His mouth curved. “You make it sound like you tripped over it in the hallway.”
“Feels a little like that.” She brushed her thumb over the tattoo on his shoulder, tracing the edges of the ink. “How are you doing?”
“Physically?” He did a quick mental inventory; she could see it on his face. “Sore in the usual ways. Brain’s still doing after-action reports.”
“About the race, or the nitrous situation?”
“Both.” His gaze searched hers. “And about a warehouse, I may have already mentally filled with lifts and toolboxes.”
She smiled, nervous and excited all at once. “You really meant it. That you want to do this.”
“Bree.” His tone sharpened gently. “I don’t say stuff like that to hear myself talk. We walked into that place yesterday, and for the first time in a long time, my head didn’t immediately go to exit routes. It went to possibilities. That feels important. Brian, Colby, and I have talked about doing this for a long time. I started it, planted the seeds, but the more we joked, talked, and planned, the more real it became. The issue was...where? Back home, there wasn't anything like this warehouse that we could afford. The fact that this came up, here and now, along with the mayor offering concessions through tax credits and support, makes me believe it has to be here.”
She heard the unspoken part; the Marine who had spent years in places where a building meant cover or a target or both. The fact that he could stand in that ugly old warehouse and think about lifts instead of ambushes said more than any speech.
“Okay,” she said quietly. “So let’s talk about what possibilities cost.”
He huffed a soft laugh. “Spoken like a woman who has actually looked at her bank account in the last six months.”
“I’m a working artist,” she said. “I check my balance more than I check my email.”
He rolled onto his back and hooked one arm under his head. “All right. Practicalities. We’ve got prize money from the Cup. After taxes, team percentage, and the usual slices, I still come out ahead enough to make a solid down payment on renovations. I’ve got savings from the last few seasons. I’m not rich, but I’m not living on instant noodles.”
“Instant noodles are underrated,” she said, then sobered. “I’ve got some savings. Most of my paintings go to people who pay me in actual money, not exposure. I sold that series in Milwaukee. The one with the industrial waterfront.”
He nodded. “The one you hate talking about.”
“I don’t hate talking about it.” She did, a little. It had been the last thing she’d completed before Bryn died. “It just feels like part of a different life.”
He waited. He was getting good at that. At letting silence stretch until she filled it with something real.
“There’s also…” She stared at her phone again, thumb resting on the screen without unlocking it. “There’s the insurance money.”
His brows drew together, but he didn’t speak.
“When Bryn died,” she said, words awkward and thick, “she had a small life insurance policy through work. Not huge. Enough to help with funeral costs and a cushion. She hadn't changed my parents’ names as the beneficiary when she and Charlie married. My parents refused to touch it. They insisted it go to me. ‘For your future,’ my mom said. I offered it to Charlie for the kids, but he said Bryn would love that I have it, and he was fine, financially. The money wouldn't bring her back. I put it in an account and haven’t touched a cent.”
“Because?” he asked gently.
“Because spending it felt like… stealing from her.” She blinked hard. “Like I’d be cashing in on the worst thing that ever happened to us.”
He reached for her hand and laced their fingers. “Money doesn’t know where it came from,” he said. “You do. And you get to decide whether it just sits there like a rock in your pocket, or whether you use it for something that would’ve made her smile.”
Bree swallowed again. “She would’ve liked the studio idea.”
“Then maybe,” he said, squeezing her hand, “using some of it to build a studio with her name on the door is not stealing. Maybe it’s the exact opposite.”
She let that sink in; the idea of a space where Bryn existed in more than framed photos. A place where Bree could paint, and maybe hang one canvas that never went to a gallery; one that stayed because it belonged there.
“I could paint a series about her,” she said slowly. “Not just portraits. Pieces of her. Her boots by the door. The coffee mug she stole from that diner we loved. The way she left paint on everything she touched.”
“I’d stand in line to buy that,” Hank said quietly.
“You’re biased.”
“Sure,” he said. “But I also know what good art feels like. The warehouse upstairs with your work, people climbing those stairs to see pieces of your heart on the walls? That’s worth betting on.”
She exhaled. “Okay. So, finances. If we pool what you’ve got, what I’ve got, and whatever the mayor can conjure up in grants, we could probably manage a modest renovation and a few months of breathing room.”
