With a sweaty palm wrapped around my purse strap and my heart inching into my throat, I round the corner past the kitchen, trek through the carpeted dining room, and poke my head through the double doors leading into the foyer to ensure the coast is clear. I make it to the foot of the stairs when my mother clears her throat.
Glancing up, I see her standing at the top, her lithe arms folded and worry lines etched across her forehead, deep and furrowed as ever.
"Where have you been, Brighton?" she asks.
"Library," I answer, just like I practiced in the car on the drive home. "I lost track of time."
I climb the stairs, slow and easy, hoping she doesn't notice the slight, square-shaped protrusion along the left side of my ribcage. Holding her eyes like my life depends on it, I offer a smile. Casual. The confidence of a skilled liar, not that I speak from experience. This is all very new to me.
"Where are your books?" Her cool gaze moves to my small purse.
I glance down, pausing mid-step. "Oh. Must have left them in the car. That's what I get for being in a hurry."
My mother's gaze warms and she reaches for my cheek when I approach the top landing. A smile tinted with relief spreads across her thin lips.
"Well, you're home now. That's all that matters. Get cleaned up and meet us downstairs," she says. "Happy twenty-second birthday, my sweet girl."
"Thanks, Mom." I slip away from her and duck into my room at the end of the hall. As soon as I close the door and listen for the sound of her footsteps trailing down the stairs, I tear off my blouse and pad into the bathroom to examine my new "piece."
That's what they call it in the industry.
Peeling back the taped gauze, I study the small drawing sketched in black and blue ink, permanently drawn into my skin, the simple yet beautifully drawn butterfly.
I don't even know what it means—if it’s symbolic or it’s nothing more than a butterfly. Madden, the artist, made me promise not to ask what it meant, which I thought was strange. But stranger yet is the fact that I agreed.
Had I said no, I would’ve been left to my own devices, and I probably would’ve walked out of there with some cliché quote or word or worse … nothing at all.
Peeling out of today's clothes, I slip into a dimpled seersucker dress, white with pale blue stripes, and I twist my pale hair into a summery bun at my crown. I finish with earrings - platinum and diamond studs my parents got me on my tenth birthday - after "the incident." The family tragedy that marred our family history and sent my parents into a frenzied state of overprotection that’s yet to show any signs of letting up.
It’s truly a miracle they let me attend a college forty-five minutes away. I’m convinced that had to have been divine intervention.
I check my earrings, ensuring they’re secure. I'm typically selective about when I wear these, and I'm careful never to wear them around my mother, but tiptoeing around the past has done nothing but enslaved us to it. We can't free ourselves from that heinous night if we keep pretending we're over it. And we’ll never get over it when we haven't even processed it a decade later despite years of therapy.
I don't want to hurt my mother. I don't. I love her.
And I know she does everything with love in her heart ... but she has to let me go.
She can't keep treating me like a china doll, keeping me out of reach from anything and anyone who might possibly break me.
I'd love a good break.
Something to snap me in two.
Something that floods my veins with so much emotion, I become physically ill.
I'd love to step out of this protective bubble where I never have to worry about a thing, never have to want. Never have to need or worry or fear or miss out on any of life's grand opportunities.
That's not real life.
I want heartbreak.
I want a good cry.
I want to know what it feels like to miss somebody so hard my chest tightens and I can’t breathe.
I want the head rush of falling deeply and irrevocably in love with someone and the titillating fear of knowing you could lose them if you’re not careful.
There is beauty in those things. There’s beauty in joy and hope and fear and sadness. I learned that from one of my philosophy professors my freshman year at college. He said that none of them work properly without their opposite counterparts and you can’t fully experience one without the other.
Can we ever truly know joy if we’ve never experienced sadness? I think not, but I have no way of knowing for sure since my parents treat me like I'm sixteen and not twenty-two.
They don't see a young woman when they look at me. They see their only daughter, their youngest child who was almost taken from them in an unimaginably tragic crime years ago.
I grab a pair of white linen flats from my closet and change out purses. A moment later, I'm gliding down the stairs, my palm slicking against the polished, antique walnut banister, as my mother is waiting by the door. Her eyes light when she sees me, which means she hasn't yet noticed the earrings.
"You look beautiful, Brighton," she says, placing her hand on the small of my back and guiding me outside. “Radiant as ever.”
My father’s driver, Edward, stands outside the rear passenger door of our Petra gold Rolls-Royce. He tips his hat to us, lifting his white-gloved hand to the brim and nodding, and then gets the door.
"Happy birthday, Birdie-girl." My father looks up from his phone and offers a giant grin. He hasn't called me Birdie-girl in forever and it makes me laugh, makes me forget about this moment for a while. "How does it feel to be twenty-two?" He asks me the way a parent would ask their small child how it feels to turn six. "You measure yourself today? You grow at all?" he teases me.
Same jokes.
Different year.
I laugh to appease him.
Mom climbs in next, the two of them sandwiching me, which almost feels like a metaphor for my life these last twelve years.
The sting from my fresh tattoo zings me when my father shifts in his seat and his suited arm brushes against my side.
