In Bloom: A Small Town Romance (Seasons of Highland Lakes Book 1)

by Nikki Blythe

  “Come on,” Kyra said. “I know a place we can go. It's not far from here, and they are open all night. They don't have many people in there this time of night, so it's perfect. We'll be able to get right in.”

  She marched down the street before any of us could say anything to dissuade her, and before I knew what was happening, we were standing in front of a brightly lit parlor. Strangely, it was just around the corner from the coffee shop where I had first met Neville.

  I shook my head. I needed to stop thinking about it. I knew him all of what, five minutes? There was absolutely no reason I should have been dwelling on him like I was.

  Just get over it, and stop being so damn self-absorbed, Cedar. He isn't everywhere, you'll likely never see him again.

  Alarm bells started ringing, but I brushed them off, attributing them to the four Mai Tais I had before being swept up in this misadventure.

  I was high on the thought of just moving forward, glad to have a tattoo to look forward to so I could get my mind off of everything, when we walked in and Levi greeted us.

  “Whoa,” he said when he saw me.

  Realizing what his presence meant, panicked. Suddenly, I was completely sober. I glanced to my friends, and tried to work out a plan on how to escape, but none came to me.

  I gave Levi a stern look, meeting his eyes directly as I shook my head firmly. I pointed at my friends and made a gesture across my neck before he could say anything further. To my great relief, he simply nodded once.

  “Well, hello ladies,” he winked. “How can I help y'all tonight?”

  “We want tattoos,” responded a slightly more sober Elizabeth.

  “You're in the right place,” he laughed. “I have to ask though, have y'all been drinking?”

  We all sort of looked at each other and shrugged.

  “A bit,” I answered sheepishly. “Elizabeth is likely the most sober, and she's the only one of us without ink.” I gestured at Elizabeth as she wandered the small lobby, taking in the flash art.

  “I see,” he responded. “Well, I hate to say I can't tattoo y'all while you're as drunk as you are,” he laughed. “But I can make y'all some coffee, and we can sober y'all up a bit while we talk about what art you'd like on your body. How does that sound?”

  “Sounds like a way to make us end up paying for a bigger piece,” Kyra said, suspicion evident on her voice.

  “I assure you,” Levi laughed. “It's merely a way to avoid a lawsuit. We'll also have y'all sign a waiver.”

  “Makes sense,” said Elizabeth.

  I realized suddenly that Ivy had been rather quiet, and when I turned around to find her, she had vanished.

  “The other one ran back outside almost as soon as y’all walked in,” Levi said, watching my frantic-but-stationary search for Ivy.

  He pointed through the wide front windows and through it, I could see Ivy puking in the storm drain outside.

  “Ah, maybe Ivy will have to miss out,” I said, shaking my head. “Let me go call her a cab so she can get home safely. She doesn't need to be here in this state.”

  Leaving Kyra and Lizzie without another word, I walked out of the parlor and went to sit with Ivy on the curb. I let her rest her head on my shoulder while I pulled open the rideshare app and called for a ride.

  “I'm going to send you home,” I told her.

  Unable to speak, she simply nodded her assent.

  Within two minutes, the Lyft pulled up, and I put her in the car. “Do you have any barf bags?” I asked him apologetically. “She's a bit drunk.”

  The young woman rolled her eyes and grabbed a paper barf bag from her glove box and handed it back to me. “Can she make it inside on her own?”

  I grabbed the bag and buckled Ivy into her seat. I opened the paper bag and placed it in her hands.

  “I think so, but I'll add a $20 tip if you can make sure she gets inside okay?” I held up my phone to show that I hadn't finalized the tip yet.

  “Deal,” she replied. “Thank you, that's groceries for the week.”

  I gave her an appreciative smile and nodded. “No problem, thank you so much!”

  I closed Ivy into the car and turned back to the parlor. Kyra, Elizabeth, and Levi were nowhere to be seen. They must have finished their coffee and been taken to a booth somewhere.

