by Kendra Mase
“A good one?” He had side stories that he kept for just this situation. Nowhere to go. Only reputations to uphold.
Only, her shoulders slumped, back to tracing the patterns below her. “No. Not at all. I thought I’d go because everyone was going. Why not say yes for once? But then…”
“Then?”
“I got there, and I was invisible.”
Jack knew the feeling. Like everyone was all around him, but no one noticed, or at least cared.
“It has always been that way though.”
“You have superpowers?”
She shook her head, a hint of a smile teasing her lips. “Just me. I’ve never been important enough to be not invisible or forgotten about. That night one person did talk to me and I was so surprised, they turned to get me a drink and they never came back, and you know what? Then I wasn’t surprised. Not in the least.”
Jack’s lips parted, any sort of smirk he had schooled his face into for the past so many years of his life, somehow, slipped.
“How could I be? Everyone leaves in the end, and then it is just me again having to figure it all out. Sew it all back together with frayed pieces of string.”
Jack shook his head, jaw clenched, until he was looking up at the ceiling, taking a few deep breaths. A few speckled stains from misdirected ketchup and champagne splattered near the center.
“I’m sorry,” she said hastily. She glanced away from him and shut her eyes for a long second. “I shouldn’t… I have a problem sometimes with oversharing. When someone talks to me. Pretend I didn’t say anything at all. Maybe I didn’t, drunken dream and all.”
Before he could think of something to say, her quiet voice cut into his third ridiculous option that began with, I see you.
“What are you staring at?”
At that, Jack could answer without hesitation. “The stars.”
Kit leaned back to look up with him. Her head knocked against the cabinet with a thunk.
He grimaced for her.
“I don’t see any.”
“They’re there. You know, just through a few layers of house and drywall and smog most likely when you make it out of the castle’s assortment of knickknacks that have probably accumulated in the walls by now.”
Too many people have lived in the house during the short time since Queen bought the place out from under some other socialite or money-grubber who would likely have painted the outside something less ostentatious. Grayer, rather than animated purple or whatever she called it that took at least three coats to get to her particular royal shade.
Anyone who needed a place to crash or live for a few months while they managed to find themselves a place in Ashton had it, including Jack. He took up the empty guest room back when he first met Avril—and now.
He forced himself not to glance toward the stairs again.
Instead, he focused on the stars. Far, far away.
Sucking air through his teeth, Jack’s lips ballooned as he let it back out. “My mom, she used to say whenever you were having a bad day, just look at the stars.”
Kit’s forehead wrinkled, but still, she continued to stare at the ceiling. Her words slurred together. It was still easier to understand over Avril’s drunken Irish brogue.
“Why is that?”
“Because.” Jack wanted to shrug. He didn’t really remember what she said. For some reason, he remembered at least four different sayings that all seemed to come from his mother. Or Avril, always mentioning something about how the planets were out of alignment when she pretended to try and read his fortune that usually ended with his receding hairline. “You never know when a wish will decide it’s time for something to come true.”
“Are you wishing for something?”
“Probably should be.”
“Well, don’t tell me what it is.”
Jack glanced down at her, still focusing even as another curl bounced from the top of her head in front of her eyes. He resisted the reflex to brush it away. Funny little creature. “Why not?”
“Because then it won’t come true.” She shook her head at him like he was the sorriest thing she’d ever witnessed.
“Well, I’m a terrible secret keeper.”
“Hm.”
“Will you tell me what your wish is then?”
Kit narrowed her eyes at him again.
So that would be a no.
“Maybe I’m just not a party person,” she said instead.
“You?” Jack glanced down at her, and if anyone had asked him a few hours ago, maybe he wouldn’t disagree. “Nah. You look like you still have some potential yet.”
Kit breathed a dry laugh.
“I, unfortunately, can’t say the same.”
“No?” Her eyes still peeked up at him through heavy lids.
“Nope. Love parties. Birthdays. Weddings. Holidays. Baby showers. Weekends—you name it and I’ll be there,” Jack replied with conviction.
“Baby showers?”
“Who doesn’t like a good baby?”
Kit smiled the moment he let out a single sharp laugh. He could almost imagine her standing behind a cake coated with yellow frosting of her own.
“I’ve never held a baby before.”
“You’ve never held a baby?” Jack raised his eyebrow. “One of life’s most fearful joys and you’ve never held that tiny head in your hands and felt as if you are constantly one step away from messing up and making it hate you for the rest of your life? You’re kidding.”
She shook her head.
“Wow. I grew up in a big family. Babies abound.” Jack’s smile flinched as he thought about it. He looked back at her again, assessing how she continued to look at him. Her eyes never left his face. “Birthdays, I guess, too.”
Kit smiled again, this time a little bigger, holding back a laugh he almost dared her to sound.
“What is it?”
“It’s my birthday.”
Jack balked, looking her over from the top of her head where she piled dark curls into a topknot to her sneakers. She had to have been joking.
