April frowned, watching Daphne’s hair grow more and more lavender. She loved tattooing—loved designing them, placing art on people’s bodies in a way that became part of them forever. But looking back on her childhood, high school, college, she wasn’t sure she’d ever wanted to be one thing or another.
She’d just wanted to create, and as the only child of two parents who didn’t really understand the inclination, she wasn’t sure she’d ever felt the safety to explore. Then in college, she had a curriculum, a path she had to follow.
“I don’t really know,” she said, suddenly wanting to tell Daphne the truth. “After RISD, I moved back home because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do exactly. I started working at a tattoo shop in Concord to pay my bills, but then I liked it. I started apprenticing with the owner and eventually got my license. Opening my own shop just felt like the natural next step. Ramona helped me set up Wonderlust and now here I am.”
“Ramona’s your best friend?”
April nodded. “Ramona Riley.”
“Wait…” Daphne said. “Ramona Riley? Why is that name familiar?”
April laughed. “Probably because she’s dating Dylan Monroe. Quite famously dating her, in fact.”
“Oh my god, that’s right.”
“Yep. That rom-com Dylan was in last year was filmed here in Clover Lake.”
“Now that, I have seen,” Daphne said. “It’s so good. And Ramona grew up here too?”
April nodded. “Her mom left when she was young. She pretty much raised her younger sister, and I…” April trailed off, remembering how after graduation, a few of her RISD friends were going on a road trip across the country, and something about the idea made her feel as though she was made of light. Not just a road trip, but the possibility of it all—being twenty-two, the whole world laid out before her. But she came home to Clover Lake instead.
She thought about that first year back at home, Ramona working at Clover Moon, nine-year-old Olive playing softball and learning long division, and April was involved in all of it. She’dbeen by Ramona’s side the whole way, through all of Olive’s growth spurts and teenage twists and turns. April had felt needed, felt at home with the Rileys. Always had. But looking back on the last ten years, it suddenly felt as though April mostly gave advice Ramona rarely followed, received with a laugh and an eye roll, a joke about April becoming a childless cat lady, or how she needed to try and date someone seriously again.
It’s been a year, Apes.
It’s been two years, Apes.
It’s been three years, Apes.
April always waved Ramona’s concern away, and Ramona never pressed it too hard. Not like April, who knew she pressed too hard on everything. The funny best friend in a rom-com with all the right quips and quirks.
And then Dylan showed up, Ramona fell in love and met Noelle Yang, and there was no one left in Clover Lake to push April to date or get another cat or give her any kind of comfort after closing her business.
No one but Penny fucking Hampton.
“April?” Daphne said softly. “You okay?”
April shook her head, unsure of how long she’d been frozen, her gloved hands stained purple and tangled in Daphne’s hair.
“Sorry,” she said quietly. She blinked, felt her breath go shallow in her chest. Everything felt tight. Fuck, she was about to have a panic attack right there, her hands covered in hair dye like she was a teenager again and wanted to freak out her parents.
So she focused on that.
Breathed in and out and started talking.
“The first time I dyed my hair,” she said slowly, letting the oxygen back into her lungs, “I was sixteen and shoplifted a bottle of blue hair dye from Gallagher’s Grocery.”
Her hands started working again, thumbs massaging the color through Daphne’s tresses.
“Were you a little rebel growing up?” Daphne said.
April laughed. “I went and confessed a week later, gave the cashier a twenty-dollar bill. So, a wannabe rebel, maybe. Soft-core. I thought bright blue hair would get a reaction out of my parents.”
“Did it?”
April went quiet. She’d started the story for something to focus on, forgetting the ending. “Barely a blink,” she said.
She raked the lavender down to the ends of Daphne’s hair, then used a brush to comb everything through evenly. Daphne was quiet for a second, but she didn’t frown in confusion. She didn’t ask for more details or anything else about April’s parents. She just nodded, her eyes soft and knowing; April had to look away.
