Things That Shine

by Bria Quinlan

  He pushed aside the renewed anger at the circumstances and her shitty foster parents, and set down his toolbox.

  “How long is this going to take?” Megan asked.

  Sage measured the space with his eyes, making initial calculations in his head. With the band on the road and no projects lined up at the moment, not to mention his complete inability to sleep, it wouldn’t take long at all.

  “I’m gonna have to build a wall here...and partially here.” He showed her with his hands. He shifted to look at Emily’s stuff again. “Can you pack her stuff a little? I have some tarps in the truck I’ll bring up for you to cover anything you don’t want to get dust all over.”

  It wasn’t exactly conventional what he was about to do. On a matter of impulse, fueled by pent-up energy and an aggravated mental state, Sage had decided to build Emily a room and a bed.

  It wouldn’t take him long at all. Not even when he knew he’d go over the bed frame again and again to be sure it was exactly perfect.

  “I’ll be done before she comes back.”

  Megan measured his response, her distaste obvious. “I don’t like you in our space.”

  Sage faced her directly and took a deep breath. “Okay.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Okay? That’s all you have to say for yourself?”

  “Megan—” Sage stopped himself. He wanted to say a dozen different things to her, but knew it wouldn’t matter. She had her girl’s back. For that, Sage was thankful. At least Emily had good people in her life who would fight for her.

  He heaved out a sigh. “I’ll be right back.” Then he jogged back downstairs to get the tarps.

  It was day four in the apartment, and Sage was feeling good about his progress.

  Thankfully, the girls had been working for a good portion of day one and two. He already had the drywall taped and sanded. He would paint last, on a day when they were both working again.

  On day three and four, he had watchdogs. They hovered, made cutting remarks, and criticized everything from the color of his boxers to his ability to use a tape measure.

  Honestly, it didn’t bother him. He deserved worse. At least they weren’t throwing rotten food at him.

  “I know I’ve been watching you make things out of wood for four days,” Megan said, reaching a hand to the headboard he’d carried in that morning, “but I think it’s just now registering to me that you made this. Out of a tree.”

  Sage grunted. “It’s not like I cut down the tree myself and hauled it from the mountains.”

  “But you did haul it.” Megan jumped in. “From the lumberyard or something.”

  “Yep.”

  He pulled his hand chisel from his tool belt and scraped off a small ding along the joint he must’ve missed last night. He’d done the major carving in the workshop and would finish the smaller details here with his hand tools. Then he’d let the girls pick what kind of stain they thought Emily might like best.

  “Do you mind if I listen to some DBS?” Megan asked.

  Sage froze. He stared at the tool in his hands, feeling like he’d forgotten how to process the English language.

  “Sage?” Megan asked.

  “Uh,” he squeezed his eyes shut.

  “You know what?” she said. “Never mind. I think I’ll read instead.”

  “Okay,” he said, knowing he sounded relieved, but not being able to help it.

  It’s not that he didn’t want to listen to them. It was just hard at the moment. He couldn’t listen to music at all. He kept trying and would only end up unplugging it.

  It hurt to hear music. His brain couldn’t disguise it as background noise. It stung. Salt. Open wound.

  “Do you think you could get me an early release of the album you’re working on?” Megan asked, nose still in her book.

  “Probably not.” He stood, lifting the headboard and moving it to its back on the floor. Then he went back to his knees again and pulled his hand tools closer to him.

  “Do they have rules for that?”

  “Uh, I don’t know.” The design he’d chosen to carve into Emily’s headboard was one he’d been saving. He had come up with it the week he’d met her. He’d been at The Brew, and she’d made a joke about the “flowery notes” used to describe the coffee roast that day.

  He’d covered a page in his notebook with flowers that morphed into musical notes. It was his favorite. And it could never belong to anyone else. At least this way, it would be used.

  “What other jobs are you on right now?” Megan asked.