A moment later, the Rolls-Royce shifts gears and Edward leads us away from the Iron Palace - my secret nickname for the Karrington Estate, and off to L'Azule we go.
"I wish your brothers were here," Mom says as we ride in the quiet backseat. The scent of new leather fills my lungs, and I realize Dad must have traded this in recently. He only ever keeps a vehicle for six months. Maybe seven. He loves everything to be new and still scented like it was driven off the showroom floor that day.
It’s a frivolous habit if you ask me.
“Me too,” I say.
"Did they call you today to wish you a happy birthday?" she asks.
"Of course." I don't tell her they texted me instead of calling because that's what people do these days. She still insists a phone call is proper protocol and all in good taste.
Edward slows us to a stop at a red light, and when I glance out the window, I spot bumper-to-bumper rush hour traffic.
Mom pushes a breath through her nose as she makes the same discovery, but my father's attention has been redirected back to his phone, making him none the wiser. Always working, that one. He doesn’t care for the concept of after hours.
Digging through my purse for something to do, I finger through the cards in my wallet in search of my license.
I'm going to order a drink tonight. It won't be my first, but it'll be my first time drinking in front of my parents. I don't imagine it'll thrill either of them, but it isn't either of their styles to cause a scene.
And besides, I intend on ordering a glass of champagne, and champagne is for celebrating. It's not like I'll be knocking back Jack and Cokes like I did with the guys at college. Turns out pre-med students at Rothschild University party just as hard as they study.
This is weird ...
I go through my cards two more times. My navy-blue debit card is there. My campus health club card. The access card to the pool at my parents’
country club.
But no license.
Panic in the form of a cold sweat blankets me like a sheet of ice, but a moment later, the prickle of sweat dots the top of my forehead and I'm finding it absolutely stifling in here.
"Dad, can you get your window, please?" I ask, fanning myself.
"Brighton, what is it?" Mom's words are rushed, as if she expects the worst, and she reaches for the back of the seat in front of her, bracing herself as if she's going to ask Edward to pull over.
"Nothing," I lie. "Just got hot all of a sudden. But I'm fine."
"You sure?" Dad asks.
I give them both smiles and enthusiastic nods. My entire life I’ve been responsible, prepared. I never lose things. I always have what I need—especially important things like proper identification. But I can’t help feeling like a part of me is missing.
Because it is.
And I remember now that it must be on the other side of town—at Madd Inkk.
I must have left it there earlier today when I was filling out paperwork. The girl at the desk needed to compare it to the information on the forms, and she must have forgotten to give it back after Madden called for me.
Sucking in a deep breath, I decide to stop mentally chastising myself for being so forgetful, and I remind myself I can head over there first thing in the morning and get it back. I'm not sure when they open, but I remember the owner saying he lived in the apartment above the studio. I'll stop by on my way to barre and grab it.
No big deal.
I'm panicking for nothing.
But the unsettled swirls in my stomach linger, and when I picture the striking features of the brooding Adonis who tattooed me today, they only intensify.
My heart skips - literally skips - when I sense the ghost of his fingertips against my ribcage, as if they've imprinted there. The way he touched me as he worked, so gentle, so careful and tender, was unexpected.
I'm not normally a fan of being treated with proverbial kid gloves, but for some crazy reason, when Madden was so delicate with me, I didn't mind at all. And it's funny. My father has always preached to me about staying away from "boys with fast cars and wicked glints in their eyes" and all of that. He always said those were the heartbreakers. And maybe he's right. A man like Madden could smash my heart into a million tiny shards until it's impossible to piece back together again.
My stomach flips at the thought.
As crazy as it seems, I kind of think it'd be magical.
But my little musing is more impossible than it is crazy. The man clearly loathed me the entire time I was in his presence. I’m two-hundred percent sure I’m the furthest thing from his type and if I so much as suggested hanging out sometime, he’d probably laugh in my face and walk away.
But a girl can dream.
And isn’t that the whole point of dreaming? Fantasizing about what could be if only ...
4
Madden
Morning comes way too damn early the next day when the security notification on my phone chimes not once, not twice, but three times. The wireless doorbell on my shopfront is linked to my phone, set to let me know any time someone rings it after hours.
Or in this case, before hours.
According to the clock on my dresser, it’s not even eight AM.
Rubbing my eyes, I pull up the app on my phone and take a look at the security camera footage. Some woman is standing outside my shop, hands cupped beside her eyes as she peers in through a window.
Sitting up, I watch her for a bit, trying to figure out who the hell would think a tattoo shop in Olwine would be open before noon. With blonde hair piled into a perfect bun on top of her head and skintight leggings and a tank top covering the rest of her, she sure as hell doesn’t look like a local.
I drag my ass out of bed, tug on a shirt, and shuffle across the room to the window above the shopfront. Living above Madd Inkk has its perks.
“Hey,” I call out to the blonde below. She glances to her left, then to her right. “Up here.”
Sliding off oversized sunglasses, she lifts her palm to shield her eyes and glances up.
It’s that girl from yesterday—the one who let me choose her tattoo and did nothing but shake like a wet poodle the entire time she was in my chair.
