Chapter 6
DEION
The gate dragged halfway up, loud enough to make the fact that I’d decided to roll up to the Archive at a quarter past seven everybody’s business.
I didn’t fight it. Just kept my hand on it and let it complain while I stood there in the cool of the morning, keys pressed into my palm, the block still easing into itself. A car rolled past slow. Somebody two houses down dragged a trash bin back toward their steps.
“All right,” I muttered, pushing it the rest of the way up. “You got it.”
It didn’t get quieter, choosing to be as loud as the thoughts in my head reminded me of the disaster of choosing to introduce Kendra to my the people who were more than just friends, they were family.
And although I was certain she’d passed the crew’s vibe check, I had undoubtedly failed it before I could even file paperwork to withdraw.
I unlocked the front door, stepped inside my store, and left the gate up behind me.
Light came straight through the front, cutting across the floor in a long stretch that stopped just short of the back wall. It shifted the room immediately. Took it from something closed to something in motion, making the decision for me to participate whether I was ready or not.
I stood there a second, taking it in. Then I turned and went back out to the car.
The box came out first. Worn at the edges, still taped tight because it had been waiting longer than it should’ve been.
I carried it in against my hip and set it near the front window, crouching to pull the tape loose.
Inside there were display pieces and small fixtures.
Things that required decisions it took me months to face head-on.
I pulled one of the stands out and worked it open, fingers steady on the hinges until it locked. Set it down near the window, angled just enough to catch the light then stepped back. It still wasn’t right yet, but I was getting closer.
I went back for the chairs I’d put together earlier this week. I picked them up one by one to set them in the areas I’d mapped out for each one.
“You selling furniture now or you just moving it around for exercise?”
I was caught spacing them out, moving them in various angles, when the voice of my landlord carried across the room. Gerald’s voice came in smooth, like he’d been mid-thought before he even walked through the door.
I glanced up as he stepped inside, Styrofoam cup in one hand, the other brushing the door closed behind him without looking.
“Good morning, sir,” I said, straightening.
“Mornin’,” he replied, lifting the cup slightly before taking a sip.
His eyes moved across the room slow, not missing anything.
“You here early,” he added. “On a Saturday. Actually bringing supplies in. That’s how I know you serious now.”
“So the contractor I hired didn’t tip you off?” I huffed a small laugh, rubbing the back of my neck. “I just couldn’t sit with it anymore. Had to start putting things somewhere.”
“Hmm,” he murmured, stepping closer to the chairs. Gerald looked down at them, then back at me. “They all don’t match.”
“They’re not supposed to.”
He nodded like that made sense to him, then took another sip of his coffee.
“You been building this in your head a long time,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“What made you stop waiting?”
I crouched near the box again, pulling out the second stand.
“Tired of it just being an idea,” I said. “Felt like I was stalling at some point.”
Gerald tilted his head slightly. “At some point?”
I glanced up at him.
“Recently,” I said. “Started feeling like if I kept waiting, I wasn’t going to recognize the man I was becoming.”
That was enough for him. He shifted his weight, looking around again, then nodded toward the back.
“You know what used to be here?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“Record shop,” he said. “Man named Curtis ran it.”
I leaned back against the wall, folding my arms.
“He had a good run,” Gerald went on. “People came through steady. Not just buying. They’d come in to talk, listen… argue about what was worth taking home and what wasn’t. They came here building out their own soundtrack to help them navigate and sometimes cope with the world around them.”
“What happened?” I asked.
Gerald didn’t answer right away. He took another sip instead, like he wasn’t in a rush to get to the part that mattered.
“Things changed,” he said finally. “Formats changed. Habits changed. Folks stopped coming in the same way.”
I nodded slowly.
“He tried to keep up?” I asked.
Gerald gave a small shrug. “For a while. He brought in CDs. Switched up the layout… Guess he tried to meet people where they were going.”
“And?”
“And people had already decided where they were going,” Gerald said. “He was catching up to something that wasn’t waiting for him.”
That sat heavier than I expected it to. I looked at the floor for a second, then back up.
“So he shut it down.”
“Yeah,” Gerald said simply.
I nodded once, my jaw tightening just a little. Gerald watched me clock it.
