She huffed a quiet laugh, shaking her head as she moved ahead.
Kendra stepped in where Nova had been, reaching for a plate. When she did, I took a deep breath to recalibrate and not look like a complete asshole at Kendra’s expense.
“So this is the kind of thing you all do together?” Kendra asked.
“Sometimes,” I said. “Depends.”
“Depends on what?”
I didn’t answer right away. Auntie Rhonda did.
“Depends on the day,” she said, picking up a plate of her own. “Some days call for something different.”
Kendra nodded slowly, like she understood there was more there than what was being said. We found a table large enough to hold all of us, Jerome already seated like he’d secured it through negotiation. As we settled in, Kendra looked around the table, then back at me.
“So after this,” Kendra said, glancing around the table as she reached for her glass, “we’re heading to the auction house, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s the plan.”
“I’ve been wanting to see that,” she continued, leaning in slightly, her attention settling on me in a waythat was focused but still easy. “The way you talk about it, it doesn’t sound like you’re just browsing for comic books. It sounds… curated.”
Jerome made a small sound under his breath. “Listen to her using the right words,” he said. “You better lock that in.”
“Jerome,” Simone said, her tone carrying just enough warning to let him know he was close to doing too much.
“I’m giving praise,” he replied. “Relax.”
Kendra smiled, then looked back at me. “It is curated, though, right?”
“It is,” I said. “I’m looking for specific runs, certain conditions, pieces that hold weight on their own and make sense together.”
“That’s for the store?” she asked. Then, after a beat, “Or… the Archive?”
The word landed. Not wrong. Just… placed differently than I would’ve chosen. Across the table, Nova’s fork paused just long enough to register before she set it down with care. She looked up then.
“The Archive?” Nova repeated, her tone light, but deliberate. “That’s what we’re calling it now?”
Kendra looked between us, picking up on the shift without stepping into it.
I sat up a little straighter. “Yeah,” I said. “That’s where it landed.”
“When did it land?” Nova asked, not sharp, not pressing, just steady. “Last time we talked about it, it was still ‘the space’ and a lot of thinking out loud.”
Jerome leaned back slightly, eyes moving between us like he had just found something worth watching.
“That’s a valid question,” he murmured.
“Let it be a question,” Marcus said, calm as ever. “It doesn’t need a soundtrack.”
“I’m observing,” Jerome said.
Nova didn’t move her gaze.
I held it. “A few weeks ago,” I said. “Once I started putting everything together for real. What I had, what I still needed. It stopped feeling hypothetical.”
She nodded once, like she was filing that away.
“That’s big,” Simone said, her tone softer now. “You naming it like that.”
