Chapter Two
My love, I’ve been fixing the place up slowly, nothing flashy.
Just what it needs. New shelves (the old ones bowed) and a coat of paint to cover the old stains on the wallpaper.
Seattle feels kinder than where I came from.
Like it’s willing to let a man be strange and still stay.
I think I could make a life here. I think this place might let me.
Still here, Clyde
━━━━
Clyde never tried to fix Ellis.
That was the difference between him and every other adult in Ellis's life. Ellis hadn’t had the words for it when he was younger.
He only basked in the relief. The absence of pressure where he’d expected it to be.
Adults were always trying to correct him.
Teachers with clipped voices and tight smiles, counselors who leaned forward too much, his mother when she was sober enough to notice his quietness as something she needed to solve.
Clyde just… adjusted the world instead. Like it was easy. Like Ellis wasn’t a burden with all of his little things. Things that he couldn’t stand and things he couldn’t live without.
He let Ellis wear headphones behind the counter even when the store was full and customers browsed close by.
He never asked him to take them off so he could engage more, never scolded him for flinching when the bell startled him on hard days, he knew Ellis worked better with sound funneled directly into his skull.
It was predictable, chosen, controlled sound, then that was how the job worked.
He even let him work late. Later than was probably reasonable for a teenager. That is, back when Ellis had been one. Clyde trusted him with the keys without ceremony, sliding them across the counter like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“Lock up when you’re ready,” he’d say.
Not when you’re done, not when I say so. When you’re ready.
He let Ellis exist quietly.
That might have been the most radical thing anyone had ever done for him.
Ellis was thinking about that as he dusted the top shelf in the back corner.
The one that held records nobody bought but Clyde insisted on keeping anyway.
Ellis didn't mind; he'd grown attached to them. They were spoken word albums, obscure jazz pressings, and folk singers whose voices sounded like they’d been worn thin by time.
The cloth in his hand moved in even strokes, left to right, left to right.
Dust lifted and then settled. The smell of old cardboard bloomed briefly, familiar and grounding.
The store was quieter than usual. It was late afternoon on a weekday, Ellis was drowning in the lull between lunch breaks and after-work crowds.
All that could be heard under the smooth rock playing over Clyde's ancient radio system was the hum of the refrigerator and the faint hiss of the turntable needle riding the end of a side.
Ellis wore his headphones with one ear covered and the other left open. That was his compromise with the world.
Clyde sat at the counter with a stack of papers spread in front of him. That alone was unusual enough to register.
Usually Clyde would sit with a relieved sigh before immediately launching into a complaint about some overpriced record from a vendor.
Ellis would nod and go back to whatever he was doing.
It was a routine neither of them minded.
Clyde never minded that Ellis rarely replied to him, having nothing to say back.
When Ellis had nothing to say back, he just didn’t.
It was always easier to just say nothing at all.
Rather than run the risk of saying the wrong thing.
Ellis shuddered. Yes, it was much better to say nothing at all. Than to be acknowledged in a potentially bad way.
Paperwork, however, was not Clyde’s natural habitat. He preferred the physicality of things. He hauled crates, sleeves, shelves. Anything one could hold in their hands and understand by weight alone. When Clyde did paperwork, it meant something had already gone wrong.
Ellis finished the shelf before letting himself look again. One more pass. One more careful alignment of spines. Then he set the cloth down, slid his headphones off, and waited.
Clyde noticed, of course. He always did.
“You don’t have to stop on my account,” Clyde spoke without forcing eye contact with Ellis.
“I’m done,” Ellis replied.
It was mostly true.
Clyde nodded, eyes still on the papers. His brow was furrowed, mouth pulled thin. He looked smaller somehow. Old. He was folded inward over the counter like the weight of the numbers was pressing him down.
Ellis walked back to his spot behind the register, standing where he always stood. His feet were imprinted in the relief mat. The worn groove fit his boots like it had been carved specifically for him. He rested his hands on the counter’s edge, fingers tracing familiar nicks and scratches.
“How bad is it?” Ellis asked.
Clyde stilled. Slowly, he stacked the papers into a neat pile. Too neat. Too deliberate. Then he leaned back on his stool and looked at Ellis properly.
