Around two in the afternoon, the sky outside turned a murky grey, and a steady, miserable drizzle started falling over the city. The rain meant nobody was walking down the sidewalk, which in turn meant the shop was dead quiet except for the quiet hum of the ancient refrigerator in the back room and the occasional drop of water hitting the metal awning outside.
Ethan was sitting on the floor behind the counter, surrounded by small screws, a tiny soldering iron, and the guts of a Technics SL-1200 record player that belonged to a guy named Dave who dropped it off two weeks ago.
"Is it dead?" Leo asked, leaning over the counter from above, holding a mug of lukewarm instant coffee.
"Not dead," Ethan said, squinting through a pair of magnifying glasses he’d borrowed from his grandfather. "Just... neglected. Someone tried to wire a cheap USB converter into the pre-amp output and completely fried the ground wire. It’s a mess."
"Can you fix it?"
"Yeah, if you stop hovering over me and dropping coffee steam on my forehead."
"Fair enough," Leo said, walking away to adjust the volume on the shop's speaker system. A soft, dusty jazz record was spinning on the house turntable, but the left channel kept cutting out whenever someone walked heavily across the floorboards.
The squeaky door opened again. Ethan didn't bother looking up immediately, assuming it was just the mailman or someone trying to get out of the rain for two minutes without buying anything.
"Hey, grease monkey," a voice called out.
Ethan pushed the magnifying glasses up onto his forehead and looked over the counter. Maya was standing near the door, shaking her wet umbrella into the small metal bucket they kept by the entrance. She had traded her work apron for a heavy green flannel shirt, but her dark hair was slightly damp around the edges from the rain.
"Hey," Ethan said, scrambing to stand up. He forgot he had a screwdriver tucked under his arm, and it clattered loudly onto the wooden floorboards. "Uh. Rain's pretty heavy out there."
"Yeah, it’s coming down," Maya said, walking over and placing a damp brown paper bag onto the glass case. "Brought you guys the leftovers from the lunch shift. Savory scones. Cheese and jalapeño. They aren't burnt this time."
Leo appeared out of nowhere like a ghost, his hand reaching into the bag before Maya had even let go of it. "Maya, I say this with total honesty, you are the greatest human being in a three-block radius."
"I know," she said, looking down at the scattered parts on the floor around Ethan's feet. "What are you doing down there? Looks like a crime scene for electronics."
"Fixing Dave's turntable," Ethan said, leaning back against the edge of the counter. "Some guy tried to modify it himself and ruined the board."
"Sounds like something you'd do," she teased, pulling a scone out for herself and leaning against the counter next to Leo.
"Hey! I know what I'm doing," Ethan protested, feeling his face flush again. "I've been fixing these things since high school."
"I know, I know. Just messing with you." She took a bite of the scone and chewed thoughtfully, staring out the foggy front window at the street. "Julian came by the bakery earlier."
Ethan’s hands froze on the edge of the counter. "Oh yeah?"
"Yeah. He bought three boxes of pastries for his store. Paid with a corporate card and spent ten minutes explaining to me how his shop’s air conditioning system uses some kind of medical-grade filtration." She snorted softly. "Like... cool story, bro. It's an electronics store, not an operating room."
Leo laughed, his mouth full of scone. "Ethan was getting all insecure earlier because Julian dropped by here to flex his white sneakers."
"I was not getting insecure!" Ethan said loudly, glaring at Leo with absolute betrayal in his eyes. "I just don't like him. He's pretentious."
Maya looked at Ethan, her dark eyes amused. "He is pretty annoying. He asked me if I wanted to come over across the street after my shift to listen to some high-res audio demonstration."
Ethan felt a strange, cold knot form in his stomach. "Are you going?"
Maya looked at him for a long second, her expression unreadable, before blowing a strand of damp hair out of her face. "To listen to a guy talk about speaker wires for two hours in an air-conditioned box? I'd rather stick my head in our commercial mixer while it's running."
Ethan let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. "Right. Yeah. That makes sense."
"Besides," Maya added, picking up her umbrella again. "I promised my sister I'd help her move a couch tonight. Which brings me to why I'm actually here."
Ethan blinked. "Why?"
"You have a truck, right?" Maya asked, pointing a crumb-covered finger at Ethan. "That beat-up red pickup sitting in the alley?"
"It's not beat up," Ethan said defensively. "It's a 1998 Ford. It runs fine."
"The passenger door doesn't open from the inside," Leo pointed out.
"It opens if you roll the window down and use the outside handle!" Ethan shot back.
Maya smiled, a real one this time, small and slightly crooked. "Great. So you're free at six? I'll pay for gas and buy you dinner."
Ethan stood there, his mind trying to process the request while his brain tried to calculate if six o'clock collided with anything else he was doing tonight. He had planned on sitting on his couch in his underwear eating instant noodles and watching YouTube videos about old cassette decks, but that didn't seem like a great thing to say out loud.
"Uh. Yeah," Ethan said, scratching the back of his neck. "Yeah, I can do six. Where's the couch?"
"Third floor apartment. No elevator," Maya said cheerfully, turning back toward the door. "Wear clothes you don't mind getting dusty. Thanks, Ethan! See you later!"
The door squeaked wetly, and she was gone, disappearing into the gray drizzle outside.
Leo slowly turned his head toward Ethan, taking another massive bite of his jalapeño scone. "Third floor. No elevator. Man, you are gonna regret having a truck so much by eight o'clock tonight."
"Shut up, Leo," Ethan said, but he couldn't quite get the small, stupid grin off his face as he knelt back down to solder Dave's ground wire.
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