I closed the basement door and rolled back down the hallway, past the linen closet. I gazed in and spotted folded towels with my favorite detergent scent.This man!His attention to detail about making space for me in his home was so thoughtful. I turned the corner toward the bedroom, but I heard movement behind a door that used to be locked, the one he’d told me not to go in.
“Quade!” I called, noticing the door was slightly cracked. Pushing the door open slowly, I peeked in, and there he was, as if I hadn’t been calling his name for the last five minutes. He was on the floor, sweat glistening across the back of his neck, sleeves pushed up with his AirPods in his ears.
My eyes roamed the room. On one side, there was a soundboard, a mic, and a small vocal booth tucked into the corner. Wires ran clean across the floor, leading to speakers mounted on the wall. It looked like a real studio. On the other side, there were blank canvases stacked along the wall, tall storage cabinets, and jars of brushes and paints. A stool sat in front of an easel near the window. Was this a shared space?
“You finally left the door open!” I yelled so he could hear me over whatever was playing in his earphones. He turned around slowly as if he wasn’t sure if he had heard correctly.
“Damn. You weren’t supposed to see this yet.” He looked like a kid who had just gotten caught sneaking cookies out of the cookie jar.
“What is this?” I rolled further in, eyes wide.
“Our studio,” he said. “A place we can create together. I hope the lighting is good enough for you.”
“It’s… perfect.”
“I was gonna try to surprise you once everything was built.”
I looked around the room, emotions welling up inside me. “This… this is what you’ve been working on?”
“Yeah. It’s why I told you to stay out of here. I’m glad you listened for once.” He smiled. I rolled my eyes playfully at his sarcasm as I continued rolling around the room. The desk was wide enough to hold my sketchbooks. The shelves were reachable from my chair. Even the drawer handles were easier for me to grip.
“I figured,… you know, you needed somewhere to create, and I need to record an album, so…”
“I love it,” I whispered.
“Yeah?”
“It’s beautiful.” My voice cracked. “You did all this for me?”
He stepped over to me and crouched down to my eye level. “Of course, I did.”
“Thank you.” A tear slipped out of my eyes before I could catch it, and he reached for my hand just as the one tear turned into a sob, and I broke down. I didn’t mean to fall apart, but the way he had been carving me into his space made me emotional. I’d lost everything: my house, my work, my peace, and I’d almost lost my life, and he’d been a godsend in it all. He not only saved my life, but he spent every day making sure everything I’d lost was restored.
“It’s okay, sunshine. I got you.” He pulled me in and allowed me a moment to release. “How was the call with the insurance people?” he asked once I was calm.
“They’re not budging. They’ll cover a portion but nowhere near what I need to rebuild. They just want to demolish it and cut me a check.”
“Don’t worry. The house will be rebuilt, repaired, whatever it takes. Okay?”
I rested my head near his shoulder. The fire left a heaviness in me, but it hurt less when he was close.
He pulled back. “I was gonna wait until this whole room was done to give you this, but…” He stood, wiped his hands,and walked out for a moment. When he came back, he carried a large, yellow box tied with a purple ribbon. He set it down in front of me gently.
“What’s this?”
“Open it.”
I hesitated for a moment, scared that whatever was inside was going to have me falling apart again. I lifted the lid and inside were several large canvases. I reached in, my hands shaking, and immediately cried again. The first canvas I pulled out was one of my oldest paintings. It had been hanging on my wall. It was a picture of my dad holding me as a baby. I’d painted it from an old Polaroid photo. It had a little smoke damage on the corners, but it was intact. My breath caught, and I pulled out a photo album. I opened it to see a photo of my grandmother on her sewing machine. And another one of me and Teagan as little girls.
“I…” My voice was shaky. “Quade,… how? I thought all my things were ruined in the fire?”
“We were able to save some things. Rico and James helped me dig through what we could, took them straight to a restoration spot.”
“I thought they were all gone,” I whispered, pulling out another canvas. It was pretty little bird.
“That one was,” he said. “I had Zy repaint it. Took us a few tries, but we got it right.”
My hand flew to my mouth as tears fell down my face.