“Need something?” I ask, hands hooked over the window sill as I lean out.
“I think I left my ID here yesterday,” she says.
“You think you did?” Please tell me she didn’t drive clear across town at this ungodly hour because she can’t find her damn debit card and she thinks she might have left it here.
“I know I did,” she clarifies, shifting on her unblemished ivory sneakers.
“Ever heard of calling first?” I ask.
Or Googling our hours …
“I’ll be down in a second.” I slam the window shut, brush my teeth, splash some water on my face, and change into jeans before heading downstairs.
“Thank you so much. I really appreciate this,” she says when I let her in.
Heading to the front desk, I check under stacks of receipts and paperwork, beneath pen cups and three-ring binders before I find an envelope with the name BRIGHTON on it.
That’d be her.
Can’t forget a name like that.
I rip the envelope and fish out her plastic license, scanning the name on the front.
KARRINGTON, BRIGHTON TAYLOR.
God, even her name sounds rich.
My gaze falls on her birthdate next. A quick calculation tells me that yesterday was her twenty-second birthday. Funny—she looks every bit a young twenty-something but she carries herself like a woman with a few more years under her belt.
Checking that the photo matches, I hand it over. “There you are.”
“Thanks again.” Her voice is breathy as she slides the card into a French blue leather wallet with some designer monogram on the front. YSL it looks like. Whatever that is. “I’m so sorry for waking you.”
“How ‘bout you thank me by getting me a coffee.”
Her golden gaze flicks to mine and she hesitates at first. “Oh. Um. Okay, sure. Where do you want to go?”
“No.” I smirk. “You’re running out to get me a coffee while I jump in the shower.”
I just remembered I’ve got a client coming in around ten today. The guy flew all the way to Chicago from Seattle last night and I promised I’d get him in first thing in the morning—which is ten AM for me.
Honestly, I planned on rolling out of bed closer to nine, but whatever. This extra hour won’t kill me, I guess.
“Look.” She bats her thick lashes and offers a calm, slow smile. “I was offering to be polite, but I draw the line at being ordered around. Thanks again and please enjoy the rest of your day.”
I lift my palms as a sort of wordless apology as she turns to leave. I’m sure people like her are the ones used to ordering others around and vice versa.
Pressing her hand against the door handle, she walks straight into the glass when the thing doesn’t budge. I forgot that the lock sticks sometimes.
I can’t help but laugh, and she shoots me an immediate look that tells me I’m going straight to hell.
Coming out from behind the register, I ready my hex key and jimmy the lock until the door opens.
I’m still cracking up.
“You have to admit that was funny,” I say.
She tightens her little hand over the purse strap on her shoulder and pauses, like she’s about to say something to me, and then she exhales and continues on her way outside.
“Wait,” I say, leaning against the door jamb as she stomps toward her white Volvo. I just tattooed her yesterday—a design of my choosing—and I don’t want her to think of this moment every time she looks at it.
That thing is permanent.
And I respect the hell out of permanence.
Brighton stops, her shoulders falling before she glances back at me with raised brows. There’s a little red mark forming on her foreh
ead where her head hit the glass. Her cheeks are flushed too, though I’m willing to chalk that up to embarrassment.
“Let’s go grab that coffee,” I say, nodding toward the east. “There’s a place on the corner.”
“No, thank you.”
“Come on.” I feel around my back pocket, ensuring I have my wallet and phone on me, and then I step out and lock the door behind me. I’m not taking no for an answer. “My treat.”
Her full lips press together and the loose, baby-fine strands of hair around her face rustle in the breeze. I’m not much of a morning person but this pretty little thing standing in front of me, bathed in the morning light, is almost enough to make me change my mind for a day.
“Look. I feel bad for laughing,” I say, choking back a smirk because that scene won’t stop playing like a six-second Vine video on repeat in my head. “On behalf of my pain-in-the-ass door, let me make it up to you.”
I expect her to say “no thanks” and curtsy her way out of here, but to my surprise she says, “Fine.”
I wait for her to catch up to me before strolling to the café on the corner. It isn’t much to look at. The plain brown sign on the front of the building hasn’t changed since the eighties and the avocado green tiles on the floor make me think of asbestos when I see them, but damn can this place make the hell out of a cup of coffee.
There are two people ahead of us when we arrive, and Brighton stands behind me, arms casually folded as she studies the menu with half-squinted eyes.
When it’s time to order, I go first—a small black coffee—and she orders an Earl Grey tea with almond milk and Splenda.
I hand the cashier a ten and put the change in the tip jar before we wait for our drinks at the end of the bar.
All five tables in the place are spoken for, not that I’d stick around and have a proper morning coffee with this girl. I don’t even know what we’d talk about. I’m not one for small talk and even if I was, something tells me the two of us have nothing in common.
Standing slightly behind her, my gaze is drawn to the bare parts of her back left exposed by her gray tank top and neon yellow sport bra combo. Her skin is silky smooth, creamy but sun-kissed. What I wouldn’t give to run my hands over every naked inch of her …
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