To Fall for Winter

by Kelsey Kingsley

  The only one that called her back was Canvas & Ink.

  “Well, shite, if anything could make me believe in fate …” I smiled at her back, as I ruined her body forever.

  “Yeah, yeah. Ease up on that pressure there, pal. You’re tattooing me, not carving a fucking turkey.”

  “Sorry,” I grumbled, but I couldn’t contain that smile, watching the needle jut in and out of her skin. Marking her for life. Ruining her forever. That soothing buzz, a lullaby into a place of serene euphoria at the process of doing what I had always wanted to do.

  Christ, who knew I could feel that happy? Who knew I could feel so proud, and like I couldn’t possibly disappoint anybody that mattered?

  “How’s it looking?” she asked, looking at me over her shoulder.

  I wiped away the excess ink, the little droplets of blood, and sat back to admire my handiwork. The tendrilled lines. The sweeping black. “Ehm, pretty feckin’ good, actually.”

  “Are you done yet?”

  “Nah, ya gotta lie on the table.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I gotta tattoo your arse, babe. Markin’ ya for life.”

  “My arse?!” she mocked as she shot me a hard look over her shoulder, wide blue eyes both intrigued and terrified.

  “Sorry, it’s gotta happen. Why, you don’t trust me?”

  Her eyes softened, her lips smiled. “I’d trust you with my life.”

  “Good.” I reached over her, patting the table’s smooth surface. “Get up there.”

  “Oh, good Lord, fine. The cover-up I’m going to need is going to be ridiculous, I can already tell.”

  “Shut up and hop on.” I laughed.

  And then, she was naked, lying flat on the kitchen table, and I thanked Christ that Granny was incapable of climbing the stairs.

  “I can’t believe I ever agreed to letting you do this,” she grumbled, her voice muffled by her arms, folded on the table. “When I told you I wanted you to tattoo me, I was thinking a little thing on my ankle or some shit.”

  I chuckled, working the needle over that delicious slope of milky white skin. “Hey, you can tattoo my arse too, if you want.”

  “Oh, I’m inking you all right, but it won’t be your ass.”

  “Remember who’s holdin’ the machine right now.”

  She groaned, and then laughed. “You know, maybe I’ll get something right above my crotch.”

  “Ehm, how above?”

  “Right above.”

  “Well, if you do decide to do that, you’re lettin’ me do it. No way in feckin’ hell would I be okay with some guy lookin’ at my girlfriend’s—”

  She was laughing. “Oh my God, relax.”

  I grumbled, keeping my hand steady as I worked my way down. “What were ya thinkin’?”

  “The Irish flag,” she said, a giggle tacked onto the end. “Or maybe a shamrock. Or a pot of gold? Or, hey, what about a little Leprechaun? That’d be cute, right?”

  I shook my head with a groan. “Next, you’ll be askin’ me to get matching ring tattoos.”

  I stopped the machine from moving, looking up toward the back of her head, watching for a reaction. My feckin’ mouth; when had it gotten a mind of its own?

  “Well, it’s definitely something to think about,” she said lightly.

  “Not for a long time though, right?” I asked, prodding ever so lightly, testing those waters.

  “Why? We’re not bound by rules, remember? I mean, I did move in with you two weeks after we started seeing each other. That’s a serious relationship no-no.”

  “Ah, right, and we did talk about our exes, and that’s just …” I blew out a heavy sigh, shaking my head. “One of the worst.”

  “Exactly.” I heard her smile, and I locked that bit of information away. About wedding ring tattoos.

  Y’know, just in case.

  ❧

  An hour and a half later, I had finished my very first, very large, tattoo on a human body. But not just any human body; the body of my girlfriend. The woman I was in love with, the woman in love with me.

  I had been nervous. Terrified, even. But the moment that machine had started, and that hum floated into my ears, my psyche was thrummed into a meditation. My hand had remained steadier than I thought it would, the lines were mostly precise, and any mistakes that might have been made seemed fitting, in a way.

  And this was the shite I thought about as I stood back, admiring my handiwork.

  The first body ruined by me, forever.

