Eric Changed The Passwords While I Was Fitting A Student

I had two cold adjustment screws cupped in my hands when Eric took my name off the booking page.

The screws held the side supports on Nora Pike's seated ski. She was twelve, and she hated cold metal near her legs. I always warmed the screws before I touched a client's rig. It cost me half a minute. That half minute mattered.

"Warm enough?" I asked.

Nora tapped one with a finger. "Approved."

I was Shahbaz Abbasi, a thirty-year-old Pakistani American man with brown skin, close-cut black curls, and a short beard that caught pale curls of ski wax. My job was fitting adaptive-ski equipment. I set seat angles, checked straps, and adjusted outriggers so people could find their own balance on snow.

Eric handled the calendar.

Until that morning, we both handled the business.

Our workshop sat behind his uncle's former cabinet shop in Stowe, Vermont. Beyond the wide front window, a plow pushed wet snow toward the road. Inside, six seated skis stood on low racks. Twelve pairs of custom outriggers hung above them.

Each frame carried a small stamped number beneath its seat. Eric had once asked why I bothered marking things nobody could see.

"So I can match them to the papers," I had told him.

He had laughed then.

Now my tablet flashed PASSWORD INCORRECT.

I tried again. Same message.

"Did the booking system change?" I called.

Eric leaned against the counter with his phone in his hand.

Eric Lund was a thirty-five-year-old white American man with sandy hair swept back from a high forehead, pale blue eyes, and a red beard trimmed to a sharp point.

"I streamlined access," he said.

"I need Nora's fit notes."

"Ask me."

Nora's mother, Beth, looked up from her mittens.

"Shahbaz did her notes," she said.

Eric smiled at her. It was his sales smile, wide enough to close a door.

"He's great with wax and adjustments. But I manage the actual operation."

I set the warm screws on a clean towel.

"We manage it together."

"Let's not confuse clients."

Beth stared at him. Nora looked at me. That was the part I remembered later: a child trying to work out whether the person fitting her equipment was allowed to be there.

"Your ski is ready," I told her. "Your left support is exactly where we set it last week. Nothing about your fit has changed."

Mabel Chen came through the side door with snow on her hat.

At sixty-four, Mabel could fill a room before she took off her coat. She was Chinese American, an adaptive-ski instructor, and loudest when she thought someone needed courage.

"There's my fast girl!" she told Nora.

Then she saw our faces.

"What broke?"

"A password," I said.

"Those don't usually make children look worried."

Eric made a small shrug.

"Shahbaz is leaving the workshop. I'm keeping things simple."

"I didn't say that," I told him.

He turned his phone toward me. He had already sent a message to our winter client list.

For Clarity, Shahbaz Was Hired To Wax And Service Equipment. All Bookings And Fleet Decisions Remain With Eric Lund.

Under it was our workshop name: Thawline Adaptive Workshop.

I had chosen that name at my kitchen table. Eric had said anything was fine as long as he could sell it.

"You sent that?"

"People need one point of contact."

Mabel took Nora and Beth outside to review their lesson plan. Before she left, she pressed my elbow.

"Don't agree to anything because he's saying it fast."

After the door shut, Eric stopped smiling.

"You get $900 for this week's work. Leave your key."

"That's not how a partnership ends."

"My uncle owns the building. The fleet has been here since we opened. You want to argue over a bench?"

I looked toward the low racks. Beneath the nearest seat, S03 was stamped into bare metal.

I had paid $7,100 for that ski before Eric and I had even picked a name.

"The building isn't the equipment," I said.

"I brought the customers. Without customers, it's scrap."

He had said versions of that before. Usually over a bill. Sometimes over dinner after a busy Saturday. I had kept treating it as a bad joke.

"Don't move anything," I told him.

"You don't give orders here."

I put Nora's fit sheet in its locked drawer. I took my coat and my own small tool roll. I left the key on the counter without signing his $900 receipt.

Outside, Mabel stood beside her van.

"I have all six student deposits," she said quietly. "And every receipt."

"Keep them safe."

"Already did. What do you have?"

"The papers he signed."

My phone buzzed before I reached my car.

Eric had sent one more message.

If You're Claiming Any Of My Fleet, Bring Proof Before Friday. The Lender's Inspector Comes At Nine.