Page 17 of Hot Shot

She laughs. “Does that line usually work?”

“It wasn’t a line.” I frown. “I’m offended.”

“Really?”

“No.” I grin. “I mean I’m not offended. But it wasn’t a line.”

She bites her lip, then sighs. “Okay, sure. I’d like to see them.”

We fly along the freeway, the lights of speeding traffic and buildings flashing and glittering around us. I turn off I-5 onto Mission Bay Drive and cruise past Sea World and across the bay, then turn into my neighborhood and park in the driveway of my home.

“Cute place.” Carrie unfastens her seatbelt.

“Thanks. It’s a work in progress. I wanted to live near the beach, but that kind of real estate is pricy. This one needed some work, so I’m fixing it up.”

I help her out of the Jeep and lead the way to my front door. Inside, I flick on a light and cross the living room. I watch Carrie’s head turn as she takes in the Craftsman cottage. Yeah, I know it’s kind of sparse, but one day it’ll be restored to its glory. It has the good bones I like—nice hardwood floors, substantial woodwork around the doors and windows, a great fireplace. I’ve already replaced all the windows and upgraded the plumbing and electrical, but that stuff isn’t readily obvious. The cosmetic work will get done eventually.

“We can get into the garage through the kitchen.” I gesture and she preceded me into the kitchen, where I turn on another light. The kitchen is the best part of the house, since it’s the first thing I had redone, with new white cupboards, granite counters, and a terra-cotta tile floor. It, too, is a little sparse in the décor—I’m not much of a cook, but I like to sit at the small island and drink coffee with sunlight pouring in the new window above the sink and the French doors onto the patio.

“I like your house,” she says.

“Really? Most people think it’s a dump, other than the kitchen.”

“No, it has character.”

I nod. “It does. It’ll just take a while to bring it out.”

“That’s the fun part, though, right?”

I tip my head. “Yeah. I just get kind of impatient. All these things take so much time. And money,” I add with a grimace.

I open the door to the garage and step through it, hitting another light switch. The big space lights up with bright lights you wouldn’t normally find in a double-car garage.

My nose twitches at the faint unique scent, a mixture of metallic oxides, silicates, and fluorides from the welding materials that lingers despite the top-notch ventilation system I installed. My equipment is neatly arranged on benches and hanging on the walls. I’ve spent a lot of money on it and I take care of it.

Carrie heads straight to the piece I’m working on, a half-finished sculpture of a sea horse, about three feet tall. She stops in front of it and her head tilts to one side. For a long moment she says nothing.

I resist the urge to spew out stuff about how it’s not done yet, how it’ll look different once I’ve finished it, where I got the metal I used, what exactly I did to it. Instead, I make myself wait to hear her honest reaction.

“This is amazing, Marco.” She turns to face me and her eyes shine with admiration. “Seriously. What else have you done?”

“There are some finished pieces over here.” I lead her to the back of the garage. “I’m kind of fascinated by sea creatures, so most of what I’ve done are things like this shark, and this stingray. I started off doing simple fish, like this one.” I gesture to a yellowtail fish. “Then there are my whales. I love whales.”

“They’re beautiful.”

“Thanks. I’ve done a lot of them, but I needed more of a challenge, hence the sea horse.”

She shakes her head as she studies my work. “I’m . . . I’m blown away.”

My chest expands. “Really?”

I’m proud of my work and I’ve gotten some attention for it. A gallery in La Jolla actually sold some of my pieces, which honestly blewmymind. I started doing it for fun, not really thinking that anyone would pay for the sculptures. But hearing that I’ve actually impressed Carrie makes pride swell inside me.

“Yeah, really. Wow.” She moves back to the sea horse. “This is going to be amazing.”

“Thanks. It’s different for me. I’m having fun with it.”

She lingers longer, taking in the other smaller works lining the shelves at the back, some of them not my best efforts, but I always learn something from every piece I do.

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