“That make you nervous?” he asked, not unkindly.
I let out a breath through my nose. “It keeps me sharp,” I said.
“Good,” he replied. “Nervous makes people freeze. Knowing what’s in front of you lets you move.”
I looked around the room again. “I’m not trying to chase anything. I’m hoping to just build something different.”
Gerald’s mouth curved slightly. “That’s the only way this works,” he said. “You don’t open what used to be here. You open what this room hasn’t seen yet.”
I nodded. He took another sip, then pointed lightly toward the front.
“Just don’t forget,” he added, “people don’t stay because of inventory. They stay because something in here holds them.”
I followed his gesture, my eyes landing on the set of chairs that were paired together in the corner. The set Nova insisted I buy when I envisioned that nook as being a solo spot in the space.
“I know,” I said.
He studied me for a second longer, then nodded once like that was enough.
“I’ll get that gate fixed,” he said, already turning. “Can’t have you announcing yourself like you got something to prove every time you open up.”
The room felt different after he stepped out, closing the door behind him. Not heavier, not quieter, just… more settled into itself in a way that made it harder to pretend I was still figuring it out.
I crouched again to tighten one of the screws on the stand, turning it until it held firm, my hands steady even while my mind kept circling back to what Gerald had said.
People don’t stay because of inventory.
I sat back on my heels for a second, then pushed up to standing and looked toward the front again, toward the chairs I’d been adjusting like they were going to give me an answer if I moved them enough times.
They didn’t. They just sat there, close to right but not landing all the way, like I’d built the outline of something without the part that made it make sense.
I crossed the space slowly, stopping a few feet away from them, my gaze moving from one to the other and then out toward the window before drifting back again.
It wasn’t the spacing or the angle. It wasn’t anything I could fix with my hands. It was the feeling of it. Like I knew exactly what this was supposed to be once it was full, but I hadn’t accounted for the part that would actually make somebody stay.
My attention shifted toward the back wall, toward where the vinyl would go once I stopped acting like that piece of it was still undecided. It wasn’t. That part had been clear for a long time. I let out a quiet breath, dragging a hand over my mouth as I looked back toward the front of the room.
“You building it,” I said under my breath, more to settle my own thoughts than anything else, “or you just moving things around until it feels safer?”
The question didn’t need an answer. I already knew what was sitting under it. It wasn’t about shelves or layout or whether the front display caught the light the right way. It was about the part of this I hadn’t brought in yet. Not because I didn’t know what it was—it was because I did.
I could already hear how that would go. The way she’d walk in without making a production out of it, take in the whole room in one pass, and then tilt her head just slightly before saying something that sounded simple and ended up shifting everything into place.
I exhaled, slower this time, and stepped away from the chairs, putting space between me and something I wasn’t ready to deal with yet. I knew what was missing. I just wasn’t ready to make room for it. The door opened again.
“You in here working or just making it sound good?”
I didn’t look up right away. “You’re early,” I said.
Marcus walked in, already scanning the room.
“Gerald caught me outside,” he said. Marcus moved toward the front, turning slow as he took everything in. “Told me you been in here since early this morning.”
I stood, brushing my hands against my jeans.
“It feels different,” he said. “Like you actually committed now.”
“That’s the goal.”
He nodded, folding his arms.
“Lancaster got you moving like this?” he asked.
I exhaled lightly. “Partly.”
“You made out all right,” he said. “Just off those comics?”
“I did all right.”
Marcus watched me, then angled his head a little. “That day wasn’t really about comics, though,” he said. I didn’t respond right away. He didn’t press. “Nova got quiet,” he added after a second.
I looked past him toward the window, and said, “She was fine.”
Marcus let out a soft breath, something between a laugh and a sigh. “You don’t know her like that if you think quiet means fine.”
My jaw tightened.
“Kendra ain’t do nothing wrong,” he added.
“I didn’t say she did.”
“I know,” he said. “I’m saying you didn’t mean to do anything wrong either.”
That landed exactly where it needed to.
I pulled out my keys, turning them once in my hand.
“It just… wasn’t the right day for all that to mix,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said, as he nodded slowly. “That’s all it was.”
We stood there a second. Then he shifted, glancing around again.