  Megan liked to make conversation. Sage had picked up on that right away. As long as she wasn’t being mean, he obliged her.

  “Just this one.”

  He opened his notebook to the page he needed and bent over the headboard.

  “Are you looking forward to getting back to the studio?”

  Sage cast a small glare to Megan, but she missed it. He turned his ball cap backward to keep his hair out of his face and the bill from bumping into the headboard. He also didn’t answer her.

  “You seem sad, Sage,” Megan said conversationally.

  “That’s the unfortunate byproduct of grief, Megan,” he responded, focusing on the curve of the petal.

  Megan sat, cross legged, back braced against the far wall studying him—eyes narrowed in what he was suddenly realizing was a far more aware glare than he’d ever given her credit for.

  “But you’ll get to go back when they get back. It’s one tour, right?” She leaned forward, studying him intently. “How much are you really missing?”

  Sage blew the wood shavings gently off his workspace.

  His phone rang, and he pulled it out of his pocket.

  “Hey, Dad,” he answered. Because…saved by the bell.

  “I have a client who needs some demolition work done in a couple weeks. Will you be around?”

  “Uh, yeah.” He sat back on his heels and rubbed his forearm across his brow. “Yeah, schedule’s wide open. Whatever you need.”

  Maybe this was why he had ended up in Emily’s life. Maybe he wasn’t meant to be her happily ever after. Maybe he was simply meant to make her life a little bit better with the skills he’d been gifted. Get her to the next stage so she could go off and shine, making the world a better place.

  There were worse things to be in the world.

  39

  Emily

  I sat quietly in back of Harrison’s Volvo, leaning against my window and watching him run his thumb back and forth over the back of Zelda’s hand, where they were joined on the armrest. Quietly, “You’re My Best Friend” played along, bringing us all down from the adrenaline junkie rushes of the tour.

  He got off the Pike and started weaving through the side streets to my college-student overrun neighborhood.

  In front of my place, Harrison double-parked and got out, pulling my things out of the truck while I thanked Zelda for the one thousandth time for the opportunity.

  “Oh, please!” Zelda hugged me. “We’re not to your door yet.”

  “Zelda, you do not have to walk me to the door.” Because it was several flights up and late at night. “You guys still have a big drive out to your place. And, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “You’re right. You should totally just come home with us tonight!”

  There was a subtle throat-clearing from behind us.

  “Right.” Zelda blushed. “I’ll pick you up at the train station tomorrow.”

  I laughed, trying not to give her an I Know What You’re Doing Tonight look. I’d just lived with the practically-still-newlyweds on a bus for two weeks. I’m sure getting some alone time was high on the to-do list.

  “Let me get that for you.” Harrison hoisted my bag as if it were filled with cotton balls and headed toward the front stairs.

  Zelda followed along after him, her camera bag over her shoulder.

  “Tomorrow we’re going to start sorting through from the beginning. Sometimes pictures you don’t love on their own fit
great into the narrative we’re going to create.”

  “The narrative of We’re Awesome,” Harrison added over his shoulder.

  “Right.” Zelda smiled up at him completely unironically.

  At my door, I squeezed by Harrison to try to sneak into my apartment without waking up Megan and Ash. Gentleman that he was, he followed me in, carrying my bag the whole way.

  I rounded the corner to my dining-bedroom only to—hit a wall. Literally.

  I stopped. Stepped back. Looked back at the door.

  Had we magically gotten into the wrong place?

  “I thought you lived in a dining room.” Harrison looked past me at the wall.

  I moved past the wall and into the room where there was…a bed. I would have thought it wasn’t my bed, but it had my comforter on it. So, I now had a bed. And a wall. With a little half-wall that broke out to an entryway.

  And, hanging from the ceiling, a bar all my clothes hung from.

  “What the heck happened here?” I glanced at the room that had a modicum of privacy now, the bed that wasn’t a mattress on the floor, and my clothes stored in something better than milk crates.

