people walk into your life and rearrange the furniture, and you just live in the new layout forever.
Callie Meyer. Still not used to that either.
We got married on the mountain. First snowfall of that year, mid-October, earlier than anyone expected.
She’d called me at the shop that morning, voice shaking, and said “it’s snowing” like she was announcing a miracle.
I said “I know.” She said “marry me today.” I said “I already have the rings in my truck.”
I’d been carrying them for two weeks. She didn’t know that.
I’d proposed the week before. On one knee in the shop, ring in a socket tray, grease on my hands.
She said yes before I finished the question.
We picked up the license at the county clerk’s office the next morning.
Colorado lets you solemnize your own marriage, no officiant required.
Just the two of you and your signatures.
Snow was falling on her hair and her nose was red and she was wearing ski boots under her dress because she said it was the only thing that made sense.
She was right. It was the only thing that made sense.
She’s a Level Three now. Took her exam and passed on the first attempt, which surprised nobody except her. She runs the intermediate progression program at Copper Peak’s ski school, exactly the way she told me she would in my shop that afternoon.
Callie is the reason people fall in love with the mountain.
I’ve watched her do it. I’ve watched nervous tourists in rental gear follow her onto a blue run and come back grinning, and every single time, I think about the girl who researched MOSFETs on her lunch break because someone mentioned a word she didn’t know.
That’s who she’s always been. The world just took a while to catch up.
It’s July now. The shop is busy with summer maintenance. Ski patrol wants all the snowmobiles serviced before fall, the fire district has a pump rebuild on the schedule, and two trucks from Prospect Street are waiting for oil changes. Normal Thursday.
Except nothing is normal because my wife told me something this morning over coffee at Lea’s, and I’ve been useless ever since.
Pregnant. Eight weeks. She’d slid the test across the counter between our coffee cups and burst into happy tears before I could even process what I was looking at.
And then Callie was grinning—that wide-open, no-armor grin—and I just sat there staring at a plastic stick thinking about a little girl with her mother’s laugh and my complete inability to function.
She already has a plan. She always has a plan.
She’ll teach through the fall, transition to the lodge counter once ski season starts, handle sign-ups and registration where it’s warm and flat and safe.
Once the baby comes, she’ll be back on the mountain by the following winter.
She told me this in the same tone she’d used to explain MOSFET failure to me five years ago.
Calm, researched, already three steps ahead.
I’m not three steps ahead. I’m approximately zero steps anywhere. I’m under an SUV replacing a catalytic converter and thinking about baby names, which is not a safe combination.
The front door scrapes open.
I still haven’t planed it down. I never will. The two-second warning is the best feature in the shop.
“We’re closed,” I call out.
It’s noon. We’re not closed.
“Since when?”
Her voice. Five years, and it still does the thing to my chest.
“Since right now,” I say from under the truck. “Go away. I’m busy being emotionally compromised.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
I hear the front door lock click. Then nothing. No footsteps, no voice. Just silence, which is not a thing that happens when Callie is in a room.
I roll out from under the SUV.
Callie is standing in the middle of my shop in nothing but a black lace set I’ve never seen before.
Her clothes are folded on my workbench. Folded.
She’d taken the time to fold them. The bay doors are down and the afternoon light is coming through the high windows and my wife is in my shop in lingerie, and I’m on the floor holding a ratchet.
She’s smiling at me. That smile. The one that ruined my life in the best possible way five years ago and hasn’t stopped since.
“Hi,” she says.
“Callie.”
“Yeah?”
“What are you doing?”
“I believe the technical term is ‘surprising my husband.’” She takes a step forward. “You’ve been weird all day. You texted me four times asking if I was eating enough. It’s been six hours since we found out.”
“You should be eating enough.”
“I had two muffins and a sandwich. Beck. Look at me.”
I’m looking. I haven’t stopped looking. She’s standing in my shop, in the same spot she stood five years ago when she wheeled in a dead e-bike and smiled at me like I was a dog she wasn’t sure about.
The lace is black and the light from the high windows is catching her skin and I’m on a rolling creeper covered in exhaust residue and I cannot think.
Callie walks toward me slowly, hips swaying in that black lace like she owns every inch of this shop and me with it. My heart is hammering against my ribs as she stops right in front of the creeper.
Without breaking eye contact, she hooks her thumbs into the waistband of her lacy underwear and slides them down her legs, stepping out gracefully.
The scrap of fabric hits the floor, and then she’s stepping over me—those black heels planted on either side of my hips, giving me a perfect, filthy view.
She steps forward, then lowers herself, thighs flexing, until she’s hovering just above my face. The scent of her—warm, sweet, already wet—makes my mouth water.
“Fuck, Callie,” I growl, grabbing her ass with both hands and pulling her down onto my tongue.
I lick into her slow and deep at first, savoring the slick heat of her, then faster, focusing on her clit with firm strokes.
She tastes like heaven and sin. Her hips start rolling against my mouth, and the sounds she makes—those breathy little gasps turning into full moans—go straight to my cock.
I suck her clit between my lips and flick it with my tongue until her thighs start trembling around my ears.
“Oh God—Beck—” she cries out, grinding down harder.
She cries out as she comes, loud and shameless, her whole body shaking while I keep licking her through it, drinking every drop.