“It’s the truth,” she said before he could ask. “I didn’t tell anyone. Not Emilie, anyway.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t—I didn’t want to cause a fuss.”
“What do you mean, that’s the whole point of birthdays. You can do whatever you want, basically anyway.”
“Basically.”
“How old are you?”
Kit turned to him and raised her eyebrows, not just one.
He wanted to laugh. “What? You somehow at the ripe age of forty-two?”
She shook her head.
“Twenty-three?”
Pausing, Kit shook her head again.
Now it was his turn to look confused. He was sure that right now, he would get as many guesses as he wanted, but he didn’t take them. “Tell me.”
Sighing, she looked up to the ceiling before coming back to him. “I don’t want to.”
“Why not?” Jack smiled again.
“Because I feel old. I feel like I should be, somehow, though I know that sounds ridiculous.” Her tongue got caught on the final word.
Jack only shook his head, thinking of the things she’d told him.
“I don’t think so.”
She stared at him again, and for some reason, Jack was sure that this girl was staring straight through his eyes and attempting to rummage around his brain. He wondered how she was doing with that. He could use a few answers himself. Her eyes were a soft brown, but not just brown, like melted caramel with specks of blue just around the edges that caught the light from the back patio light.
“Twenty.”
“What?” Jack blinked, trying to pay attention to what they were talking about.
“That’s how old I am. You can’t tell anybody.”
Twenty? He almost asked her again, just to be sure she was telling the truth. Twenty years old.
Jack ran a hand through his hair, remembering where he was at t
wenty. Sleeping at work and praying no one would notice after he told himself he had nowhere else to go. He couldn’t go home, he figured then.
Now he really couldn’t.
Twenty.
“I think you already forgot, Kitten, that I’m not good at keeping those.”
“Well then, don’t think of it as a secret. Think of it as… an oversight,” Kit corrected.
An oversight.
Jack thought back to the bottle of Lion vodka Kit managed to down earlier. “One hell of a birthday cake. Kit?”
“Hm?”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Only if it’s to marry you.”
“Funny.”
“Only if it’s a joke.”
Jack’s teeth punctured his bottom lip to hold back a laugh building. “Do you think that I’m—What do you think of me?”
Penelope’s words ran through his head again.
He wasn’t someone you’d ever take home to meet your parents. He couldn’t even go home to see his own, so much so he might as well have been a little bit invisible in his own right.
At the very least, according to Pen and the rest of the downtown Ashton area, most of whom had been in his bed, Jack Carver was not someone you wanted to be yours.
He turned his head toward Kit again, who’d lifted her gaze from the ceiling back at him.
Her eyes turned sad, glassy, like they burned when she finally shut them. “I think you’re magnificent.”
Magnificent? His mouth was so dry he couldn’t manage to tease her with the word like he would anyone else.
“Jack?”
His name coming out of her mouth had no edges, it sounded odd to his ears. Not a bark or shrill, like chimes. It was a soft whisper, like she was breathing.
“Are you all right?”
“Me? Perfect. Always.” Jack tried a smile again, but it seemed less than it was before. It almost hurt as he brought his hand to his jaw and rubbed.
“You sure?”
“Just need to clear my head.”
“Okay, then.” She didn’t look convinced.
“I’m serious.”
Kit pressed her lips together. “I didn’t say that you weren’t.”
God, she didn’t even know him.
“How about you? How do you manage to hold so much top-shelf liquor?”
Kit’s eyes slowly drifted back to his face, and this time, that small smile teased him. He wanted to see it break through the dark shadows of the house, but it only held right on the edge. “I already threw up in the bathroom at least two times.”
Jack closed his eyes to hold back his amusement. At least.
“Attagirl.”
Not long after, Jack found that the girl’s head did fit rather seamlessly into his shoulder as she slouched farther and farther into him. And though she was tiny, this chick was solid as he lifted her up into his arms, depositing her back on the oversized sofa in the living room. Grabbing the blanket, he laid it over her lower half, making sure that she was still turned onto her side. That way, though, it looked like he was crushing her glasses, large from where they perched on the bridge of her nose.
Carefully extracting them, he set them aside on the table, swiping away some crumbs.
“Sleep well, Kit.”
Pen was still in the same position he left her on top of the sheets, shirt riding up higher than it was before exposing the peach thong waistband.
He wondered if Kit made it.
Chapter Four
Wrapped in Avril’s sheer scarf, Katherine walked across the bridge to get home. It wasn’t a long walk, though she never took it before. As she imagined just last night in Jack’s car, she could hear the gentle yet deep roar of the dark water streaming below her feet.
Pausing halfway across, Katherine watched the water catch on rocks and edges. She looked back toward the string of houses with a Jeep parked in front.
She was at a party last night. She was at a party with Avril Queen.
A smile pulled at Katherine’s lips. It lifted her chin up toward the still dim sky, catching a single star, or maybe it was just a plane flying by, dim and still slightly hazy.