  I glanced at Harrison and Zelda, both of them looking at me as if I were nuts.

  “I swear, this is a totally different room.” I waved my hand, trying to demonstrate the breadth of the change.

  “It is.” Zelda look as amazed as I felt. “It’s like magic.”

  I glanced back, exhausted and ready to collapse, and thought…maybe it was magic.

  I woke up, stretching after a great night’s sleep. It was good to be home. I planned on taking the longest shower in the world. Maybe even followed up by a bath because I couldn’t remember the last time I saw a full bathtub.

  Maybe I’d head to The Brew and force Abby to wait on me before I got on the commuter train out to Zelda’s.

  I couldn’t help but wonder if Abby had replaced me. Maybe with someone cynical and ready to abuse those who laid their money on the counter for coffee and pastries they deemed worthy of the snark.

  But, my hope was that no one had worked out. As much as everyone liked to look at Abby as gruff and unfeeling, she was secretly a marshmallow and I was hoping she still had a place for me.

  I rolled over, opening my eyes, only to be met by huge blue ones staring right at me.

  “Holy mother of all stalker crazy people!” I jumped up, backing away, then remembered I was in an actual bed.

  Which was still a mystery. One I hadn’t questioned too heavily at 2:00 a.m. after seven hours on the road. But still, a pretty confusing one.

  Megan sat, pink fluffy robe around her, cup of tea cradled in her hand, in the old beanbag chair she usually kept next to her bed.

  “Finally.” She set her cup down and leaned forward. “I’ve been waiting for you to get up for like twelve hours.”

  I glanced at the clock, wondering just how late I’d slept.

  7:42.

  “Megan, I only got home like five hours ago, so unless we totally overlooked you sitting there creepily staring at my empty bed…hyperbole, much?”

  “Right.” She waved a hand. “Whatever. I’ve been waiting. That’s the main point.”

  “Yes. I can tell it’s been hours by the steam still coming out of your coffee cup.”

  Megan glared at the mug like it was a deceiving liar.

  “So?” Megan smiled at me, her big full-wattage smile, and I realized how much I’d missed her.

  “So, what?” I also missed driving her crazy. Playing dumb usually hit her right in that hot button.

  “Your room? It’s no longer a dining-bedroom! It’s a mostly-bedroom now. We couldn’t put in an actual full wall or it changes code or something.” She grinned. “And it’s blue. Well, almost blue. Apparently this is called eggshell white. But, you can totally see the blue. I demanded blue for you. I also had the idea for the little sliding things under your bed.”

  The what? I leaned over the side of my bed and saw little rolling storage bins that would work like drawers.

  “Brilliant, right?” Megan all but high-fived herself.

  “It is.” I sat up, looking around again in the full light of morning. The room was pretty amazing. It was almost like a bedroom. Even without a door, it felt more closed off, private. And there was definitely way more storage than my nine different outfits would need. “You did all this?”

  “I was instrumental.” She nodded.

  “You were not, you pain in the rear.” Ash shouted from the other room. “Why the heck are you waking us all up on our day off? Go away!”

  I tried to cover my laugh with a yawn at the look of outrage on Megan’s face.

  “Oh!” Ash shouted again. “Welcome home. Now, shut up.”

  “But—”

  “Go shower,” Megan cut me off. “I’ll take you to The Brew where you can tell me all about your new celebrity status.”

  And she could tell me about my new room…whether she liked it or not.

  “It’s about time.” Abby was standing behind the counter, glaring at us when we walked in, as if I were late for my shift instead of having been gone for two weeks.

  “I’m not working today. So stop glaring at me.” Megan glared back, the two of them giving each other quite the looks.

  “Wait.” I stopped, turning to Megan. “You took my job?”

  “Well, you did quit it.” She sounded more than a little defensive.

  “Right. I know.” I glanced around, feeling out of sorts.

