"Toy room will be relegated to the garage or I will turn part of the deck into a bedroom."

He chuckles.

"I also have a space where I can put a bed in here as well. This used to be my bedroom."

He walks over to the wall and pulls down a pure white 6th scale dragster without an engine.

"My next project. Should be lots of fun."

Following Tyler in, Ele wandered around the room looking at the different things. Keeping her hands to herself, she admired the projects and the time that Tyler took with them. Hearing Tyler, Ele joined him to see the dragster,

"Are you going to keep it white?"

"Nope. Doing something called hydrographics. You actually take your material dip it in water that either has several layers of paint on the surface or this hydrographic film that will coat your material and dry in minutes, sealing itself to the surface. How would you like to get really creative with me tonight?"

He looks at her with a knowing glance.

"I've seen that done!"

Ele said excitedly, clapping her hands together and bouncing on her toes,

"It looks so cool! And its such a fast way to cover a surface!"

Examining the car closer, Ele smiled,

"We gonna paint it?"

"Absolutely."

He chuckles.

"Gotta remove the body from the frame which is fairly quick but then we can set out to dip it."

He grabs some automotive paint and an airbrush.

"I have automotive paint here. Lets look up some bright color codes then we can mix it up."

He opens his closet door and starts pulling out a chair. He walks over to his computer desk and wakes up his computer, loading up the paint program.

"Have a seat with me. We can decide on the colors together."

As the program pops up he sits down and waits for her, on screen are dozens of different base colors with drop down menu's with mixed shades.

Moving to stand at Tyler's shoulder, Ele bent to look at the screen.

"What are you envisioning for this car?"

She asked, her artistic and stylist mind already working in overdrive.

"I am thinking just a wild tie dye like paint job."

He switches over to show metal flake paints.

"Maybe a metal flake would be the way to go. What do you think?"

Studying the options, Ele nodded,

"The holographic elements in the metal flake would look really cool, but you would have to choose a darker base for it to really show through without specific lighting. A tie dye effect would really pop if we kept the flakes specific to maybe one or two colors, like red and blue."

Leaning back, Ele looked down at Tyler,

"What do you think?"

"Yeah, that would work. Gold metal flake is what I have, it has always really popped on the red and blue paints but it has also popped on our greens. Maybe we could leave it just those 3 colors."

He says looking up at her.

Nodding in agreement, Ele was already formulating a plan,

"Do you have a turn-table, or Lazy Susan? Something that rotates smoothly in a circle?"

"No I don't. I have 6 bottles for mixing paint and clear coat in. We are just gonna mix up a bottle of each then start the hydro dip after that."

He grabs out the paints in powder form and mixes up 2 shades of red, 2 shades of blue, 1 shade of green and the clear coat. He adds the gold flake to the clear coat.

"You will love this. We put the water in a tub and it will start rippling out. He keep spraying it in the center of the water and it will keep rippling out."

He smiles at her.

"I will let you spray it down with the clear coat, think that will be your favorite part. It takes a real artistic touch to actually put it down."

Ele nodded and watched Tyler intently. She had seen hydropainting in videos before, but never in real life. It had never really crossed over into the work she had done, or the art she did for fun.

He shakes up the paints and stands up.

"Let's head out and get started."

He removes the body from the chassis and grabs the paint gun and paint cans. He walks out of the room and begins heading out to the garage.

Ele followed him, and in the garage, Ele definitely felt like she was in an autobody shop. It was very clear that Tyler was the only one living in the house, and it was filled with big boy toys. She couldn't help but wonder what kind of reaction Tyler would have if a woman moved it. Would he make room for her, or would he throw a fit and resist the change?

A memory from Ele's childhood bubbled up, a former boyfriend of her mother's who had his own home, but he hadn't wanted to get rid of anything when Ele and her mother moved in. They were forced to keep their belongings in their car, like they were still homeless, and even though there had been an extra bedroom in the house, it was full of the boyfriend's hobbies. Ele had been forced to sleep in the living room, but the adults and their friends stayed awake until all hours in the living room.

He drags out a tent from the corner, latching it to the floor then turns on an air pump. He flips on some lights and the place shines brightly.

"Takes a little work getting it setup."

He says bringing out a tub. He turns on a hose hooked up to a large industrial sink and begins filling the tub. While the tub fills he hooks up the airbrush to the air pump, screwing on the bottle of paint. He sprays the airbrush until he gets a mist of paint puffing out. He sets the gun down and turns his attention to the water. Seeing it is deep enough he turns the faucet off and turns back to the tub. He grabs the airbrush and sprays in the center of the tub letting the water ripple out. He gets a thick line around the edge of the tub before removing the red from the gun then putting the blue in. He repeats this process with the blue then the green many times over. After about 5 minutes of this he drags a stick through it randomly making a pattern. He grabs the body of the car and blasts it with air from the gun, making it dust free. He turns it over and slowly dips it in the water, letting it set for about 10 seconds before disturbing the surface of the water. He pulls the body out and flips it over, the paint looking quite dull.

"Alright, time for the tent, that is your job."

He says to Ele with a smile. He sticks the gun underneath the side of the tent, grabbing the clear coat. He removes the tip and replaces it with a wider one before adding the canister of clear coat. He shoots it several times until the air is out of the line. He hangs up the body in the center of the tent and hands off the gun to her.

"Try to keep an even spacing when you are spraying and sweep evenly."

Nodding and taking the gun, Ele gave it a couple tests sprays to get used to the trigger sensitivity. When she felt comfortable, Ele began a steady stream of the clear coat and began moving up the body of the car in easy sweeping motions.

"It's really loud!"

Ele called over the noise of the airbrush compressor, her motions coming to the top of the car. Pausing for a moment, she started the gun again and made a second pass, her movements even and slow.

"Yeah it is, but you are doing amazing. Keep it up, it is really popping already."

He says moving around to shine a sun gun on it. The flakes popping in the light though still not to full effect.

"Yeah, just a couple more layers."

Repeating the process a couple more times until the paint sparkled with gold, So stepped back with a smile,

"It looks so pretty!"

She laughed, liking the tie dye effect.

"Yeah it does."

He smiles at her.

"Wanna check out one of the finished dragsters? Run it down the road."

"Sure!"

Surprising even herself with the eagerness in her voice, Ele nodded enthusiastically. Her interest in Tyler's hobbies were growing, even if she still thought it was a little odd. Then again, she had very few friends, so Ele was not the best judge in odd hobbies.