Page 125 of Smoke and Glitter

I stare at it.

The plate is wide enough to sit over the back bar, brushed instead of polished, with clean mounting holes at each corner and lettering deep enough to catch the light when I tilt it.

There's a fabricator card taped to the back.

I turn it over.

Autumn Hayes.

My grip tightens around the edge.

The order date is from before she left Chicago. Before I opened the envelope. Before she stood in my apartment in her coat and asked me to give her something real.

Before I owned the building.

I lower myself into the desk chair with the plate still across my lap.

The blank space after EST makes sense. When Autumn ordered it, there wasn't a year to put there yet.

But it's the name above it that keeps pulling my eyes back.

Smoke.

I'd told her that too.

It came out during the same coffee conversation when I'd started talking about Pilsen and couldn't seem to stop. The bar. The ceiling. The wall I wanted opened up. Where everything would go if I ever managed to get the place.

Somewhere in the middle of it, I'd told her what I wanted to call it. She remembered. More than that, she believed I was going to get there. Enough to put the name in brass and leave room for the part that hadn't happened yet.

I run my thumb through the empty space after EST.

"Fuck."

Tony appears in the doorway.

His attention drops to the plate.

"Damn."

I turn it so he can see the lettering.

Tony steps closer, reading it from top to bottom. "Smoke?"

"Yeah."

His eyes move to the smaller line underneath. "That's the Pilsen place?"

"That's the Pilsen place."

"You already had this made?"

"No."

His eyes catch on the order card beside my hand.

"Who, Autumn?"

"Yeah."