  The continuation of the tree on her back had been nothing but a series of lines, traveling down to the base of her spine, where it branched into tendrils of curling roots, cascading over her arse, stopping halfway down. Tedious work, and I couldn’t believe she had let me after only a few weeks of practice. But there it was, now a part of her, and I wasn’t disappointed. Not even in the slightest bit.

  I took a picture on my phone and knelt at the head of the table. “Hey, babe,” I said, nudging her gently awake. “You’re done.”

  Her eyes blinked open. “Mm, I can’t believe I fell asleep through that. God, I was so relaxed, even with you digging that thing into me.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think I’ll be diggin’ anything into ya for a little while. You might not be sittin’ down either.” I held the phone out to her, and watched her eyes widen, as she took it in. “What do ya think?”

  Her crystal eyes blinked, her mouth dropped open. “Oh my God, Ryan.”

  “You like it?”

  She touched her fingers to her lips as she bit back the smile. “You did this free-hand?”

  I shrugged. “Well, when you left, I filled a whole sketchbook and I hated it all. It was angry, and ugly, and I ripped them all out—”

  “That explains the balls of paper all over the bedroom.”

  “Yeah, well … After I knew where ya were, I went and drew the tree on your back. Or what I thought it should look like, and this is the basic gist of it.”

  She captured my eyes and held my gaze. “It’s beautiful, Ireland. I think we found what you’re supposed to do. How did it feel?”

  I smiled, suddenly embarrassed. “It felt right.”

  “I’d say. We’ll see how it heals; you might be going over some spots later. But I love it. So. Fucking. Much.”

  “I didn’t ruin your body forever?”

  “No,” she said, tugging at my beard and pulling me in to kiss her, “you fixed it.” And her eyes were fixated again on the picture, staring with awe and adoration.

  That had been the idea, y’know. Giving her a base, giving her roots, giving her a home. Tying her down, making her mine. I wondered if she’d ever know that I had written my name in the mess of those roots. Subtly, among the gnarls and curls, but it was there. To mark her as mine … forever.

  When her eyes finally looked up to mine, allowing me into that wintry world of ice and cozy warmth, I settled in, smiling. Mentally wrapping myself in the blanket I kept there, next to the fire I had built, embracing all of the chaotic unpredictability of being in love with her.

  That was being with winter.

  My kind of crazy.

  EPILOGUE |

  ANNIVERSARIES & LOG CABINS

  One year ago, Snow came to River Canyon. On the first day of winter.

  One year ago, she waited for me outside the River Canyon Animal Clinic and asked me to have sex with her.

  One year ago, I ignored the red flags, and went with it.

  Christ, I’m glad I did.

  I still worked at the animal clinic, trimming nails and making appointments by day. I was content. I liked the animals, I liked the stability. But then, at the end of my shift, I headed over to Canvas & Ink, where I apprenticed under the best tattoo artist in River Canyon.

  If only I could stop staring at her arse long enough to get anything done …

  I proposed to her one night after we closed-up shop. Tre had left early. He was doing that most days, since I started working there, and we had
the place to ourselves. I hadn’t really planned on “popping the question.” It wasn’t this big production or something I had spent hours of my time thinking over. It was spontaneous, spur of the moment, and just a little crazy.

  “Hey babe, so our anniversary is in a couple weeks,” I had said casually, wiping down my table.

  Looking down at the shiny black vinyl, I thought briefly about the client that had just walked happily out of the shop: some guy from New London who had seen my work on the Canvas & Ink website. He had come by, asked for me by name, asked me to design a wicked looking piece to go on his shoulder, and that … Well, that was so, so far from disappointing. That was the shite dreams were made of. Something to be proud of.

  Snow looked up from what she was doing at the autoclave and smirked at me. “I didn’t know we even had an anniversary.”

  “Ah, of course. The first time you asked to fuck me, that’s our anniversary.”

  She laughed. “Okay, sure, I can get on board with that. So, what crazy shit are we going to do to celebrate? Skydive over the Atlantic? Bungee jump off the Eiffel Tower?”

