Cadence ( Part 2 of Rhythm ) Completed*

Chp 6: Ripples

Mikayla definitely isn't herself today. It's clear by the way that she's leeched onto Ian. He's trying to get work done but it's made all the more difficult by the fact that his daughter wants nothing other than to be held by her father. Toys mean nothing, building blocks are inciting throwing fits, and she keeps planting herself at Ian's feet and throwing tantrums. This is not usual Mikayla behavior. She's set on making grabby hands towards Ian while asking for "up", and really, who is Ian to deny his daughter?

"What's going on with you princess?" Ian bends down and hoists her into his arms. As soon as she's able, her arms wrap around her father's neck and Mikayla molds herself to his body. To better position her weight on his hip, Ian bounces her once allowing her to snuggle closer, resting her cheek on his shoulder and huffing out a breath. "You not feeling good?" He presses a kiss to her temple and pulls away with a frown. She woke up this morning as her usual self, but now she's feeling a bit warm. "It's okay baby, we're going home soon." His heart thrums a little louder with love and protective energy for his daughter. Even if Ian wasn't ready to call it a day before, he's ready now that his brain starts worrying over his daughter. She's practically dead weight in his arms but she makes a content noise while twisting the drawstrings of his hoodie between her tiny fingers. "Just give me another few minutes baby."

Mikayla blinks her eyes in silence and clings a fraction tighter as her father returns to the papers on the work desk in front of him. He's been sketching ideas for a store front and staple items that he would keep in stock. A lot of the elements keep changing, but several ideas stick with each incarnation of the planning stage. They're going to see the rental space Mickey spotted a few weeks ago and he wants to have an idea of the type of layout that would work for his vision. The problem is, he doesn't have a vison. He has of fragments of ideas floating around his head and vague expectations about how it would all play out. He has a million thoughts and he's been struggling to streamline them into one finalized plan. If he is being honest with himself, he's starting to feel untethered and indecisive – pulled in varying directions. There are so many ideas and settling on one of them seems finite. So he backpedals and reworks and somehow figures out what elements of the plan keep coming into play. It all still seems a little nerve wrecking and fragile, which he supposes is how any person would feel if they were about to take a giant leap of hope in starting a business.

"Shit," he mumbles under his breath and combs the fingers of the arm not holding Mikayla through his hair. Turning his head over his should, he shouts to the back of the warehouse, "Jason?"

It takes a minute, but Jason's head pops up from behind a chest of drawers he's detailing. "Yeah?"

"Can you come over here a second?" Ian chews on the corner of his bottom lip and spreads out a the last few drawings. It's a bit of a balancing act but Mikayla's pretty good at this koala-act by now. "Tell me this is a good idea," he states bluntly when Jason comes around to his side of the desk.

"This," Jason says with raised eyebrows and a hand sweeping over Ian's sketches, "is a lot of ideas." He takes a minute to riffle through them and pulls out one from the middle. "This is a great idea, though."

"Really? Because I don't even know what's a good idea anymore. I know what I like to build, but I also know what sells really well. I've been trying to find the middle ground but I keep forgetting what works and what this whole business really is. Like...why I started it in the first place. I don't want to build cookie cutter pieces and keep pumping out the same thing day in and day out. I want to be...different. I want to give people a reason to spend the extra money on the things I put my name on. And...making a show room just sounds kind of exactly like what I don't want to do." Ian pulls the floor plans from Jason and flattens them out on top of the stack. It's a sketch he dreamed up somewhere in the beginning of this whole visual planning stage. It allows for basic pieces that Ian creates to be put on display but they are mostly so customers can get the gist of each piece. Then there are small mock ups with different types of customization. He'd sketched out an area to serve as a display room for each stain, finish, carving work, and all other variations. There was a space to sit and discuss with clients. It was less of a stock room and more of a studio. "So, this one?" He shifts Mikayla again, instinctively dropping a kiss to her forehead when he does so.