Page 8 of Sparks Fly

“Are you gonna text her?” Vic asked as they tilted their head.

“She doesn’t have my number,” I said.

“Instagram?” Vic asked immediately.

I didn’t answer. The last thing I was going to do was voluntarily tell them we’d already talked on Instagram, but the twitch at the corner of my mouth apparently said enough.

Jay just nodded once, like something had been confirmed.

“God, you’re doomed,” Nina said as she reached for the coffee pot.

“Shut up,” I muttered, though there wasn’t much heat behind it.

Tasha grinned around another stolen bite of bacon. “I give it two weeks before you’re writing poetry about her.”

“I don’t write poetry,” I said flatly.

“You absolutely would for the right woman,” Vic replied.

I shook my head and finally went back to my eggs, which were now mostly cold.

The conversation drifted after that, Nina started complaining about a client, Tasha launched into a rant about her landlord, and Vic tried to convince Jay to come to some show downtown next weekend. We planned our Sunday ride for the next day, down the coast and back.

I was already looking forward to it.

Addison’s face kept flashing back into my head. The way she’d flushed pink when I called her stunning. The way she’d tried to play it cool and failed just enough to make it endearing.

Eventually plates were pushed aside and the check appeared. We paid, argued halfheartedly over who owed what, and shuffled out onto the sidewalk together into the cool morning air.

“Message her,” Vic said as they pulled their jacket tighter.

“I’m not messaging her,” I replied.

“You absolutely are,” Nina said as she started walking toward her bike.

Jay just glanced at me once before heading the opposite direction, that same quiet look on his face. I watched them all scatter down the block before heading toward my bike.

* * *

I peeked into the bookstore, Queer Expectations, when I got off my bike and saw Amanda closing up. She was halfway up a ladder restocking the memoir section, one arm full of books. I gave her a quick wave, and she lifted two fingers in return without even looking down.

The smell of old paper and coffee drifted out onto the sidewalk as I stepped past the door and headed for the stairs. My second-floor walkup sat above the bookstore, which was owned by the most amazing married couple, Hollis and Soren. They’d been running the place longer than I’d lived upstairs, and the shop felt like the kind of space that had always existed—crooked wooden shelves, handwritten staff picks tucked between titles, and a bell over the door that chimed every time someone came in.

They hosted a wine-and-cheese book night every Wednesday and had invited me more times than I could count. One night I eventually caved and showed up. Turns out wine, cheese, and queer literary debates are hard to say no to. Now I go semi-regularly.

Over the five years I’d been their tenant, they’d become something closer to chosen family. They kind of took me in, even if I didn’t realize at the time that it was something I needed.

They check in on me, make sure I remember to eat, and often send a plate of whatever Hollis has decided to bake upstairs when they think I’ve been working too much. Which, according to them, is most of the time.

As soon as I stepped inside, I exhaled. I loved my apartment. The place had windows that whined in the wind, exposed brick along one wall, and light that filtered in soft and warm by late morning. My boots lived in a pile by the door, and the walls were mostly bare except for a few framed photos: me and Jay at his first gallery show, a Polaroid of Vic flipping off the camera, and one blurry black-and-white shot of me and my sister mid-laugh, caught in motion. I didn’t keep many pictures. The ones I did mattered.

I kicked my boots off, set my helmet on the entry table, and stood in the quiet for a second because I didn’t need noise here.

The back room that served as my workshop had started as a sunroom once, but I’d turned it into something else entirely. The concrete floor was scuffed from years of work, and a heavy workbench sat bolted into place where I’d installed it myself. The scent of metal and oil lingered in the air, familiar and grounding, and my hands itched to make something.

I changed into a tank and loose joggers, tied my hair back, and picked up my tools. There was a piece I’d started earlier in the week sitting on the bench, abstract but vaguely human. Two bent steel arms reaching toward each other without touching. It wasn’t for anyone. Most of them weren’t.

I liked the rhythm of creation, the way pressure and heat could shape something solid. Working with metal kept me grounded because it was honest. It didn’t pretend, didn’t soften the truth. Metal didn’t ask questions.