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Eve

Wreck Your Heart Out

The antique bar was like something out of one of my dreams.

It was detailed in gold filigree and gorgeous, with the kind of Art Deco starburst design that made my heart spin and cartwheel.

Using my teeth, I tugged off my work glove and checked every seam, disappointed when nothing sprang loose at my touch.

No hidden compartments filled with love letters, stolen away to be read a hundred years later.

I kept every single one that I found, though. On display in the shop, a tidy stack of secrets from the past—scribbled recipes on receipts, phone numbers gone obsolete, waterlogged photos, and creased postcards.

I loved keeping these little notes. Loved the reminder that whoever had written “ Call Jack about the pecans ” on the back of an envelope and left it in the drawer of an armoire had been a person. That even in their anonymity they wouldn’t be forgotten.

The bar had come from today’s haul at The Plaza, a dilapidated historic hotel just outside Santa Fe.

Cleo, my co-owner at The Wreckage, walked a slow, appreciative circle around it, whistling under her breath.

She was a tall Black woman with plum-colored glasses, medium-brown skin, and a constellation of gold jewelry curving up both ears.

“Besides some cleaning,” she said, “maybe a few touch-ups on the mirror, she’s practically in mint condition. Someone took good care of her.”

I eyed the chips and scratches in the wood, all the cracks along the razor-sharp edges of the starburst. “And she’s still got some personality left, too. This was The Plaza’s main bar, right?”

“It was, from the early 1920s through the forties. It survived Prohibition.” Cleo paused to push a few stray curls back behind her ear. “One of the guys on the demo team told me the hotel was rumored to be a speakeasy…and that it catered to a distinct clientele.”

When I arched an eyebrow in question, she said: “The Southwest’s very vibrant queer population.”

“Is that so,” I murmured, splaying my hand across the top. My mind filled eagerly with all the empty spaces and missing moments of this bar—the smoky light, the lilting jazz. The metallic clink of martini glasses and the heavy pours of whiskey.

All that was said, the whispered secrets and desires.

And all that wasn’t—the coded glances, the furtive touches when no one was looking. Pretty women, dripping with pearls, searching for a forbidden love in this dangerous land of endless violence.

“Damn. Maybe we don’t sell this beauty at all,” I said, flashing a grin. “She’d be right at home here at The Wreckage. We’re pretty fucking queer and vibrant, too.”

“It’s not a bad idea,” Cleo mused, nodding. “We could host community happy hours. Bring in some cute bartenders from the restaurant scene.” She wrinkled her nose. “Although…are there any cute bartenders left in Santa Fe who haven’t had their hearts broken by you?”

My grin widened, turned cocky. “Not my fault people can’t stop falling in love with me.”

“You should come with a warning label, Eve.”

“Now where’s the fun in that?”

She snorted, slapping a work glove against my arm. “Stop being a menace and help me move the bar into the workshop.”

We bent together and lifted, moving carefully as we eased beneath the garage door and back into our large, drafty workshop.

Cleo and I had met in a beginner’s woodworking class, shortly after I’d moved to Santa Fe.

We’d bonded instantly. Cleo was professionally restless, a welder and contractor feeling frustrated with the red tape and bureaucracy that came with her job.

And I was a recent PhD dropout, a historian with a passion for old and beautiful things—and a career I’d just burned to the ground.

We started salvaging antiques together on the weekends, our obsession growing in tandem until we realized the best way to combine our unique skill sets.

And we opened The Wreckage a year later.

The front half was a storefront, with our finished items on display and catalogs of what we were working on. The workspace in back, where Cleo and I gently placed the mahogany bar, was where the artistry happened: restoring, painting touch-ups, complete reconstructions.

I pushed to stand, pulling off my gloves and shoving them into the pockets of my navy-blue coveralls.

Cleo was already hauling out her tools, wearing an expression of jubilant concentration.

Laughing softly, I nudged my shoulder with hers. “Do you need any of my help for this? If not, I was going to tackle the rest of this month’s invoices.”

“Go get after it,” she said with a smile. “Also, I almost forgot, but a reporter’s been calling you all morning. I’m guessing it’s about what we salvaged today. The Plaza’s pretty high profile.”

“You take it,” I said, sauntering in the direction of the office. “You’re better with the press than I am.”

Cleo furrowed her brow. “You sure? They asked for you specifically.”

