They sat with the fire for a while. Outside, the snow continued without apology. "Does she always make hot chocolate for strangers? " Riley asked. "She makes hot chocolate for anyone who looks cold. " He turned the mug in his hands. She decided that's her job.
Noticing when people are cold, Riley looked at the fire. That's a good job to have. It is. Another silence, but not an uncomfortable one. The particular silence of people who have, without planning it, found themselves at ease with each other.
I'm sorry I'm keeping you up, Riley said. I was already up. A pause. I work late most nights. It's quiet.
He said the word quiet the same way Sophie had said Gerald prefers quiet things. Like quiet was something you earned, not something you were stuck with. She left the next morning when the storm broke, and she was back two days later. She told herself it was because she wanted to learn the basics of motorcycle maintenance. A plausible excuse.
Almost true. The Triumph was genuinely temperamental in cold weather, and she'd learned nothing from the Denver shop that had charged her three times what Daniel had. She did not examine the other reasons too closely. Daniel was not surprised to see her. He nodded at the Triumph when she pulled into the lot and said, Sophie ran out from behind the building in her winter coat and snow boots, having apparently been watching from the window.
Riley. She stopped herself at the last moment. The way children who have been taught about personal space remember it too late. Hi. Hi, Sophie.
Gerald wanted to know if you were coming back. A pause. I told him probably yes. Riley crouched to Sophie's level. Gerald was right.
The girl beamed. Daniel taught her how to check the fuel mixture and adjust the idle. He was a different kind of teacher than anyone she'd hired, patient. Not because patience was his strategy, but because he genuinely moved at the pace the problem required. He didn't explain things from a place of wanting to be appreciated for knowing them.
He just explained them. She helped Sophie build a snow fort in the lot while Daniel worked on a client's truck. Sophie had very specific architectural opinions about snow forts. The walls needed to be at least two feet high. There needed to be a window on the south side, and the entrance had to be small enough to keep out invaders.