Page 73 of Dropping the Ball

He looks at me like I cracked a difficult code. “Because you’re perceptive.”

“You built these,” I guess.

He works the combination lock on the middle shed. “I reclaimed the wood from teardowns where they put those condos you pointed out.”

“Architect. Sculptor. High-end custom furniture maker. Business mogul. Anything you don’t do, Micah?”

“You forgot Batman.”

“And Batman.”

“Not a mogul though. Small business owner. And I can’t keep up with all of it, so we’ll see what I give up.”

He releases the lock and slides the door aside, reaching in to flip a light. Not a single bare light bulb either. I point to the wire basket enclosing it. “Did you custom-make a cover for a shed light?”

“No.” He smirks. “I sketched it out for one of Eva’s guys, and he did it.”

I follow him into the shed but wait by the door while he heads straight to a corner and comes back with more metal, this time a long silver rod.

“This is a six-foot stud.”

“You think highly of yourself.”

“Interesting you thought I meant me.”

I press my lips together to keep him from winning the smile, and I give him a lazy wave to continue.

“This is twenty-five gauge, which is the cheap stuff, but it’ll make it easier to shape.”

I cock my head. “Into what?”

“I’ll have Eva curve the top three feet into a tube, then wrap these”—he holds up the thinner wires from his workshop—“around it and fuse it to make it look like rebar.”

The wires from the shop look like the metal skewers Joey uses when he and Ava have everyone over to grill. Pineapple and veggie skewers for Ava and meat for the heathens.

“I can picture it. But why do that? Why not use the rebar in the warehouse?”

“Too heavy. I’m thinking we place those vases at either end of the stage and put these inside like stalks. I don’t think they’d damage the glass even if they shifted. All bets are off with actual rebar.”

I squint at the stud, trying to imagine it. “So you’d make a bouquet of rebar for the vases?”

“Yeah. Eva only needs to weld the visible part, so it won’t take too long. Hit it with black paint, and you’ve got glass vases displaying metal plants.”

My eyes widen. “I get it. That will look . . .”

“Good,” he finishes.

“Yes. But are you okay with it?”

“I gave you a solution I can live with, and it features Gabriela Juarez’s work pretty prominently. If she okays it, it’s fine by me.”

I want to throw my arms around him and squeeze him out of sheer relief. And to feel his satisfyingly solid torso. That warm, muscly . . .

“Great,” I say, so brightly that Micah takes a step back. “Sorry, I’m excited by your idea.”

“Then we’ll roll with it. Let me grab what I need, and I’ll meet you at the truck.”

“I can help,” I tell him. “I’m stronger than I look.”

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