“What is this?” she asks.
I smile. “It’s yours.”
She turns to me.
I keep going. I’ve rehearsed this in my head too many times to stop now. “It can be. I mean, it is. I got it set up for Lit with Lily. The front room can hold classes. You can put tables here. You have those shelves over there. There’s a storage room in the back, and I had them clean up the patio too. For your paint water. You can make an evaporation station out there.”
Her smile appears, but something about it is wrong.
“Oh,” she says. “Wow.”
I laugh because I think she’s overwhelmed. “Right? I didn’t decorate or anything. I left all that up to you. I know better than to pick colors for an artist.”
She nods fast. “Wow.”
That word again.
She walks toward the shelves but doesn’t touch them. She checks the back room, glances out at the patio, then studies the walls like she’s trying to figure out what I expect her to say.
The smile stays on her face, but it doesn’t feel like the one I was waiting for.
My chest starts to tighten.
“You don’t like it?”
Her head snaps toward me. “No, it’s not that. It’s beautiful. It’s a lot.”
“It’s supposed to make things easier.”
She nods again. “Yeah.”
“I know you’re tired. And you hate your job. And Lit with Lily is what you actually want to do. So I figured this gives you a place to build from. No more hauling everything all over the place. No more relying on other venues. You can make this exactly what you want.”
She presses her lips together.
“What?” I ask.
She looks down at the floor, then back up at me. “You leased this?”
“Yeah.”
“For how long?”
I pause. “A year.”
Her smile freezes.
“It made the most sense,” I say quickly. “Month to month was available, but the rate was crazy. A year gave better terms, and if you love it, we can talk about buying later.”
“We?”
The word is quiet, but it hits hard.
I shift. “I mean, you. I just meant we could talk through it.”
“Is it in your name?”
“Yes, but that’s only because I wanted to get it secured before somebody else took it. We can figure out the business stuff later.”