  I debated just going home myself, but I had to admit to myself that my curiosity about what kind of work Neville did was pulling at me. I wanted to see him, no matter how badly he hurt me. I just wanted to see what his life was like. He had come to my work after all. This was only fair.

  I took a deep breath and walked back into the parlor.

  “Marco!” I called.

  “Polo!” Kyra called from somewhere in the back.

  I followed the sound of her voice into a small booth. She and Levi were sitting there alone.

  “Where's Elizabeth?”

  “Ne- My partner is working on her ink,” Levi responded.

  He gave me a meaningful look. I responded with a confused stare.

  “What did you decide on getting, Kyra?” I asked my friend pointedly, breaking my brief eye contact with Levi.

  I didn't really listen as she responded, detailing some mermaid flash art she had seen at the front of the shop. I tried to avoid glancing at Levi, but his expression when he met my eyes had me curious. He looked apologetic. Did Neville tell him what transpired? Was his apologetic look enough to tell me what I needed to know about that text the other night?

  “You know what,” I said, interrupting Kyra. “I'm going to check in on Elizabeth. This is her first tattoo, after all. We probably shouldn't leave her alone.”

  I smiled at the pair of them as Kyra turned her incessant chatter on poor Levi. He had no idea what he had just gotten himself into, I mused with a small smile.

  I wandered out of Levi's booth in search of Neville's. It didn't take long; it was just around the corner. I poked my head through the doorway and gave Elizabeth a slight grin.

  “Hey, girl,” I said. “How are you holding up?”

  “Pretty well, considering we haven't started yet,” she smiled back. “Neville here was just walking me through the process.”

  The way she said his name made my eyes dart to his face. His skin was pale, and his eyes wide. I figured Elizabeth had figured out who he was by putting two and two together and hadn't exactly let him in on her identity.

  “Hi,” I said. I meant to sound firm, or maybe stern, but it came out as cold. Oops.

  “Hey,” he responded, the warmth in his eyes gone immediately, as he turned back to the sheet he was using to apply the outline of Elizabeth's tattoo.

  Well, that was all I really needed to know, wasn't it? Resigned, I took a seat in the booth next to Elizabeth, and didn't speak to Neville once as he worked. I figured in the tense state we were all in, he was already more than likely to make a mistake, and I didn't want to make it worse by adding my own emotions to the situation.

  After about two hours, Kyra wandered in to the booth, beaming like an idiot. “Well, I'm done!” She announced. “How are you doing, Lizzie?”

  Lizzie, who to her credit had been handling the whole inking process rather well, simply nodded.

  “I think we're about done,” she said. “We're just doing the outline and a bit of shading tonight. I'll have to come back in a couple days to have the rest of the tattoo completed.”

  The three of us chattered for the few minutes it took for Neville to dress the tattoo. I watched as his hands worked, applying the salve, and gently placing gauze over the ink. His soft touch had me aching for him. The notion surprised me, so I pushed it to the back of my mind. I couldn't think like that about him anymore. I never should have started thinking like that about him. The whole world of romance was too much trouble to deal with, anyway.

  I followed Kyra and Elizabeth to the front of the parlor and waited quietly while they paid and scheduled Lizzie's second sitting. I wandered around the lobby again, looking at the art on the
walls, trying to come up with a pretense for staying behind so I could maybe have a proper discussion with Neville.

  When Kyra and Elizabeth made to leave the parlor, I called after them, “Hey, I'm going to discuss a new piece with these two, I'll be right behind y'all!”

  “Yeah, all right,” Kyra said. “We're headed back to the bar. See you in a bit!”

  I nodded and waited until they left to turn and eye Neville with thinly veiled anger.

  “Can we talk?” I asked in as level a voice as I could manage.

  “I'll... be in the back,” Levi said, closing the cash drawer and walking away from the register. “Holler if you need me!”

  He walked down the narrow hallway with a half-hearted wave.

