Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Hello and welcome to the 2020 Blogging from A to Z April Challenge! I’m writing one new meet-cute per day as part of my “Sacramento Love” theme. Read along as couples find themselves falling for folks in lucky locations across California’s capital city. In this time of social distancing, there’s no need to fear a little fictional fun, so get your romance fix here and enjoy!

P.S. Today’s story was inspired by Writer’s Block Coffee, who really are donating 100% of their sales today to Feeding America! They’re aiming to raise $1,000 for the hunger charity, so if you need to stock up on coffee (or just want to try something new), today’s the day.

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“Got any spare parts?” always struck Ripley as a ridiculous question. She worked in a bike repair shop; of course there were spare parts here. The real question was…

“How much are you willing to pay for them?”

This usually caught the asker off-guard. They wanted free parts, of course, as if a bike shop would just give its most valuable assets away. Flustered, they would slink off to try to find another sucker.

“Not today, Satan,” she’d usually mutter under her breath after they’d gone.

“Hey, got any spare gears?” a young woman in a grease-spattered pair of overalls asked.

“What kind you need?” Ripley played along.

“Uh, the ones I’ve got are Shimanos, but I’ll take anything at this point. I’ve got thirty bucks, and the sporting goods store up the block wants fifty. I’m willing to put in some labor, if you’ve got anything that’s a little beat up,” she suggested with a shy grin and a hand ruffling the short hair on the back of her head.

Ripley set down her wrench and gave the girl a good once-over. She looked like someone who’d done a bit of manual labor in her life. Her nails were clean, but short. She was wearing combat boots, black. No makeup. No muss, no fuss.

“Come on back. I’ll show you what we’ve got,” she said, treating the girl to a rare smile.