Dylan grimaced at the missing ceiling tiles, then looked back toward Mike. He was studying the hunks of absent wall plaster with the sort of intensity usually reserved for avoiding looking at other things.Or people, Dylan thought.
Using the stained walls around his head as a cover, she watched Mike for a moment. His usually relaxed posture was noticeably absent, replaced by a spine that was too straight to be comfortable. Her inner business consultant kicked in as she ran down her CEO diagnostic checklist. Normally relaxed hands jammed in pockets—check. Shoulders a fraction of an inch too high—double check. Avoiding eye contact at all costs—also a check. Zero indication that he was still breathing ... Dylan paused to observe his rib cage for a second. Although his torso filled out his shirt quite nicely, there was no way he was moving a lot of air through it. Check.
All nervous, protective gestures present and accounted for. Taking a deep breath, she exhaled. “Wow.”
“Wow good? Wow bad?” Mike asked, narrowing his eyes.
Every fiber of her knew that Mike was showing her a very dear but exceptionally impossible dream. It was a miracle the city still considered the structure sound enough to let children—or even dogs—in with this section still standing. When she’d said she wanted to help, she had thought she’d write a personal check, maybe beg her dad to pony up. But this project was so much bigger than what her puny charity budget could manage. Still, a deal was a deal, and she was nothing if not good for her word. She had to try, or risk being as flaky as the rest of her family.
“I can see it ...,” Dylan said, careful to meet Mike’s gaze. Dream lawsuit or no, she couldn’t tell Mike the truth about his plan.
“Really? I know it’s rough,” Mike answered. His shoulders dropped the appropriate distance, but his face read as skeptical.
“Yeah. I ...” Dylan’s eyes cast wildly about for some redeeming quality in this troll cave. “I love the chandeliers. Are those brass?”
“I was a little worried about them structurally, what with the water damage.” Faux genuine as her response was, Mike was willing to grab the life raft. Taking a massive step over piled-up scaffolding, he walked toward the center of the room. “I want it to be paneled to the edges, like the Sky Church.”
“Sky what?” Dylan watched the ground and tried to gracefully circumnavigate the pile of junk so she could stand next to him. Mike stopped pointing at the wall long enough to aim an incredulous stare at her.
“Sky Church. The venue inside MoPOP.” When recognition didn’t immediately dawn on her face, he tried to rephrase it. “You know, the venue in the Experience Music Project, now MoPOP? The wacky-looking museum—”
“I know what the EMP is. I live in an artist hive, not a bunker. I just haven’t actually been inside of it.”
“You’re kidding. You’ve never been inside the Hendrix museum?”
“Does riding the monorail through it count?”
“You can’t keep telling people you were raised here. You gotta see it. Add it to the list.” It was Dylan’s turn to look incredulous. “Don’t act like there isn’t a checklist running through your head right now.” Mike’s good-natured smile returned as he poked fun at her.
“Gee, you remember my absolute best traits. Thanks for that.” There was no point in denying “the list” existed, and they both knew it. “Now, tell me what you want to do.”
Smirking, Mike began rambling around the room, pointing to various aspects of the space and noting planned changes. Sure, the alterations would cost more money than either of them had access to, but Dylan imagined defeat on someone like Mike would be moreheartbreaking than she was prepared to handle. She didn’t regret her small albeit deeply impractical lie.
“—like the Bezos Center at the Museum of History and Industry.” Mike’s words pulled Dylan back into the room. She’d missed whatever had prompted him to wave wildly at the back wall, but she was pretty sure that if it was named after the founder of Amazon.com, it was expensive.
“Haven’t seen that one either?” Mike tried to mask a look that fell somewhere between offense and pity. “How can you be the child of artists?”
“Don’t ask me questions based on the assumption of normal parentage. My parents think dogs are appropriate messengers.”
“They’re whimsical, is all.”
Dylan threw her free hand over her heart. “Aw, thank you. ‘Whimsical’ might be the nicest way anyone has ever called my family weird.”
Mike shrugged a lazy shoulder, turning back toward the open doors. “What can I say? Whimsy suits them.”
Dylan smirked. “I’m sure you want their whimsy in your life as much as you want a triple bypass.”
“I don’t think your family is nearly as odd as you think they are,” Mike said, navigating back toward the construction light. “The whole feud thing aside.”
“That’s because you don’t have to live with them.” Either she was missing something, or Mike had managed to locate a level of reasonable she had yet to see her parents display. Both thoughts were equally unnerving, albeit for opposite reasons, so she pushed them aside as she stepped carefully to the door, grateful to be away from the uneven flooring.
As they walked back through the hall, she weighed her options. She didn’t have time for a pro bono project. Especially with Jared breathing down her digital neck every fourteen minutes. Still. There had to be away she could sell using some of her time on this. It was obvious Mike needed help, and she could use a distraction. She’d poke around for a while and write a check to the museum when she left. Nothing massive, but certainly something bigger than “special donor” money. She had basically run Nicolas’s workplace-giving drive for the last two years. How much more time consuming could this project be?
“Maybe you could come up with a list of some spaces I should see? Y’know, so I can get a better sense of what you want to do here.”
“Dylan Delacroix, is this your way of trying to trick me into taking you out?”
“That is not what I am asking.” Dylan rolled her eyes, refusing to let Mike embarrass her again.
