Dex turned to me. "Were you?"
"Yes," I said. "But quietly."
Crystal stood, gathering a folder, her laptop, and the kind of dignity only a woman with perfect columns could manage. "I'm going to the back office to upload the final intake packets and make sure the printer hasn't decided to ruin our lives."
"You're leaving me alone with him?" I asked.
"I've seen your life choices, and I'm done pretending I can stop them." She softened and touched my arm as she passed. "The lights look good, Jade."
My throat tightened before I could make a joke out of it.
"Thank you," I said.
Crystal squeezed once, then disappeared through the short hallway behind the reception desk. A moment later, the back office door clicked shut.
The front room went quiet.
The room wasn't empty. Clean light fell over my station. The chair smelled like new vinyl. Ink caps sat sealed in a drawer. Crystal's neat stacks covered the reception counter, and my drawings filled the walls. Outside, Whispering Pines moved through the snow with headlights, boots on sidewalk, and Christmas lights shining in store windows.
Dex set the package on my station counter.
"What's that?" I asked.
"Open it."
"If it's tax documents, I'm locking you outside."
"It's not tax documents."
"That was a suspicious answer."
He leaned one hip against the counter. "You've been spending too much time with Crystal."
"I've also been spending time at your house. Your influence had its chance."
His gaze held mine. "That's what I wanted to talk about."
My fingers paused on the cardboard flap.
For months, my life had been split between three places: this half-finished shop, Crystal's apartment, and Dex's house, where my boots had multiplied by the back door and my shampoo had claimed a corner of his shower. I kept a duffel at Crystal's place, a drawer at Dex's, and a stack of designs waiting here because apparently I'd become a migratory art problem.
I opened it.
The box held a small green key tag, plain and rectangular, with a brass house key attached to a ring.
My breath stopped in a very inconvenient way.
Dex didn't move closer. He let me look at it.
"That's not a shop key," I said.
"No."
"Supply closet?"
"No."
"Is it for a secret dungeon full of permit folders?"
