by Joanna Wylde
The restaurant door gave a welcoming chime as I pushed it open. It was only midafternoon, so there weren’t a ton of people inside. Just a couple old guys sitting at the counter nursing their coffee and a table full of girls giggling and drinking milk shakes.
“You boys hungry?” a middle-aged woman asked, stepping around the counter to walk toward us. I forced myself not to react, but I swear to fuck she looked like a cartoon parody of a greasy spoon waitress. Big blonde hair, all up in some kind of beehive. Bright red lips and eye shadow so blue it could’ve been neon. Pair that with the pink uniform she wore and she was literally the least attractive human female I’d ever met in my life. I mean, not just unsexy, but actively creepy. I sort of wanted to take a picture of her, just to prove to myself later she was real.
“We’ve got our breakfast special,” she said. “It’s the breakfast platter. Three eggs, your choice of meat, hash browns, toast, and a bottomless cup of coffee. Best food in town.”
“Sounds great,” Gage said without blinking. She smiled at him, the expression transforming her face until it seemed less cartoonish.
“Seat yourselves,” she said. “Not like we have a shortage of space.”
I nodded toward a table near the window that’d give us a good view of the street while keeping us off to the side of the diner. Gage put his back to the wall, leaving me exposed—which I fucking hated—but he’d been the club’s sergeant at arms for nearly a decade. Not a guy you want to piss off, if you catch my meaning.
I settled myself, looking out across the street. The buildings here were old—lots of character. The one directly opposite us was built from some kind of sandstone, and above the windows it read “Reimers Pharmacy” with the Rx symbol. The Reimers seemed to be long gone, though, because below was the girliest shopfront I’d ever seen. There was china, antiquey shit, and even some old-fashioned toys in the window front, along with some fancy little tables on legs that didn’t seem quite strong enough to hold a man’s weight. Kind of like an old-fashioned ice cream parlor.
Across the window, a sign read, “Tinker’s Teahouse, Antiques & Fine Chocolates.”
I nodded toward it.
“You see that?” I asked Gage. He glanced over at the store.
“Huh. That’s different.”
“You boys want the special?” our waitress asked, and I’m man enough to admit she scared the hell out of me. Not only was she suddenly damned close, she’d snuck up on us without making a sound. I stared at the neon eyeshadow, mesmerized.
Shit. Maybe she wasn’t human.
“We’ll have two specials,” Gage said, offering her one of those smiles that made women’s panties drop. “Could use that coffee now, too. Been a long day.”
She offered him a sickly sweet smile, and I sighed, wishing I was back in Coeur d’Alene with Mel.
• • •
By the time the waitress finished taking our order—it took a while, given how chatty she was—a cherry red Mustang convertible had pulled up outside the restaurant. The car was a beauty, but it was the driver who really caught my attention when she stepped out into the street, all long dark hair and sunglasses. Deep red lipstick, pale skin . . . I couldn’t peg her age from here, but based on those curves she wasn’t a teenager.
Then she walked around to the back of the car and leaned over to open the trunk, clearly outlining the silhouette of a perfect ass wrapped beautifully in a skinny, knee-length skirt with a slit up the back.
“Fuckin’ hell,” Gage said, his voice soft. “Who is that?”
“That’s Tinker Garrett,” our waitress said, sneaking up behind us again. “She owns the little tea shop across the way.”
There was something snide and nasty in her tone. Gage and I shared a glance.
“She doesn’t look like she owns a tea shop,” Gage said, leading her on. The waitress sniffed.
“She moved to Seattle after high school,” she said. “Thought she was hot shit. Then her husband dumped her and she came crawling back to town. That shop of hers can’t earn enough to stay open—not enough people pass through here. If you ask me, she’s up to something.”
Gage glanced at me, mouth twitching. I leaned toward the woman, asking a follow-up question in a tense whisper.
“What kind of thing do you think she’s up to?” I asked, eyes wide. “Do you think it’s . . . nefarious?”