Vaguely, Kit remembered her mother, who used to tell her stories. When she was in a good mood, she would point out the figures that stars made, though Kit never was able to form them. She’d tell her of their lives and tragedy and love, just like her own.
Then they would disappear, just as she did.
Now, the stars were fading out. Cars honked their horns and the air buzzed against Katherine’s skin.
They were nothing but a flashing possibility, like Jack and her… staring at the ceiling.
She hadn’t wished like him then, but now, for the first time in a long time, Katherine looked up to the stars just in case she hadn’t already used up her quota for a lifetime and wished.
Chapter Five
Emilie left the door open for her. She knew this, because the shop wasn’t open on Sundays. It was closed to everyone. The only exceptions were a select few clients who frequented for custom bespoke pieces Emilie told Katherine in no uncertain terms that she would be crazy to turn away. Not with that kind of money—and the kind of fun she had making the pieces with silks that slipped through her fingers and lace she only saw on royal wedding gowns, let alone garnishing the goodies of some rich priss.
Emilie’s pink lips spread into a grin as the front door caught on the old rusted bell. It hadn’t been polished since it was put up whenever the shop was made a hundred years ago. The chime gently rang above with a high-pitched trill. It might as well have been a bomb.
Katherine winced.
“My, my, and here I was wondering if I would ever see the day when my sweet little niece would come back in here doing the walk of shame.”
Katherine squinted, turning her gaze back toward the stairs. “There is no shame.”
What there was, however, was her need for a shower and a few gallons of water. She licked her lips at the thought.
“I’d should hope not. Own it, lovely.” Emilie leaned over the worktable in the back room, coated in a warm yellow light streaming through the windows. It only cast shadows where the sun had to bend around sheaths of tulle and across the uneven floorboards. “And with Avril Queen, no less.”
At that, Katherine paused and looked back at her aunt, visibly shaking with delight. “Impressed?”
Her aunt only shrugged. “I told you.”
“Told me what?”
“That you needed to get out and see the world. How you’d meet important people.”
Katherine rolled her eyes. “I think you said fun people, not important.”
“One and the same when it comes to life.”
Sure it was. “You just think you’re psychic.”
She only shrugged, not denying it, and put a hand to her heart. “I’m just so proud. You would make me even prouder, of course, if you managed to get back here on time. We have work to do.”
Katherine shut her eyes at the work she knew her aunt was referring to. Along with balancing the books and learning the ins and outs of running a small business with menial math skills, since the first week, Emilie had insisted on beginning to teach Katherine her one and only talent that made her business the renowned spot in town. Corsets.
The most divine of them had been plastered on Queen’s body for the past few years, showing up in magazines and ordered from anyone from showgirls to women who knew sublime underpinnings when they saw them. Once, someone even commissioned her aunt to make a few for a historical film. They weren’t cheap, but even Katherine sighed with pleasure whenever she ran her hands over the delicate boning while lacing them up on the mannequins positioned before the large bay window.
They were works of art.
Art that Katherine found rather quickly; she was not skilled in making. She insisted it would be much better, as well as profitable, to keep her on making simple sets and keeping up with Rosin’s many burlesque costumes in need of m
inor repair.
All the pieces she had ruined in the past three months should’ve counted as a sin.
“Practice, practice,” Emilie only said quietly from her side of the room, clearing her throat again.
Katherine wished that was all it took. Unlike Emilie, she had little grace in her fingertips when she didn’t know what she was doing. She also didn’t have the knowledge of studying historical underpinnings for most of her life. Her knowledge of sewing came from the same magazines her aunt was once featured in and adjusting hemlines on clothes she bought from the thrift shop she used to work at.
Trying to make up time, Katherine had been studying late at night, flipping through Emilie’s books of fashion and the varied shapes and structures of the sixteenth century onward. There was always another page though, ripped covers and tracing paper stuck inside while her aunt made fun of the host on Wheel of Fortune.
“Don’t give me that look! Change and make tea, will you?” Em tossed her head back to screech before sucking in a large breath of air to cough. She laughed louder as she watched Katherine cringe, trying to hide it within a single nod. “Thank you. There is some aspirin in the medicine cabinet.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Kit, baby?”
Again, Katherine paused and looked back at her aunt. Her carrot-colored wig was a little lopsided as she tapped the back of her scissors to her cheek coated in blusher. “Yes?”
“So proud.”
Katherine gave another very visible eye roll as she made her way up the narrow staircase leading to the apartment beyond.
As if the storefront wasn’t enough for her aunt, freshly divorced with no place to go, the little storefront complete with somewhere to live, built standing against other tiny top-heavy buildings on either side of her, was dropped straight out of nirvana.
Plus, Emilie always loved Ashton after being outside in the suburbs for most of her adult life, trying to fill an empty backyard with children she never pictured herself having nor ever did. She told Katherine the wonders of Ashton the moment she picked her up from the bus station.
You’re going to love it here, Kit, baby. This is a city built on the ashes of dreamers.