“I’m Trinity, by the way.”The woman offered a hand dusty with clay to Blake, and then to Marin as they introduced themselves in turn.She reached into the pocket of her overalls, digging out a business card.“Send me a text so I can get your number.”
“Will do.Thanks, Trinity.”Blake smiled.
“Sorry I wasn’t of much help,” Trinity said with an apologetic look.“Anything else I can do ya for while you’re here?”
“No worries, you’ve helped a lot,” Blake told her.He gazed back over at Marin, who had resumed browsing the contents of the gallery with a contented look.“Actually, you mentioned it was open studio hours right now?”
“Yessir.Thirty dollars for the first two hours and ten dollars an hour after that,” Trinity informed him.She leaned in with a wink.“It’s a two-for-one special, today only.”
Blake laughed.“Thanks.”He glanced over at Marin, gesturing in the vague direction of the workspace proper.“Were you… interested at all?”
“In using the studio?”Marin turned to Blake, eyes wide in surprise.A look composed of equal amounts of guilt and sheepishness crossed his fine features a moment later.“I mean, I really would, but I wouldn’t want to put you out—”
“Don’t worry about that,” Blake reassured him with a warm smile.“Let me check my account real quick.”
Blake opened his banking app, wincing at the meager amount in his checking.After rent, amenities, gas, and motorcycle insurance it had diminished to a mere fifty dollars—and he still had a week of groceries to account for before his next paycheck.His eyes flicked down to where the amount in his savings was displayed.
It wasn’t like Blake had to check it.It still had the same fifteen hundred dollars that had been in it for the past six years.It had been a graduation present from his foster father Isko—he knew that his foster mother had put up a fight against the gift since the moment that Blake had received the check, wary of Blake’s delinquent tendencies in his youth.But despite the protests from both her and Blake, Isko had insisted.According to him, every young person needed an emergency fund in their adult life.
“You’ll know when to use it, right anak?” Isko had smiled at Blake, reaching up to ruffle his hair, leaving a bundle of tousled brown waves in his wake.“You’re a good kid.I know you’ll make the right choice.”
The money had proceeded to sit in his bank account throughout college and into grad school, untouched even in Blake’s most dire hours.Throughout all that time, a part of him was guilty for even thinking of spending the money—it still felt more like Isko’s than it did Blake’s.Like a loan that had to be returned when Blake was in a better financial situation or something to be handled with much more reverence and caution than he thought himself capable of.
But now, with Marin to care for over the next few days, the money had finally met its true purpose.
“I can swing it,” Blake said, transferring several hundred over to his checking.
Marin looked over at the gallery around him and at Blake.“I—is itreallyokay?”
“Of course it’s okay.”Blake smiled in a way he hoped was encouraging, reaching out to tap Marin’s shoulder in reassurance.“I’m offering.”
“Great!”Trinity beamed, clapping her hands together.“Right this way, I’ll show you the ropes.”
As they traveled back to the studio, Blake quickly Googled “Paul Aberley” to no avail—there were more Paul Aberleys in California alone than he could count.He proceeded to shoot a text off to Celeste.
“Looks like the guy who made the vase is named Paul Aberley,” he said.“I tried a quick Google search, but nothing relevant is turning up.”
Celeste texted back with little delay: “Leave it to me.I’ll hit up one of those background search websites.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it.”
Moments later as they entered the studio, another text came in from them: “How’s Ariel?”
“He’s doing really well,”Blake replied, snorting at the nickname.“He’s walking around and seems to remember a lot about art and motorcycles—he said something about a specific kind of bike this morning (Ducati Super Short).He also knows about the anime Gundam?”
“Those are good clues,”Celeste returned.“They give us a smaller time frame to work with when it comes to figuring out when he died.”
The sculpting and ceramics studio was laid out like a classroom, with several large tables taking up the middle space and a row of potter’s wheels along the side of the room.The walls were occupied by near-endless rows of shelves crammed with supplies and unfinished projects, a clutter of labor and love.On the opposite side of the room, a bay window looked over a small copse, sunlight filtering down onto the clay-dusted counters and sinks beside it.Since it was a weekday, the room was sparsely populated, only containing an instructor Blake recognized from his art therapy class and a small group of special-needs adults she was assisting on the pottery wheels.
Trinity spent several minutes giving them a tour of the studio.As she spoke, Marin busied himself with grabbing handfuls of supplies and shuttling them over to an open spot on the counter.Trinity laughed as he swept through the space, parsing over the tools with a discerning eye.
“Looks like he knows exactly what he wants to make,” she quipped to Blake, nudging her elbow against his.“You look a little lost though, buddy.First time in a studio, or just nervous?”
“Nervous?”Blake turned to her with a confounded furrow of his brow.
Trinity smirked, dropping her voice to a low murmur as she leaned in closer to Blake.“Correct me if I’m wrong, my guy, but I saw you holding hands earlier and you have ‘first date jitters’ written all over you.”
It was like Blake had been struck through with lightning and he was instantly mortified at having been pegged with such accuracy.He glanced away from Trinity with a shy laugh.“Something like that.”