Gage choked on a cough. Nice. Holding down that laughter was probably killing him.
“I have my suspicions,” she sniffed. “She dresses like a whore, you know. And I heard she goes dancing sometimes down in Ellensburg. Likes to pick up college boys. What do they call that? Being a mountain lion? Shameful.”
Gage turned away, shoulders shaking.
“Good to know,” I said seriously. “We’ll stay clear of her.”
“You do that,” the waitress replied, nodding sagely. “God knows what kind of stuff she’s selling in that place. I’ll bet those chocolates have drugs in them. Marijuana.”
I glanced out the window again, watching Tinker Garrett’s perfect ass twitching as she walked away.
Somehow she didn’t strike me as a drug kingpin. Cougar? Now that I could see.
MELANIE
The week after Chase’s accident was strange. He survived, but he had a long recovery ahead of him. Everyone in town seemed sort of gloomy and unhappy, although they’d really pulled together to support him, too. There’d even been a group of kids who set up a lemonade stand down the street from us as a fundraiser. Sometimes I got tired of living in Coeur d’Alene—it wasn’t a big city and it wasn’t exciting like Seattle or Portland, but when something like this happened, we all liked to help. Kit had even organized one of those online fundraiser things to help with his medical expenses.
Contributing to the gloom was the fact that I hadn’t heard from Painter for several days. I’d sent him a couple text messages at first, but stopped after he didn’t respond.
“You think he lost his phone?” I finally asked Jessica. It was Thursday night, and we’d built ourselves a study nest in the dining room. She’d found an old table on Tuesday, dragging it back home to show me, proud as a kid with her first buck.
Now it was so covered with books you’d never have guessed it hadn’t been here for months.
“Yeah, I’m sure he lost his phone,” she said, typing aggressively on her laptop. “He’s totally been meaning to call—you know, because he has such a great history of staying in touch—but he’s completely forgotten how to use text, email, social media, or any other kind of telecommunication.”
“Shit, you don’t have to be a bitch about it,” I snapped, glaring at her. She sighed, sitting back in her chair.
“Sorry—Taz hasn’t called me or anything, either. Guess I’m feeling hostile toward men. Bikers. Fuck all of ’em.”
“Did he say he’d call you?” I asked.
She nodded. “Don’t they all?”
• • •
On Friday I broke down and walked by Painter’s apartment. No signs of life. I was feeling all sorry for myself, so after that I went down to the coffee shop to indulge in one of their brownies with all the thick, fudgy frosting. I was halfway through it (staring at my phone, willing him to message me) when I had my big revelation.
This was fucking ridiculous.
Here I was, a twenty-year-old woman with all the potential on earth, and I was sitting in a coffee shop stuffing my face because of a man. All I needed was to start singing “All By Myself” and buy a cat to complete the stereotype.
What the hell was wrong with me?
My life had sucked before I moved in with London, but she gave me a second chance. I’d busted ass, working constantly to build a life for myself. It wasn’t perfect, but it was damned good—I had a full ride to college and all the potential on earth, yet here I sat, eating chocolate.
Fuck this.
I grabbed my phone, shooting a text off to Jessica.
ME: What are you doing right now?
JESS: Working on stuff for the carnival tomorrow. You still volunteering, right? Kit’s still around and she said she’d help, but I’ll need more than just her.
Oh shit. I’d totally forgotten in the midst of my Painter-induced haze. Oops.
ME: Of course I’m still volunteering—can’t wait. What did you want me to do?
JESS: Face paint.
ME: Um, you remember how artistic I’m not?
JESS: I want you painting little duckies and ladybugs and lizards and stuff. You know, on the kids cheeks. How hard can it be?
ME: I suck at painting
JESS: I have a book you can use with directions. Super easy
ME: Can’t I run the popcorn machine or something?
