@MiMi: Not doll.
“Goodnight, Lens Family!” she called over his shoulder, still laughing. “I love y’all!”
Chapter Twenty-Two
FRIDAY NIGHT
“Aye, Kennedi.”
She looked up from her laptop to find Mook leaning in her office doorway, shop rag slung over his shoulder.
“Ro said to come get him when you’re ready to head out. He’s in the booth.”
“He’s still painting?” She glanced at the time on her screen. 5:47 PM. “He’s been in there since lunch.”
Mook shrugged. “This is how he gets. Once he starts, he can’t stop.”
“The Cadillac?”
“Yeah. It’s looking clean, too. Candy apple.” He tapped the doorframe twice. “I’m out. Y’all have a good weekend.”
“You too, Mook.”
He disappeared down the hall, and Kennedi saved her files and closed her laptop. She’d been at it since nine that morning—editing footage, answering emails, mapping out the next round of interviews for the docu-series. The work was good, fulfilling in a way her old newsroom job never was, but her back was starting to ache, and the baby had been pressing on her bladder for the last hour.
She’d pulled up the footage from Rolani’s last interview three times that afternoon, trying to decide where to cut it. He’d been talking about Idle Hands, about what the building was supposed to mean for the neighborhood, and somewhere in the middle of it he’d stopped choosing his words and just talked. That was the moment she wanted — unguarded, the man underneath the business owner. She’d marked the timestamp and built the whole segment around forty-five seconds of him being himself without knowing it. The third time she watched it, she caught herself smiling at a screen.
Time to go find her man.
She grabbed her bag and headed toward the paint booth, passing through the main shop floor where a few of the guys were still finishing up. Music played from a speaker somewhere, competing with the clang of tools and the hiss of an air compressor. The smell of motor oil and fresh paint had become familiar over the past few months. Comforting, even.
She was still processing that she had a world with Rolani Pracher. A smile graced her face as she made it to the paint booth at the back of the shop. She peered through the big glass window and spotted her man. Silently, she watched.
Rolani worked the spray gun in long, even passes. The ’72 Cadillac that had been in the shop for three weeks was finally getting its color. Candy apple red, shining like it was still wet. His movements were deliberate, unhurried. No wasted motion. Just years of practice in every stroke.
He was wearing his respirator, coveralls unzipped to the waist with a white tank underneath, the sleeves tied around his hips. His locs were pulled back under a du-rag. Paint mist hung in the air around him.
This was the version of Rolani most people didn’t see. Not the business owner or the investor. Not the man in meetings talking numbers with Giovanni. This was the artist. The onewho’d learned to paint cars before he learned to read a balance sheet. The one who still got his hands dirty because he wanted to, not because he had to.
She liked this version. A lot. She loved a passionate man.
He finished a pass and stepped back to check his work. That’s when he caught her through the glass. Even with the respirator covering half his face, she could see his eyes shift when he saw her.
He held up one finger.
She nodded and leaned against the wall to wait.
A few minutes later, he emerged from the booth, pulling the respirator down around his neck and wiping his hands on a rag.
“Hey baby, how long you been standing there?” he asked, walking toward her.
“Long enough to watch you work.”
“You like that, huh?”
“I like seeing you in your element.” She shrugged. “But you’ve been at it all day.”
“I know. When I’m in there, it’s me and the car.” He tossed the rag onto a nearby workbench. “Everything else goes quiet, and sometimes I need that.”