  I waited until he had disappeared thoroughly before turning on Neville. He wore his face like a mask, taught and pale. There were dark circles under his eyes, and it looked like he was just barely healing from a black eye. I pushed the sudden concern for his well-being from my mind and focused on the task at hand.

  “You have a fiancée?” I said quietly, with no preamble.

  I wanted to get straight to the point. There was no reason to beat around the bush. He didn't owe me anything, but I felt as if I deserved answers.

  “I do not,” he responded.

  “Care to explain this, then?” I pulled my phone from my purse and opened the text conversation from the other night.

  He took the phone from my proffered hand and sighed.

  “Did you send that? Or did your significant other, whatever their label might be?” I demanded hotly.

  “I didn't send that, no,” He said in a soft voice.

  “Then who did?”

  “What does it matter?” He shot back in anger, surprising me.

  I took a step back in my surprise and looked him up and down. He stood behind the front desk of the parlor, his hands flat on the surface of the counter, the tips of his fingers and his knuckles white as he pressed his hands into the plexiglass.

  “It matters... because...” I faltered.

  What did it matter? We weren't anything to each other.

  “You know what, never mind. It was a pleasure to meet you Neville, I wish you all the best in life.”

  I mimicked tipping my hat to him as I walked backwards towards the door. I met his eyes just before I turned to open the door and flee into the warm air outside.

  Fuck.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Neville

  “Dude,” hissed Levi from just beyond the front desk area.

  Clearly, he hadn't gone too far when Cedar stuck around to talk.

  “What?” I snapped, head hanging.

  I refused to look at him. I knew I had fucked things up with Cedar, but how was I supposed to fix anything? I saw the texts. Cedar didn’t act like Faith said she did at all, though I had to admit, when I saw her and her friends come in, I was worried that Faith’s prophesied warning had come to pass. At the same time, though, she looked so beautiful in her pale yellow sundress. She had clearly been drinking, given the way her makeup was all over the place, and her hair was askew. But despite my doubt about her, that magnetic pull I felt the day I ran into her was yanking on my heart again.

  My heart broke a little when she greeted me so coldly before. Clearly, she was angry.

  Besides, after everything happened with Faith, did I really need or want a new romantic entanglement? No need to force something that obviously wasn't meant to be.

  “Go after her,” Levi implored.

  “Why?”

  “Because she wouldn't have stuck around to talk to you if she didn't care at least a little. This might be fixable, Nev.”

  I stood frozen in place for only a moment before I bolted out the door and after Cedar, without a word, that magnet propelling me into the next moment. Just as the door hissed to a close behind me, I heard a loud whoop and a clap from an overly excited Levi.

  “Wait!” I called into the darkness as the hem of Cedar's dress whipped around the corner diagonally from the corner my parlor sat on. She walked right past my apartment building, and I had the sinking feeling Faith could see us.

  I rounded the corner to find her with her arms crossed, back to me.

  “Cedar, I can explain,” I began, then mentally kicked my own ass for using such a cliché to start this conversation.

  She turned and met my eyes. Even in the dim light of the street lamps I could see she was glaring at me with suspicion mounting.

  “You can explain? Explain what? You have a fiancée. What's to understand about that?”

  I sighed. “No, I don't. She and I are over.”

  “Oh my god, you didn't leave her for me, did you? Or did she find out you cheated?”

  “Your text alerted her to the fact that you and I had... well... you know,” I shrugged, feeling awkward.

  My hand wandered to the back of my head and I scratched absentmindedly.

  “Look, can we go somewhere and talk?”

  Cedar glared at me for several long, excruciating moments, then glanced at her phone. “It's about time for the coffee shop to open, let's just go there.”

  Then she stomped off towards the cafe where we had first met.

  I followed in silence, not wanting to ruin what little chance I had to fix this whole situation. I ran through my mind everything I could possibly say to explain. No matter what I came up with, it all fell short, and each explanation sounded more like an excuse than any genuine explanation of what was going on.