JESS: Chicken
ME: Yes I’m chicken. I can acknowledge that
JESS: Stop being such a giant pussy. I’ll give you paint tonight and you can practice. Easy
I glared down at the phone, because it was just like her to stick me with something hard and uncomfortable that I didn’t want to do. Hateful girl.
ME: Ok but you owe me
JESS: Put it on my tab ;)
Fucking winkie face, taunting me . . . I sighed and finished my brownie. I wouldn’t let myself get all pathetic again, I’d already decided that. But I couldn’t just walk away from a brownie midway through a sad eating binge. In all fairness, there wasn’t even enough to wrap up and take home.
ME: If I get all fat we r blaming Painter
JESS: Your insane. I love you butthead.
And just like that, I was smiling again. Grabbing my phone and bag, I started walking down to the college. Class didn’t start for another hour, but I could get some work done on my paper at the library if I hurried.
No more letting Painter get in my way. Life was too damned short.
• • •
It was eleven p.m. that same Friday night, and I was all alone (in the dark) getting my ass kicked by a ladybug.
Wasn’t even a real ladybug.
I stared down at the little instruction booklet, trying to figure out how something so allegedly simple—painting a harmless insect in six easy steps—was completely beyond me. I’d been trying for forty-five minutes now, dabbing unattractive, runny gloops of red, black, and white over and over each other in an endless cycle of incompetence. Some looked like aliens and others looked like mutant trolls, but not one of them could possibly be mistaken for a ladybug.
Not even a ladybug that’d been squished. (And maybe run over a few times, just for good measure.)
Jess was going to give me so much shit over this, I just knew it, because the instructions were so fucking simple that any idiot should be able to follow them. Crap. I dropped the paintbrush, walking into the kitchen to grab a glass of water. In the distance I heard a faint knocking sound outside followed by a weird, serial killer–esque wheeze from the fridge. I spun around, convinced I was about to be murdered.
Nothing.
I tiptoed slowly back into the dining room, where the corpses of my botched ladybugs waited in accusing silence.
Then I heard the knock again, more clearly this time. Someone was at the door . . . Of course I was here by myself, because Jessica would be out visiting Taz when I needed her most, leaving me to be murdered. The same Taz who—after not calling all week—suddenly had urgent “shit to deal with” at the Armory. Shit so easy to deal with that it only took about an hour, giving him plenty of time to take Jess out for the night. Right. I didn’t buy that for an instant, and I told her so. Obviously he was up to something. But she insisted that she was a big girl, and that she knew what she was doing.
I walked over to the door, wishing for the thousandth time that we had a peephole. Instead we had to peer through the window to see people outside, which Jess had helpfully pointed out gave them an easy target if they wanted to shoot us or bash us with a hockey stick. Bracing myself, I twitched the curtain to the side to see him.
Painter.
For an instant I got stupidly excited, then I remembered that I’d stopped liking him this past week. We might not be a couple, but we were good enough friends that I thought I deserved at least some acknowledgement or contact. Were his fingers broken, that he couldn’t return a friendly text message?
“What’s up?” I asked coldly, opening the door.
He stared at me, eyes tracing my face in silence long enough to be uncomfortable. A part of me wanted to babble nervously, fill the air, but I managed to shut it down—from now on, I set the rules.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch,” he said.
“Seems to be a pattern with you,” I pointed out, trying to act tough. “I know we’re just friends, but you dropped off the face of the earth. What gives?”
He shrugged and then offered a smile so sweet and charming it almost got me. Almost. But not quite.
“My phone broke,” he said. “I was off on club business, so I just picked up a burner to use. Didn’t even have real texting, and I didn’t have your number anyway.”
Ah . . . See, he had a good explanation! The stupidest, most gullible part of my brain was totally ready to fall for his excuses. No. No no no no.
“Don’t you have Picnic’s number?” I asked reasonably. “He knows how to get in touch with me.”
Painter’s smile grew sheepish. “He wouldn’t give it to me—said I’m a bad influence and I should stay away from you.”
