“The one where your eyes go all soft and you start rearranging walls in your head,” he said.
She rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she said. “And if the board says no?”
“Then we still have a building,” he said. “We make the shop thrive. We build the studio side more slowly. We find other ways to get your work in front of people. Pop-ups, collaborations, traveling shows. Diaz’ll introduce us to every cop who wants art for their break room. We’ll adapt.”
“And the Bryn wall?” she asked, voice small.
He cupped her cheek, thumb stroking her skin. “We build it,” he said. “Even if we’re the only ones who ever stand in front of it. But I don’t think that’s how it’ll go. This town’s showing up for you, Bree. For us. Liz, Diaz, Charlie, the neighbors. They don’t always agree on anything. The fact that they’re aligning here? That’s something.”
Tears pricked obnoxiously at the corners of her eyes. She laughed through them. “Why do you always have to be so reasonable?” she asked.
“It’s a curse,” he said.
She leaned in, kissing him. It started soft and turned quickly, as it always did, into something deeper; that familiar pull that lived somewhere between fear and want.
When they broke apart, breathing a little harder, she rested her forehead against his.
“Do you ever get scared we’re building too fast?” she asked quietly. “Shop, studio, house, this… thing between us.”
“Every day,” he said. “You?”
“Same,” she said. “But I’m more scared of stopping.”
He smiled, the slow one that made her stomach flip. “Then we keep going,” he said. “One permit, one wall, one room at a time.”
She nodded, letting that settle. One thing at a time. Not the whole mountain, just the next foothold.
From upstairs, Colby called down, voice echoing. “Hey! Do you two want to see something?”
Hank groaned. “If it’s another spreadsheet, I’m staging a coup,” he said.
Bree laughed, wiping her face quickly. “Coming!” she called.
They climbed the stairs together.
In the dim light of the upper level, Colby had rigged a projector against the far wall. A sketch bloomed across the brick; the beginnings of Bryn’s wall, not in stark portrait realism, but in lines and shapes that suggested motion, flight, wheels. Around her, abstract swirls hinted at tracks, at waves, at something larger.
Bree’s heart punched her ribs.
“I know it’s rough,” Colby said quickly. “And we’ll refine it. But I wanted you to see the scale. The way the light hits.”
She stepped closer, fingers hovering just shy of the bricks.
“It’s perfect,” she whispered.
“Give it time,” Colby said. “It’ll get there.”
Hank stood behind her, hand at her waist. “You’re doing good work, man,” he said.
“This only works if it works for all of us,” Colby said. “She’s going to have a lot of company up there. Names, stories. Feels like the least I can do.”
Bree imagined that future; people standing here, tracing names with their eyes, seeing Bryn not as a tragedy but as a part of something living.
The warehouse, the house, the barn. The case Diaz was building. The network Colby was helping map. Brian’s paint-splattered arms. Liz’s dog-eared ordinances.
All of it threaded together, messy and imperfect and real.
Bree reached for Hank’s hand, fingers lacing with his.