  “Nah, I was thinking somethin’ crazier than all of that,” I said. I wiped my hands on a paper towel and said the very first thing that popped into my mind, just as she had taught me. “I think we should get married.”

  “What? On our anniversary?” she asked, and I nodded, tossing the paper towel into the garbage can. She quirked a brow. “You’re serious?”

  “Yeah, why not?”

  “Because our anniversary is two weeks away. That’s not much time to plan. I mean, I’d have to fly my parents out from Arizona, and then, we have all of your family from whatever Hobbit hole they crawled out of, and—”

  “Da and the three of us are all over six feet tall, and my uncles and cousins aren’t much shorter. Ya really think we came from Hobbit holes?”

  She waved her hand dismissively. “You know what I’m saying. There’s too many people to plan with such short notice.”

  I smirked, crossing my arms and raising a brow. “Do ya really want a big, fancy wedding?”

  She didn’t even hesitate. “Hell no.”

  “Sounds like there’s not much to plan then.” I smiled and walked toward her.

  “God, you really want me to ruin you forever, huh?”

  I laughed, wrapping my arms around her waist. “Babe, you’ve already ruined me forever.”

  Snow bit back her wide-spreading grin and reached a black-nailed hand up to tug at my beard, pulling me down to kiss her. “Okay, Ireland, I’ll marry you. Let’s do it.”

  And so, a week later, we flew Snow’s parents out from the desert. I had been a nervous feckin’ wreck, thinking about meeting them, but her mom—a little thing, just like her daughter—greeted me with a hug and an approving nod. Her dad shook my hand, treated me like a man to be respected.

  Hell, he actually thanked me for taking such good care of his daughter.

  Imagine that.

  And this was the shite I thought about, while Mayor Connie Fischer, town officiant, prattled on and on about the sanctity of marriage. The importance of finding someone to spend your life with. There was something else, about respecting your town that made me narrow my eyes briefly, and I turned to glance at the crowd of people behind us.

  Snow’s parents smiled warmly beside my parents, who beamed with pride. There was Granny, thrilled that Snow was with us to stay, to invade her space and steal her tea. Patrick, my chosen witness; Kinsey, Snow’s chosen witness; their two kids and her fresh baby belly, hopefully housing a boy for Paddy’s sake. And lastly, Sean.

  All of those people. None of them the slightest bit disappointed.

  “Ireland,” Snow hissed, pulling at my hand.

  “Huh?” I turned back to her, a blank expression on my face.

  Connie sighed with agitation. “Ryan, this is very serious business we’re dealing with here. You’d be wise to pay attention. You wouldn’t want to break one of your vows unwittingly, would you?” she scolded, glaring up at me through brows that looked maybe a little too thin.

  My eyes widened with feigned terror. “Can’t say I’d like to piss this one off, no.”

  “Then, for the love of God, listen,” she snapped, and Snow bit down hard on her soft, pink lips.

  “Ryan, repeat—” Connie tapped my shoulder, and I cleared my throat, straightened my back. She twisted her lips around her frustration. “Repeat. After. Me.”

  “You got it, Mayor.”

  “I, Ryan Seamus—”

  “Your middle name is Seamus?” Snow interrupted, and Connie rolled her eyes, smacking her little book against her pudgy thigh.

  “Yep,” I said with a grin.

  “Jesus, that’s really Irish.”

  “She didn’t know your middle name, Ryan?” Sean piped in with a little shake of his head, and I shot him a hard look.

  “Can we please pay attention? I am missing the William Fuller lighting for this, you know.” The Mayor was tapping her toe, practically frothing at the mouth at the group of us, and I nodded as I mumbled, “If you think that’s Irish, Sean’s middle name is Fintan” through the side of my mouth, and Snow giggled.

  “I, Ryan Seamus Kinney, take Ethel—”

  I had been following along, reciting every word with great purpose, until my eyes damn near popped out of my head at the mention of the name I had never heard.

  “Wait, wait, wait a second … Your name is Ethel?”

  Snow only groaned.

  “Focus!” Connie shouted. “I, Ryan Seamus Kinney, take Ethel Catherine Lewis to be my lawfully wedded wife …” I did as I was told, repeating dutifully, while thinking about her name.

