I stopped in front of it.
She looked from the number stenciled above the door to me. “If there’s a dead body behind that door…”
“This isn’t where I keep the bodies.”
I crouched to unlock the padlock, and the metal clicked open in my hand just as Sage gasped. She slapped my shoulder, pretending she wasn’t impressed with my dark humor, but I knew better.
“What’s wrong?” she asked when I didn’t lift the door immediately. There was no way for her to know why I’d hesitated.
Back at the record store, bringing her here had seemed like a good idea. It felt bold. Standing here now, though, with the padlock in my hand and no way to backtrack, I was more exposed than I’d ever been.
“We don’t have to do this.” It was as if she could read my mind, and I appreciated the gesture. “I wasn’t really in the mood for dead bodies, anyway.”
I gave the door a hard tug, the rollers rattling overhead. Fluorescent light blinked a few times, then snapped on.
For a beat, she didn’t move.
Then she stepped past me.
The unit was organized in a way that would’ve surprised anyone who had seen my apartment. A long workbench ran along the left wall. Tools hung above it in careful rows, outlines traced in pencil so I knew where each one belonged. A table saw sat near the center, blade lowered. Clamps lined a pegboard, and planks of walnut and maple were stacked on a rack against the right wall. Half-finished pieces rested on a secondary bench at the back, a chair frame waiting for its seat, a narrow console table sanded down to a pale sheen.
She walked in as if she were entering a gallery. Her hand glided over the edge of the console table, then paused at the curve of the chair’s backrest. She studied the joints where the wood met, fingers tracing the seam where I had spent three nights getting the angle right.
“You…?”
I waited for the rest of her question, but Sage seemed too distracted with everything, so I just said, “Yeah.”
She moved deeper inside, taking her time with each piece. She crouched to inspect the legs of a small side table, pressed her thumb against the grain as if testing for flaws. I stayed near the entrance and just watched.
“My apartment’s too small,” I said, feeling the need to fill the silence. “No garage. No space to make a mess without living init. So now I rent this, and get to mess around without worrying about any of that other stuff.”
She straightened, turning in a measured circle to take it in from every angle. “You come here a lot?”
“Most nights. After practice, or when I can’t sleep.” I stepped inside and let the door rest halfway open behind us. “It’s quiet, and there’s no clock.”
She ran her palm across the workbench, stopping at a block plane. “Your work’s really good. And I’m not just saying that.”
Sage never just said anything, so it warmed me up inside to hear the compliment.
“It’s my fallback if this hockey thing doesn’t work out,” I said, a dry, humorless laugh escaping me.
She only half-acknowledged it, then walked toward a tall bookshelf frame propped against the back wall. Her fingers rested along the edge, testing the balance. “You did the joinery by hand.”
“Mostly. Also, how did you know that?”
She glanced over her shoulder. “My eye for detail isn’t limited to fine art. This qualifies as art too. A little obsessive with the joinery, but still.”
“It’s precise.”
“That’s what obsessive people would call it.”
I moved closer, standing on the other side of the shelf so the frame sat between us. “What’s the verdict?”
She considered, eyes scanning the unit again, taking in the order of it. The care.
“Okay, fine,” she said. “You win.”
“Win what?”