Well, I could certainly see that. Painter was a bad influence. Here he was at my door after nearly a week of radio silence, and in under a minute he was already eroding my sense of self-preservation.
“C’mon in,” I said, giving in to the inevitable. “I still think you suck for blowing me off, but here’s your chance to make up for it. I’ve got to figure out how to paint small animals on children by tomorrow.”
“What?” he asked, staring blankly.
“Jessica’s got a carnival thing going on at her work tomorrow morning,” I explained. “She works with the kids at the community center—in the special needs program. She asked if I’d volunteer, and because I’m an idiot I agreed without making her tell me exactly what it was I’d volunteered to do. Now I have to paint faces and I have no idea how. If you really want to hang out, hang out and help me.”
He followed me into the dining room, stopping next to the table to study my pathetic efforts.
“What the hell is that supposed to be—a squirrel fucking a dinosaur?”
I sighed, forcing myself to look at the paper. I sort of wanted to bitch him out, but to be honest it looked a lot more like a squirrel fucking a dinosaur than I wanted to admit.
“It’s a ladybug.”
Silence.
Ignoring him, I sat down in the chair, poking at the hateful paintbrush with one finger.
“That’s terrible,” he said.
“I know.”
“No, it’s really bad. Like, I don’t know how a person can be this bad at painting something. Anything.”
“Do you think they’ll cry?” I asked, feeling a little sick—I think some secret part of me had hoped they weren’t quite as dreadful as they seemed.
“Who, the ladybugs? They don’t have any eyes, babe. They can’t cry. Although it’s safe to assume they’re crying on the inside . . .”
I flipped him off, giving a reluctant laugh. “No, the children. How am I supposed to paint their faces if I can’t even paint the damned paper?”
He sat down on the end of the table, kitty-corner from me.
“Well, it’s not really that hard,” he started to say, but I held up a hand.
“Look those ladybugs in the face when you say that,” I suggested. “Do they look easy to you?”
His lip quirked and he shook his head. “I’m trying really hard not to make a sex joke about easy ladybugs.”
“Don’t,” I said, fighting my own smile. “Besides, they’re not anatomically correct. So, do you think you can help me? Friends help each other.”
They a
lso reply to texts, so people know they haven’t been murdered or something.
“I’m sure I can help,” he said, reaching out to run his finger down my nose. I forgot to breathe for an instant. “Let’s start with the paint. Sit down and we’ll go through it step by step.”
Half an hour later I was doing better. I mean, it’s not like painting faces was really that difficult, but for some reason I’d been getting the paints way too watery, so they kept running together.
“You’re doing great,” Painter said, watching me brush green across the paper. “That one definitely looks like a lizard.”
I considered telling him it was supposed to be a flower, but decided to just add eyes instead. Still, I had a very nice sheet of rainbows, ladybugs, and clouds. I figured I’d do all right with the kids so long as I offered them only a few choices.
Glancing up, I smiled, because he was close to me and being around him always made me happy, even if it probably shouldn’t.
“So, can you tell me where you were this past week?”
His face shuttered. “Why do you want to know?”
“Don’t be so suspicious—I’m just making conversation,” I said, deciding that I’d get crazy and try to paint a Pokémon next. Jess had warned me the kids were hard-core about them right now, and the little yellow one looked like it wouldn’t be all that hard. Struck with sudden inspiration, I put my left hand palm-down on the table, outlining Pikachu on my skin instead of the paper.
“Wow, it’s different like this,” I said, glancing up at him. “Harder, because the skin moves more than the paper. So where have you been? Unless you can’t tell me.”
“I probably shouldn’t get into it,” he admitted, eyes fixed on my hand. I bit my lip, focusing on getting the little black points for the ears right. Nice. “Club business, that kind of thing. But just so you know, I’m going to be out of town a lot for the next few weeks, maybe longer. Not sure how things will play out.”