Page 5
Chapter two
RUBY
I moved north for a quieter life.
Apparently, nobody mentioned that to the man who rented the other half of my duplex.
By nine the next morning, I’m standing behind my station at Black Fern Tattoo with coffee in one hand and a pencil in the other, trying very hard not to think about my new neighbor.
It would be easier if he weren’t so irritatingly attractive.
Shaggy dark hair that looks like he’s never introduced it to a comb. Bright blue eyes. A lean body with shoulders broad enough to make his T-shirt fit in ways I noticed despite being busy threatening him over the volume of his music.
And his ass.
I definitely noticed his ass when he turned around.
“You planning to murder somebody with that pencil?”
I look up from the design I’ve been shading and find Nell watching me from the station across the room.
“No.”
“You’ve been attacking the same flower for five minutes.”
I glance down and realize I’ve worked so much graphite into one petal that it’s nearly twice as dark as the rest of the flower.
“Creative process.”
“Looks a bit heavy.”
“I’m exploring contrast.”
Nell snorts and goes back to setting up for her first client.
Black Fern occupies the bottom floor of an old brick building near the center of Redwood Point. The front windows are tall enough to let in whatever daylight makes it through the morning fog, and the dark wood floors have enough scratches to prove the place has been here a while.
I liked it the first time I walked through the door.
No fake skulls. No walls covered floor to ceiling with flash chosen sometime in 1997. No music loud enough to make conversation impossible.
Just clean workstations, local art, plants in the windows, framed pieces from the artists who work here, and the faint mixed smell of disinfectant and coffee.
After San Francisco, the whole town still feels almost suspiciously easy.
My commute takes less than ten minutes. In the city, I used to spend forty-five minutes crawling through traffic to cover a distance I probably could have walked faster in sensible shoes. Here, I leave the duplex, drive past damp sidewalks and opening storefronts, catch glimpses of redwoods rising behind the buildings, and park without circling the block six times or fighting someone for a space.
The pace is slower.
The air smells like rain half the time. People say hello even when they don’t need anything, and somehow the barista down the street already knows my order. I came north for space and breathing room, to escape the constant race between rent, traffic, and whatever professional ladder I was supposed to climb next.
Until yesterday, moving here had been the best decision I’d ever made.
Then my loud new neighbor showed up.
I press my pencil to paper again.
The front bell chimes, and my first client walks in, sparing the peony from any more abuse.