  “And it’s only a couple hours a week.” Her defensiveness continued.

  Abby and The Brew were mine. It wasn’t as if Megan wasn’t welcome here, but it was just that this was part of my new world. I guess I’d always assumed I could come back. Even if John hired someone else—and who knew if Abby would let him, or if she’d want to go back to working herself to death—I thought I’d at least be part-time help.

  But if Megan had “taken my job,” then that probably meant there was no job left for me.

  “Did you get your application in?” Abby wiped down the counter and gave Megan a look that clearly said she doubted she had.

  Of course, I had no idea what application she was talking about.

  “Yes.” Megan gave her a little smile. “It’s in. Thank you.”

  Abby softened before she said “Whatever” and turned to me. “You’re back.”

  “Yup.”

  “Are you staying?”

  “There’s no tour for a while, and I’m not sure if Zelda has us going anywhere, so I assume so.” I got a little sad about the no travel thing.

  As much as being on the road was hard, they’d become part of my family. Especially Zelda—and by extension, Harrison. Now I was home, and my other family had reunified themselves differently.

  “Good.” Abby nodded as if this was great news. “You can work three morning shifts a week and every other Sunday.”

  “I…I can?” I wasn’t even sure I could, but I suddenly wanted to throw my arms around Abby.

  “Yes.” She stepped back. “Stop looking at me like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like you’re going to hug me or something.”

  “Jenna hugs you all the time,” Megan chimed in.

  “Yes, but Jenna’s a hugger.”

  “You hugged Hailey that day when she got her new contract and cried happy tears.”

  “Happy tears need hugs.”

  I watched this bouncing back and forth.

  “I think Emily deserves a hug so she knows you missed her.”

  “You missed me?” I couldn’t help how hopeful I sounded.

  Abby looked completely put out by this. “Of course I missed you.”

  I looked at Megan, who wore a smug smile of satisfaction. “She followed your Instagram. Got the app and everything.”

  Abby nodded, looking uncomfortable.

  “Tell her what you told Mr. Watson.” Megan nodded her head at me as if Abby might not know who
she was supposed to talk to. “Tell her.”

  Abby sucked in a breath and looked at something just over my right shoulder. “I told Mr. Watson he should follow you because you’re extremely talented.”

  “And…” Megan urged as she went around the counter and started making our drinks.

  “And I missed having you around.” It was like Abby had completely given up trying to be a bad ass.

  “Oh!” I threw my arms around her. “I missed you, too! I really did. Thank you for saying that to Mr. Watson, but I knew you were on my team.”

  Abby looked stunned, and it dawned on me I’d never told her she was important.

  “I’m glad to be back,” I finished as I pulled away.

  “Okay.” Abby nodded, as if we’d just finished an important conversation. “Megan said you’ll need to finish up road stuff with Zelda. Let me know when you’re ready to start your shifts.”

  With that, Abby gave Megan a nod and headed back into the kitchen.

  “So.” Megan grabbed the comfy seats and gave me her brightest smile. “You’re back. This is so great.”

  She asked about the tour—because, hello; fangirl—and then, after I’d told her enough funny stories to last a lifetime, I shifted to her.

  “How did you end up working at The Brew?” I figured it would help out with rent, but I was still paying my part even while I was gone.

  Megan stilled and set down her mug. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear what she had to say.

  “So, Sage—”

  “Sage?” I wasn’t even sure where the sentence was going, but I didn’t know if I had the emotional energy yet to go with it.

  “Em, just listen, okay?” She leaned forward and took my hand. “Sage is the one who did your room.”

  “Oh. Wow.” I closed my eyes, picturing it. Amazed and…annoyed.

  “I mean, I totally helped. Like with the design and the painting and putting your stuff where you’d want it, but the building stuff? All him.” She looked nervous, like she knew this was a big deal. “At first, I didn’t want to let him in. But Joey—”

  “He went through our landlord?”