  Ethel Catherine Lewis. Christ almighty, that didn’t fit her at all, did it? It was her birthname, but that was all. Nothing fit her nearly as much as that one word: Snow. She would never be anything less to me.

  Snow. Winter.

  Mine.

  It was her turn, and I’ll be honest, I didn’t listen to a word she was saying when she vowed to take me as her husband. I was too busy, constructing my log cabin in the icy world in her eyes. A permanent home, a place to be proud of the man I had become. Granted, I wasn’t much of a handyman, so it was likely to collapse come the next blizzard, but I’d weather the storm. We’d make it through.

  She wasn’t leaving, she wasn’t going anywhere. I’d just climb back in, and I’d rebuild.

  “—rings?”

  “What?”

  Snow sighed. “The rings, Ryan.”

  “Ah, right.” I turned to Patrick, who dropped the two cheap placeholders into my hand. “Got ‘em.” I slid hers onto a slender finger, and then, there was mine. We turned to Connie with impatient excitement, and she waved her hands in the air.

  “Okay, okay. I now pronounce you husband and wife. Go ahead and kiss your bride.”

  “Feck yes,” I growled as I wrapped my arms around my wife, attacking her lips like I had been deprived, engulfing her mouth with my tongue, and she whimpered, going limp against me.

  Snow’s parents turned awkwardly to each other, grimacing a bit.

  “Oh, Jesus,” Patrick groaned. “Meghan, close your eyes.”

  “God, Daddy. You act like I don’t watch TV.”

  “Yeah, well, you don’t need to be seein’ your uncle do the stuff ya see on TV.”

  “Ryan, that’s enough now,” Mam finally scolded.

  It took my hand roaming down Snow’s back for her to finally say something, and I was proud of her.

  ❧

  Our celebratory dinner was held at Mam and Da’s place.

  They had insisted on making us dinner—another dry roast and over-boiled potatoes. Snow’s parents relaxed a little more in the comfort of the homely dining room, and they told stories about their daughter, growing up in a world I couldn’t imagine her in.

  Beaches and sun. Sand and ocean.

  We weren’t far from it all where we lived now, in that little coastal town in
Connecticut, but we had the cold. We had the snow.

  It was where she belonged.

  “She absolutely hated the beach,” her mother said with a forlorn sigh. “We always tried to get her to go, but she’d end up sitting under an umbrella, complaining the whole time.”

  “She never took the heat well,” her father chuckled before taking a swill of beer.

  “Her? At the beach?” Kinsey laughed, bumping her shoulder against Snow’s. “Pictures or it didn’t happen.”

  “Guys, I’m sitting right here,” she said lightheartedly, sitting so close to me, I could feel her blood pumping through her veins.

  Her mother waved a dismissive hand. “At least you found yourself a man who doesn’t look like he’d step foot on a beach either,” she teased gently as her wine glass met her lips.

  I laughed, wrapping my arm tighter around Snow’s shoulders. “Nah, I’m not much of a sun and sandals kind of guy.”

  “And this is why the two of them sleep in coffins, propped up against the wall,” Patrick chided.

  And I took the teasing. I smiled, and I laughed. But mostly, I stared at her. That strange feckin’ woman, my wife, who I was still learning things about. But all of those things—her name, the things she did before she met me, her life of beaches and sun—none of them seemed to matter as much as one simple fact:

  I loved her.

  What else did I really need to know?

  ❧

  After returning home, after tattooing our matching Celtic-knotted wedding bands onto each other, after we had settled Snow’s parents onto the spare bed in her studio, we went to bed with the disdain that we’d have to behave ourselves.

  Or at the very least, stay quiet.

  I helped unzip her dress in front of the mirror, watching the reflection as the straps drooped seductively over her inked arms. Revealing the black lace bra underneath, her two-times pierced navel, and then, her matching thong. Underneath that little strip of see-through material, I saw the glistening of silver between her legs, and I bit my lower lip. I caught her eyes in the mirror, satisfied with the sharp inhale through her nose when I pressed my erection into her back.