  I'd have to tell her the truth. Yeah, I'd tell her the truth and let the chips fall where they may.

  Cedar led the way into the coffee shop, and we found that it was mostly empty. The employees were hard at work setting up for the day, and the freckled teenager behind the counter seemed to be relieved when we went directly to a table instead of approaching to order.

  We took a seat at a table by the large window. The sun was barely creeping into the sky beyond, but the darkness of night prevailed over the street.

  It was a few moments before either of us found the courage to speak, and when we did, we spoke at the same time.

  “Cedar, I'm goin-

  “I just need the tr-”

  We paused, and Cedar laughed. That sound. It gripped my heart, and I swear all the breath left my lungs. I resisted the urge to reach forward and grab her hands.

  “Let me start,” I breathed. When she nodded, I continued. “When you and I met, I was involved with a woman, Faith. Things between us have been poor for a very long time, now. I've been trying to find the courage to leave for years.”

  “The courage?” She asked. “I'm confused.”

  I inhaled deeply. “Faith is... unique. She's different, and I loved her for most of our relationship, but in the last couple of years, living with her, being with her, has been unbearable.”

  “It's not fair for you to continue a relationship with her if you feel that way,” Cedar chided softly.

  “You're right. And when I first started having these feelings, I tried to leave, but-”

  The freckled barista came to our table then, interrupting me. “Can I get y'all anything?” He asked.

  “Can I get a cup of earl gray?” Cedar asked him with a smile.

  “I'll take a cup of black coffee, if that's all right?” I said.

  I craved the energy only a strong cup of coffee could give me.

  After the boy left, I stared at Cedar. “Listen, I want to tell you the truth, but it's a lot. It's a heavy subject, and I want to make sure you won't think any less of me for what I have to tell you.”

  Cedar's brow furrowed in thought as she stared at me.

  “It's hard to say whether I'll judge you without knowing exactly what it is you're going to say,” she said, carefully avoiding answering the question.

  “That's fair. All right, so let's start with the beginning, then. Faith and I met when she was in college. Her father is a judge here in town, and her mother is a doctor. Faith is a cour
t reporter. So, you can imagine that her family has a lot of influence and pull here.”

  Cedar nodded, but didn't speak.

  “I am not from Highland Lakes at all. I came to town to apprentice under a tattoo artist on the other side of town after meeting Faith, and I fell in love with her and the town all at once. Even though I've left her, I don't think I could ever leave Highland Lakes,” I laughed. “This place is home now.”

  I paused again as the young barista brought us our order. When he was gone again, for the foreseeable future, I hoped, I continued.

  “Things were pretty great in the beginning. We spent a couple of years dating before I moved, of course, then when I moved here, I got an apartment, and she moved in with me. That's when things started to change. She would have these moods, moods I always attributed to her quirky personality. After a few months, she started to become violent. At first, it was subtle. She would throw things at me in fights, or slam doors so hard the paintings would fall from the walls. It’s funny, we don’t even have any wall paintings now, because it got to be too much work putting them back up all the time,” I chuckled darkly.

  Cedar didn’t smile. She simply stared at me, her face pale.

  “But then, one day we were fighting, because I didn't load the dishwasher correctly of all things. She and I argued, and towards the end, she didn't just throw things at me, but she took the wooden cutting board from the counter and clocked me in the face with it.”

  Cedar's hand flew to her mouth as she gasped in horror.

  “Neville, that's horrible,” she whispered.

  Her hands came across the table and pulled mine from my mug of coffee. She gripped my fingers, and with eyes wide, implored me to go on.

  “At first, I never mentioned it to a soul. It worried me that no one would believe that my girlfriend was hurting me. Men aren't abused, after all,” I continued with a wry chuckle. “One day, shortly after Levi and I started the parlor, I mentioned to him some of what had been going on. I talked about it like it was a joke, but immediately, he was furious. He told me I needed to get out.