“Still got that trick,” Clyde said. “Seeing the storm before the rain.”
Ellis's stomach tightened. “I like knowing what to expect.”
He paused.
And I don’t like your analogies.
“I know you do.” Clyde sighed.
Silence settled between them. It was heavy, but not really hostile. The kind of pause Clyde used when he was deciding how much truth to give and in what order.
“The store’s been bleeding for a while,” Clyde said finally. “Nothing dramatic. Just… steady.”
The word made Ellis's chest ache. Steady was worse than sudden. Sudden could be addressed. Steady—like his mother’s drinking—meant erosion. A real ending was coming.
Ellis swallowed. “How long is a while?”
“A few years,” Clyde admitted. “Rent keeps climbing while sales don’t. People stream now. Buy reissues online. Folks like convenience more than they like liner notes.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Ellis said automatically. “You can’t— It’s not the same.”
Clyde smiled, soft and sad. “No. It isn’t.”
Ellis stared at the register, at the numbers worn half-off the keys.
His thoughts began to scatter, branching too fast. Years.
Bleeding. Rent. Online. The future pressed in.
It was shapeless and yet still sharp. It hurt physically to think about.
He’d never understood the grand appeal of online immersion.
There were too many options, too many links.
Nothing was tangible. Ellis needed something that he could feel.
Something that could ground him to reality.
The record store had none of that inconsistency.
It was forever aisles and alphabetized records.
“You should have told me,” Ellis said quickly, trying to change the topic in his own mind.
“I wanted to,” Clyde said. “I just didn’t know how. And I didn’t want you carrying it if I could still hold it myself.”
Ellis's hands curled against the counter. “I already carry it,” he said quietly. “I basically live here.”
Clyde nodded. There was no argument or dismissal. Just acknowledgement.
“I know,” he said. “That’s why I’m telling you now.”
Ellis took a slow and deliberate breath.
In through his nose, out through his mouth.
The store stayed the same around him: the hum, the smell, the light slanting through the front window.
It helped. It always did. If he could have lived there every minute of his life, he would have.
It was better than the loud, hostile city outside.
“What happens?” Ellis asked. He didn’t want to know but he needed to.
Clyde sighed. “Eventually? I don’t know. I’ve got some time. I’ve cut where I can. I fix things myself instead of hiring help, but I won’t pretend it’s not catching up to me.”
Ellis's throat tightened. “Are you going to sell?”
“No,” Clyde said firmly. “Not unless I absolutely have to. And not without you.”
Ellis looked up sharply. “That’s not—you don’t—”
“I do,” Clyde interrupted gently. “I don’t make big decisions about this place without you. Haven’t for a long time now.”
Emotions rose too fast. They felt hot and disorienting. Ellis dropped his gaze before tears could spill over, focused on the familiar grain of the wood. His cheeks flushed. He didn’t do well with strong emotions or, on the rare occasions it appeared, praise.
“You never tried to change me,” Ellis said instead. The words surprised him, but once they were out, they kept coming. “You never told me to be louder, or faster, or easier to digest. You just… moved things around me so I could fit.”
Clyde’s expression softened, something unguarded flickering across his face.
“That’s because you never needed fixing,” he said. “You needed room.”
Ellis's eyes burned and he blinked hard. “I don’t know how to be anywhere else,” he admitted. “Every other place wants something from me that I can’t give without losing myself.”
Clyde stood then, slow and careful, and came around the counter. He stopped a few feet away. Close enough to be present but far enough to be safe. He’d learned that distance instinctively, without instruction.
“You won’t lose this overnight,” Clyde said. “And you won’t face it alone. Whatever happens, we plan it together. No surprises.”
Planning.
The word settled Ellis's nerves like a weighted blanket. “Okay,” Ellis whispered.
Clyde smiled. “Okay.”
The bell chimed then. The same tired, honest sound it always made, as a customer stepping into the quiet they’d built. Clyde turned back toward the counter, the moment gently closed but not erased.
Ellis slid his headphones back on, one ear at a time, grounding himself in the familiar pressure. He soaked in the silence that surrounded him. The store breathed around him, unchanged for now.
Still here, Ellis thought. And for the moment, that was enough.