Her mouth twitched. “Okay. I can live with that.”
Jason nodded. “I can draw up some options,” he said. “We’ll prioritize natural light upstairs. Downstairs, we can keep it more utilitarian without making it look like a chop shop.”
“I don’t own any neon underbody kits,” Hank said.
“Let’s keep it that way,” the mayor replied.
They moved through more details. Fire code. Parking allocation. Loading access. The mayor mentioned potential small-business grants. Jason offered to walk the building with them that afternoon and flag immediate concerns.
At the end, the mayor folded her hands. “No pressure,” she said. “You take this with you. Talk to your team. Talk to your families. If you decide it’s too much, I’d rather lose you now than halfway through construction.”
Hank glanced at Bree. “We plan on doing both,” he said. “Talking and staying.”
Bree lifted her chin. “We’re not signing on the dotted line today,” she said. “But we are serious. This isn’t just a post-win sugar high.”
“Good,” the mayor said, satisfaction flickering. “Copper Moon could use a few more people who stick. Lord knows we’ve had enough passersby.”
She stood and offered her hand again. “Whatever you decide, you’ve already made this weekend one for the books. Thank you.”
They shook, thanked Jason, and stepped back into the hallway.
As they walked toward the front doors, Hank’s phone buzzed. He checked it, thumb skimming the screen.
“Diaz,” he said. “She wants us to know they picked up chatter about a guy asking questions at one of the smaller regional races. Same description as Einstein’s contact. She’s sharing data with other departments. Her exact words are ‘stay aware, not paranoid.’”
Bree snorted. “That should be on a T-shirt.”
He pocketed the phone. “You okay?”
She thought about Vic. About mysterious parking-lot meetups and illegal bottles and cash in duffel bags. About the way Diaz’s eyes had sharpened when she looked at Bree outside the warehouse.
“I don’t enjoy being on anybody’s radar,” she said. “But I like the idea of pretending nothing’s wrong even less.”
“Then we stay aware,” Hank said. “We put cameras where they should’ve been years ago. We keep in touch with Diaz. We don’t let fear drive the bus.”
She frowned. “That’s a terrible metaphor.”
He grinned. “You knew what I meant.”
She chuckled. “I did.”
They stepped out into the sunlight. The harbor glittered; gulls wheeled and complained overhead. Across the street, a dark SUV idled at the curb before pulling away. Hank watched it for a beat, attention narrowing, then relaxed when it turned toward the highway instead of the industrial district.
“Problem?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “Habit.”
He looked down at the folder in his hand, then back at her. “So. You still in?”
Bree thought about her parents’ voices on the phone. The relief under the worry. The way her mom had said, “We always tell her, you said hi."
She pictured the warehouse, dust motes in the air, the view of the water through the cracked upstairs window. Hank’s hand in hers as she’d imagined easels and canvases and people climbing the stairs to see what she made.
“I told my parents I was,” she said. “I’m not walking that back.”
He smiled slowly, warmth softening his features. “Good. Because I just promised a mayor and a contractor that James Performance is going to be more than a temporary sticker on the door.”
She laughed. “We’re really doing this.”