“Absolutely. I don’t fuck with reporters.”

I moved back through our quiet shop, beneath the dangling antique lamps, the bins of reclaimed subway tile, the gilded mirrors and refurbished desks.

The neon sign at the front, hanging above our doors, read Wreck Your Heart Out .

It was candy-apple red, pulsed with a gentle hum, and was the very first thing we’d purchased together when we opened.

In the office, I scooped up my phone from the desk. No missed calls. No new messages.

So I dialed my aunt Monty’s number for the third time that day.

There was a reason why I never trusted reporters—and it was absolutely because of what they’d done to Monty and her wife, Ruby Ortega, all those years ago.

Circling them like sharks scenting blood in the water, more compelled by a news deadline than anything resembling compassion.

The way the press had stalked them, camping out on their front yard.

All the homophobic tabloid headlines, the taunts about her marriage, her “gay lifestyle,” the casual destruction of her privacy.

How quickly my aunt had lost her humanity, nothing more to them than a human-interest story to be read quickly and tossed in the trash.

Reporters were a direct threat to Monty’s hard-earned peace. I hadn’t been around back then to protect her from them, but I’d do it now in a heartbeat.

Her phone rang and rang on the other end of the line, and when her robotic voicemail message came on, I couldn’t even say I was surprised.

“Monty, it’s me again.” I sighed. “I know you love your off-the-grid routine, but this is getting beyond ridiculous. I’m really worried about you. Can you call me? Please?”

I hung up before any more vulnerability could creep into my tone, just as a heavy dragging sound caught my attention. I tipped my head, listening, but could only hear rustling. Maybe a muttered curse. I walked back into the shop, scanning for signs of customers—

And that was where I saw the source of the noise, a woman in the middle of our antique book section, balanced on the highest rung of the rolling ladder.

Her fingers danced along the dusty spines with a languid reverence. The hazy afternoon sun filtered in through the stained glass in our windows, painting her in muted multicolor.

Perched like that, she appeared…enchanted.

A handful of pencils winged out from the top of her high bun.

She had pale skin and dark brunette hair swept back from her neck, though a few stray hairs lay at the nape.

And when her profile slowly came into view, I noticed her square-rimmed glasses.

Her front teeth biting into her full bottom lip.

Her lipstick was a rich carmine—the sharp color like a bloody, fiery heart.

Awareness shivered across my skin.

I propped my shoulder against the bookshelf. “Can I help you find anything?”

She gasped, the motion shifting the ladder back. I grabbed the bottom to stabilize it, and she sagged forward with relief. Then peered down at me with pink cheeks and dark blue eyes.

A smile spread across her face. Sweet, a little tentative. Behind her glasses, our gazes met. Held. It could have been from that same afternoon sun, but I swore her cheeks darkened a shade.

Whoever this stranger was, she was pretty to the point of distraction.

She let out a breathy sigh. “I don’t know who you are, but you just saved my life. I feel a thank-you is in order.”

My response was a leisurely grin. “No thanks necessary. I didn’t mean to scare you, was just shocked to see a customer up on that ladder. Usually I’m the only one brave enough to climb it.”

She peered out over the store. “I couldn’t let a chance go by to live out my Beauty and the Beast fantasies. A bookish girl can dream, can’t she?”

“Should I bring out our dancing candlesticks? Or would that be overkill?”

A single brow winged up. “Oh, I would be delighted by a musical number right now.”

She descended the rungs, revealing pointed boots beneath trousers that cinched high around her waist. A sleeveless silk top buttoned all the way to her neck. Our eyes connected again when she reached the floor.

My stomach did a neat little flip.

I gripped the back of my neck and indicated the space around us. “What brings you into our salvage shop?”

Instead of answering, she extended a hand and said, “Harper Hendrix.”

My fingers slid across her soft palm and brushed the inside of her wrist. Her grip was surprisingly firm. Another burst of awareness shot forth from where we touched.

“Eve Bardot. I’m one of the owners here.” I released her hand, slipping both of mine casually into the back pockets of my coveralls. “Are you looking for anything specific?”

Harper seemed to hesitate, as if unsure. A tiny alarm sounded in the back of my head, but it was probably just a side effect of my Monty worries.

She adjusted her glasses, wandering farther down the aisle. “Just browsing. It’s my first time in an antique salvage shop, and I had no idea everything in here would be so—”

“Really fucking old?”