with Liam and talk to his parents. They were surprisingly supportive of Liam moving int o the apartment over the garage with me, almost excited by the idea. Liam was making such incredible progress that they felt it would only make him improve faster if we spent even more time together.
We didn’t discuss what would happen with our business arrangement after Liam got to the point of being entirely self-sufficient, but we’d get there soon enough. As far as I was concerned, Liam was already a fully independent and functional adult. He had complete comprehension of jokes and sarcasm and hurt feelings. He showed empathy for others and was never at a loss for words to describe what he needed. And he could cook simple meals for himself if he was hungry. That was more than I could say for most of the guys I knew in college.
But Liam was still changing almost daily, and that had the Brenners nervous he could slip back into his nonverbal state as quickly as he had slipped out of it.
I didn’t like to believe that was possible, but according to the research I did, anything was possible with TBIs. There were still too many unknown factors to have any concrete answers.
When we finally left the table and went up to Liam’s studio, I fired up my laptop to check the email account I’d set up for his original artwork website. We only had a dozen of his favorite pieces on display, but there had been several inquiries about commissioned portraits over the past week since I’d posted about it on my social media accounts.
The first message in my inbox nearly gave me a heart attack. It was a notification from PayPal that a painting had sold and $800 had been deposited into my bank account.
“Holy shit, Liam.” I reread the message ten more times before turning away from my screen and looking at him. “We sold a painting.”
“We did?” He walked over and looked at the message. His reading was perfect and was one of his favorite pastimes since I’d introduced him to romance novels.
“Yeah.” I pulled up the website to match the part number from the invoice with the painting in his gallery. I wanted to seem professional and bigger than we were, so I’d made up SKU numbers for each painting and those were printed on the receipts. “Christmas Mantel.”
“Who bought it?”
I looked at the name of the buyer, instantly relieved it wasn’t Mr. or Mrs. Brenner just throwing him a bone. “Looks like Lisa Janssen from Portland, Oregon. She wrote in the notes section that it looked just like the mantel in her house growing up.”
“Cool.” Liam smiled widely and a new emotion shined in his eyes that I hadn’t witnessed before. Pride.
I wrapped my arm around his back and tugged him against my side. “Yeah, it is cool. You just made $800. That’s really cool.”
Now that we actually had a sale, I’d have to talk to the Brenners about how we could set up a bank account for Liam. He didn’t have a driver's license or ID card, and his last passport had expired seven years ago. I was using my account for now, but I didn’t want to keep his money any longer than necessary. It just didn’t feel right.
It didn’t seem to bother him at all. “We did it. Together.”
I kissed his arm then turned back to my email. The very next message was from a man who wanted to commission a portrait of his recently deceased dog. There was even a photo attached of a small Chihuahua-type dog wearing a pink sweater. “And it looks like you might have an order for another one.”
Liam looked at the photo over my shoulder and grimaced. “What is it?”
“It’s a dog, I guess. Not a particularly manly dog, but a beloved pet nonetheless.” Laughing, I zoomed in on the photo. “Do you think you could paint it?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Do you want to?” I looked him in the eye, hoping he’d give it some real thought. It was one thing to just paint the images that appeared in his head, but being creative on demand had to be a whole different beast. “Because you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
He cocked his head to one side and then the other, squinting and looking at the picture from different angles. “Yes. I can do it. I want to.”
“Well, then.” I stood up and gave him a proper hug. “Looks