Willow was sitting at the bar with a long-neck bottle of beer, not in uniform, so not on duty. Her hair was loose and long, and every contractor and employee in and out of there was halfway in love with her. She seemed genuinely oblivious to it, though.
As Lily recalled it, even Gringo used to lift his head a little when Willow walked past his table, his sombrero tilting up enough to expose his usually hidden eyes.
She walked into the addition, which had slabside walls she and Ethan had picked out over a phone call one night. She called him as often as she could think of a reason. And since they were in business together, reasons abounded. She even called him when a text would’ve done. She felt his absence as profoundly as a black hole where her heart should be. Not just emptiness, but a vacuum.
They never talked about anything, though. Well, they talked about everything, but nothing real. Nothing deep. Nothing about what the heck they were to each other.
“One more week,” she whispered. It echoed in the vast emptiness of the new space. The stage was up but covered in tarps to protect it. She’d seen it, though. Gleaming wood surface, plugs and outlets, lights hidden within the flooring. The wiring was still a mad tangle at the back of the stage, “One more week.”
“Think it’ll be ready?” Willow had come in, too. She was standing in the archway, still holding that beer.
“There’s not that much left, really. I…I did something, Will, and I’m dying to show somebody, but I need a vow of secrecy.”
“Secrecy from my cousin?”
“I know, family first, but?—”
“I’m in. Tell!”
Lily took Willow by the hand and quick-stepped back through the dining room, past the stairs, then around the bar and into the kitchen.
“I already saw the new cooler,” Willow said.
“Not that.” Lily opened the basement door, flipped on the light switch and led the way down. “Leave your beer.”
She heard the tap of the bottle meeting a nearby countertop, then Willow came behind her. At the bottom of the stairs there was the same basement as before, but it had a section walled off, with another door in its center.
“This wasn’t here before, was it?” Willow said. “How the hell have you had a crew down here without me knowin’ it?”
“Why would you notice a crew moving in and out of the kitchen?” Lily shrugged. “Besides, your focus has been on watching me.”
Willow shrugged. “Ethan asked me to. He’d be here doin’ it himself if you’d have let me tell him that driver was back in the picture.”
“The driver hasn’t talked. Maybe he’s afraid he’ll be blamed.”
“If he wasn’t fixin’ to talk, he wouldn’t’ve come back,” Willow said.
“If he’d talked, the brother would be here lookin’ for that brown Buick. But he hasn’t so much as shown his face in this town.”
“That we know of.”
“You worry too much, Will. But I sure do appreciate you lookin’ out for me. And keepin’ the driver’s return to yourself. Ethan’s on a roll. He doesn’t need anything tripping him up in the middle of it.” She took a deep breath. “You ready?”
“Ready, but I might’ve already guessed.”
Lily opened the door. A light came on when she did, and they stepped into a recording studio. The walls were lined in gray soundproof padding. There were microphone stands suspended from the ceiling, and one wall had a wide pane of glass with the control booth behind it, just no controls yet.
“Holy…this is a recording studio.”
Lily nodded fast.
“And Ethan doesn’t know about it?”
“Only the crew knows about it. And Samwell Burdick, the general contractor. He hooked me up with this company that does them exclusively and came with great references from some big names. Isn’t it great?”
“Wow.”
“I was looking into what studios with comparable setups charge for time, and it’s a lot,” Lily said. She’d been dying to share this plan with someone. “So not only can Ethan use it when he’s in town, but it can be an extra revenue stream when he’s not. And a perk for our guest performers!”
