Page 2 of Scales and Seduction

“Eclipse Cellular Repair.”

I let out a heavy sigh. The weight of my frustration pressing down on me makes it hard to take a breath. An hour without my phone is less awful than trying to fully replace it. “Thank you.”

The driver gives me directions to the shop and sends me off with, “Good luck.” Thankfully, it’s not that far, and the directions are fairly easy to follow. This city isn’t large enough to get lost in, anyway.

As we get off the bus and into the street, Vince leans in for a hug. “I wish we didn’t have to get back so quick. If this Burney guy is a murderer, can I have your apartment?”

“Not funny, Vince.” His twisted humor makes me smile as I hug him back tightly.

When it’s Quinn’s turn, she gives me a soft smile. “If my photographer wasn’t on the way, ugh—just don’t sign anything if it sounds too good to be true, okay?” She leans toward me, wrapping me tightly in a hug. “Babes, can you text me when you get home? I’ll worry.”

“I promise I’ll text you in an hour.”

The windows are covered with dark blinds, and the front door is wooden with tiny glass panes that are so dingy, I bet I can’t see inside. If this is the place, it better be cheap because it absolutely makes all the hair stand on my arms and neck. It’s straight out of a horror movie.

I push open the door, and a tiny tinkling bell sounds above my head. Its tone is hilariously off-key and sounds more like a cattle bell. The inside looks like no cellphone repair shop I’ve ever been in. On two of the walls, there are large mahogany bookcases with rows of old-looking books, and glass cases in the center with random trinkets inside.

The air smells like musty pages and something grossly metallic. The back wall has a velvet curtain in the center behind displays of ancient-looking phones that were likely around before I was born. Strangely, there are no modern models that I can see. Some are flip-phones from the early 2000s, and others look like bulky relics from the nineties that my mom used.

“So weird…” I whisper, running my hand along one of the display cases that houses an old tome with a thick leather wrapping. It has a gold-stitched eye directly in the center of it and is crusted with weird dark stain.

Better not be blood, I think, trying to hide the crinkling of my nose.

A whoosh sounds as the velvet curtain flaps open and a slender pink-haired woman exits the back room. “Think about what I said, Burney. I’d hate, quite frankly, for this to fail.”

She doesn’t give me even a once-over. Her movements are elegant as she glides from behind the cases past me. Her hairstyle is a side-shaved bob, and she wears a long chain attached from her nose to her left ear. She’s wearing a pinstriped suit and the tallest black stilettos I’ve ever seen with silver spikes along the heel. The woman gets close, and when she passes me, my eyes close as I inhale.

God, she smells like sex and liberation.

Her perfume has notes of honeysuckle, vanilla and something else I swear I’ve tasted before. I wish I had the guts to ask her what it is. If I smelled like that, I wouldn’t be so horrendously single.

Time stands still until I hear the cowbell sound of her exit, and someone clears their throat almost annoyingly loud. As my eyes hazily open, I force myself to blink away a cloud of confusion. How long was I standing here sniffing?

Standing behind the counter is a tall man with a salt-and-pepper handlebar mustache, his piercing gray eyes hidden behind half-moon glasses. His long, slender beak of a nose holds them in place, but there’s an odd birdlike quality to him.

“Can I help you, miss?” His head tilts left and right, as if he’s assessing me.

I’m completely caught off guard. My thoughts are still cloudy from whatever pheromones that woman put off. “Uh…” It comes back to me the moment I look at my cracked phone. My mind swirls, trying to focus again. “I was told you can fix my phone.”

His lips curl into a knowing smile, revealing a row of gleaming white teeth. “You’ve come to the right place. I can fix anything.”

“That’s my hope.” I find the courage to step closer even though his teeth and eyes make me uneasy.

Once I’m at the counter, I show him my damaged phone. Its screen is still flickering. “It got stepped on, and I’m afraid to even touch it. The phones you have here are ancient, though, so are you sure you can handle this?” I know it sounds accusatory, but the place has nothing but old shit in it. I can’t be too careful.

Burney chuckles. “Don’t be fooled by the old tech. I’m capable enough. What do you have to lose, anyway? It’ll cost half the phone’s price anywhere else.”

He has a point there.

I didn’t exactly think about putting insurance on it when I bought it. I figured I could go back and add it on later when I saved up some more. I’m such an idiot. I’m the clumsiest woman on the planet. I should always get insurance.

“Okay.” I have maybe three hundred dollars until payday. I’m going to be eating ramen for the unforeseeable future. “What’s your pricing like? Do you take credit?” As the question hangs in the air, I hold my breath, waiting for the answer.

His voice turns low and conspiratorial, “I can cut you a deal. Test out my app, and I’ll make it one hundred even.”

A hundred bucks? God, that’s a steal, and if it’s just a shitty app, it’s no different from the loads of bloatware I have on the phone stock from the store. “What kind of app is it?”

What could it hurt?

---