She’s still panting when she shifts back, sliding down my body until she’s straddling my hips.
Her hands go to my jeans, unfastening the button and dragging the zipper down.
She yanks them and my boxers to my thighs in one rough motion, freeing my aching cock.
It slaps against my stomach, hard and leaking for her.
Callie wraps her fingers around me and strokes—slow, deliberate pulls while she stares straight into my eyes. Her thumb swipes over the head, spreading the pre-cum, and I groan deep in my chest.
“Callie…baby…”
She keeps her eyes locked on mine for several long seconds, stroking me like she’s memorizing how I feel in her hand. Then she rises up, positions me at her entrance, and sinks down in one smooth glide.
“Fuck,” I say through clenched teeth.
She’s so wet—slippery, scalding heat—and so tight, she squeezes me like a velvet fist. The feeling of sliding into her bare, nothing between us, almost makes me lose it right there.
She starts riding me, rolling her hips in that perfect rhythm that drives me insane.
I reach up and unhook her bra myself, tossing it aside.
Her full breasts spill free, heavy and gorgeous, nipples tight and flushed.
As she moves, they bounce—fuck, they bounce—with every downward thrust, jiggling in the most hypnotic way.
I can’t stop looking. Her head falls back, eyes closed, lips parted as soft moans and whimpers escape her.
One hand slides down her own body, fingers circling her clit while the other braces on my chest. Her tits are right there—bouncing, flushed, perfect—and her pussy is gripping me so tight and wet, I can hear the obscene sounds every time she sinks down.
“Jesus Christ, Callie,” I rasp, hands gripping her hips hard enough to leave marks. “You look so fucking hot riding my cock like that. Look at you—touching that pretty pussy while you take every inch. Those perfect tits bouncing for me. You’re gonna kill me, baby.”
She moans louder at my words, grinding down harder, her inner walls fluttering around me. The wet heat, the tight squeeze, the way she’s soaking my balls—it’s overwhelming. I’m fighting it with everything I have, jaw clenched, abs tight, trying to hold back so I can watch her fall apart first.
Her breathing turns ragged. Her fingers move faster on her clit. “Beck— I’m—”
“Come on, baby. Let me feel you,” I growl, thrusting up to meet her. “Come for me. Squeeze my cock.”
She cries out sharply as her orgasm hits, pussy clamping down on me in pulsing waves, her whole body shuddering. Her tits bounce wildly with the force of it, nipples hard, mouth open in a broken moan that echoes through the shop.
That’s all it takes. I finally let go, coming hard with a guttural groan, hips jerking up as I spill deep inside her. The pleasure rips through me in long, intense pulses while she keeps riding me slowly, milking every last drop.
Afterward, she lies on top of me and we stay locked together, breathing hard, her body draped over mine as the aftershocks roll through us. The creeper rolls an inch, and she snorts against my neck.
“This is not a sustainable surface,” she murmurs.
I lift her off me, set her on her feet, and grab the moving blanket off the shelf in the back. The same one from that first night on the mountain. I spread it out on the shop floor between the lift and the bench, and she’s curled into my side before I’ve even settled.
She planned this. The lingerie, the folded clothes, the locked door. But the blanket was my move, and something about that feels right. She shows up. I make the surface. That’s how we work.
That tracks.
She’s curled against my side, my work shirt draped over her because the concrete floor is cool even in July. Her fingers are tracing patterns on my chest. Probably drawing smiley faces. She draws smiley faces on everything. The coupons, the grocery list, the foggy bathroom mirror after a shower.
“Beck?”
“Hmm.”
“You’re going to be a good dad.”
My throat tightens. I don’t say anything for a second because I don’t trust what’s going to come out.
“I’m serious,” she says. “You’re the guy who upgraded a circuit board for a bike that wasn’t his to fix because you didn’t want the next person to have the same problem.
You looked up my certification requirements after knowing me for three days.
You drove me up a mountain to show me where my life was going to start.
” She props herself up on her elbow and looks at me.
“That’s not a mechanic. That’s a man who cares deeply. ”
I look at her. Light brown eyes, almost amber in the afternoon light through the shop windows. The same eyes I noticed in a gravel parking lot five years ago when the sun was going down and my life was tilting sideways.
“A girl,” I say.
“What?”
“I think it’s a girl.”
“You can’t possibly know that at eight weeks.”
“I know.”
“Then why—?”
“Because I can picture her.” I put my hand on Callie’s stomach, flat and warm under my palm. “She’s going to have your laugh.”
Callie’s eyes go bright. She blinks hard, once, twice, and then she’s kissing me, soft and slow, and she tastes like coffee and muffins.
“She’s going to have your frown,” she whispers against my mouth.
“I don’t frown.”
“Beck. You’re frowning right now.”
“This is my face.”
“I know.” She grins. “I love your face.”
The shop is quiet. The Tacoma is still on the lift, half-finished.
The fire district paperwork is on my desk, unsigned.
The afternoon is shot and I don’t care. My wife is on my shop floor wearing my shirt and carrying my daughter and looking at me the way she looked at me the very first time, like I’m something worth seeing.
Five years ago, I knew two things with absolute certainty. The first was that the controller board was going to take three days, not two.
The second was that I was in trouble.
I was right about both. The board took three days. And the trouble never stopped.
I wouldn’t change a single minute of it.