“Ate on the balcony,” Chelsea finished. “The lemon pasta and white wine, I remember.”
“I was supposed to be working, but you distracted me.”
Chelsea’s mouth split into a grin. “Was I a worthy distraction?”
Daisy’s gaze fell to Chelsea’s boots, then followed her legs to her waist, waist to her collarbones. She tilted her head; a wry, dark smile curved on her face. She didn’t answer, but she didn’t need to. Chelsea felt that look in her bones. It vibrated her insides and caused a delicious pull to tighten below her belly button as a subtle, familiar warmth spread through her veins.
“You made it.” Aiden appeared from the behind the easel. His hands were shoved deep in the pockets of his black pea coat. “Like what you see, Charm School?”
“I do, actually.” She looped her arm around Daisy’s waist and peered at the photographs hung neatly side by side. “Where’s Shannon, wasn’t he just…” Her words trickled away. She took a step, bent closer, and looked at each picture individually.
She focused on the photographs from Laguna Beach: the ocean reflecting a vibrant sunset; Shannon’s hand around a coffee cup; Mercy lounging on the balcony amid Aiden’s jungle of plants; Daisy’s naked back in front of a moonlit beach with fog whispering against her ankles.
How could so much talent manifest itself in these two bodies? How did Daisy and Aiden survive with these things prowling around inside them?
Chelsea shook her head. “These are stunning, Aiden.”
He glanced at Daisy, at Chelsea, and then gestured to one of the larger framed photographs. “This one’s named after the whole collection.”
Chelsea turned her attention to it. Her breath caught.
The photograph was simple and inelegant. Someone who didn’t know the subjects would think what a pretty picture of two pretty girls, but Chelsea knew better. She saw Mountain Road Beach, the sun shining high above them, sand cushioned under two women lying on their sides facing each other, Daisy’s hand on Chelsea’s cheek, waves crashing in the background, the horizon curved around the ridge of their hips and shoulders.
It was all-encompassing. A gentle stirring of then and now, the beginning folding over the present.
Daisy watched Chelsea watch the photograph.
“What’s it called?” Chelsea asked.
Aiden lifted one shoulder in a lazy shrug. “I didn’t know what to call it at first, but I settled on Curved Horizon.”
Chelsea followed the seam of the skyline, where it met the dip of Daisy’s hip and the elongated keys of her ribcage, and nodded. “Fitting. I like it.”
“Me too,” Daisy added.
Aiden nodded, a pleased smile perched on the edges of his mouth. “Glad to hear it. I’ll go find Shannon, he’s probably with Karman and Fae at my brother’s booth.”
Chelsea looked from Curved Horizon to the sketch on top of the table.
Perhaps it wasn’t Daisy’s artistic charisma that brought Chelsea to life on the page; maybe it wasn’t the lens on Aiden’s camera that captured Chelsea. Maybe Chelsea was alive and worthy and beautiful. Maybe she became those things the way an actias caterpillar becomes a luna moth, by being brave enough to outgrow the person she wasn’t, and become this person, this Chelsea, at home and free in a body she owned, as a woman she recognized.
Finally.
Maybe Chelsea was enchanted by Laguna Beach, fascinated with this place and the people that inhabited it. Maybe she had friendships that terrified her and mystified her, the kind she’d always envied and never understood.
Maybe she was in love with Daisy Yuen—an otherworldly woman, who created artwork that spoke mystical languages, who harnessed magic in passing glances and made faith seem like child’s play.
Maybe Chelsea Cavanaugh was violently, wildly, wonderfully happy.
“It’s a good picture of us,” Daisy said, her raspy voice pulling Chelsea from the confines of her thoughts.
“Yes, it sure is.” She grabbed one of Aiden’s business cards and slid it into the front pocket of her jeans. Her fingers wilted from the cold, jarring sensation of a thin metal chain, the necklace she’d stuffed away—the memories and pain and heartache she’d ripped from around her neck that day in the hospital weeks ago. “You want a coffee? I’m gonna head across the street and grab one.”
“Yeah, some tea might be nice.” Daisy stood on the tips of her boots and slid her palm to Chelsea’s cheek. She tilted her head and pressed a light kiss against Chelsea’s lips. “Thanks for coming. I know it’s sort of dumb, but this means a lot to me. I’ve never… I don’t usually show my artwork to people unless I’m at work or it’s one of my friends or…” She heaved a sigh. “You know.”
“I know.” Chelsea kissed Daisy again.
Daisy thumbed the black lipstick off Chelsea’s mouth. “Come right back,” she mumbled playfully.
Chelsea walked to the end of the boardwalk, but instead of stepping onto the sidewalk, she kicked off her boots and headed toward the ocean. She glanced over her shoulder once, catching a glimpse of Daisy chatting with a group of people in front of the booth, then looked toward the other end of the Art Walk, finding Marcus, Karman, Fae, Aiden, and Shannon huddled at Marcus’ face-painting stand. She looked for a moment too long, and Shannon looked up in time to meet her fleeting gaze.
She carried her boots in one hand and fiddled with the locket in her pocket with the other. Her feet kept going on their own accord, toward the wet sand, the foam coughed up by each wave, the water that chilled her as soon as it licked her ankles.
The sound of downtown faded, as if fate muted the rest of the world for a moment, a choice, a reckoning, and listened.
Chelsea felt Shannon before he appeared at her side. “What’re you doin’ out here?” he asked.
She pulled out the locket and thumbed over the pretty filigree design etched into its front. This was the necklace her father had boxed and wrapped and given to her when she turned fourteen, the necklace he’d said would always remind her of his love and support, of her family and origin and destination.
“Here, baby,” her father had said. “I got it just for you.” And he’d slipped it around her neck, bypassing the bruise he’d left the night before. “So you’ll never forget where you came from.”
Shannon didn’t say a word.
Fate continued to listen.
Finally.
Chelsea swung her arm over her head and threw the necklace as hard as she could. She gave it to the ocean, to fate, to the heart of the world, and she felt time move forward. Everything turned and turned and turned.
Finally.
Shannon put his hand on her shoulder.
“Storm’s comin’,” Chelsea whispered. She watched the horizon darken as swells of gray and black whirled together miles and miles off the coast.
“It’ll pass,” Shannon said, “it always does.”
Hot with relief and nostalgia and the rattling presence of surreal newness, she closed her eyes.
Finally.
34
The television turned off in the middle of a Netflix special, the tall lamp next to the entertainment stand died, and the kitchen went dark. Thunder groaned and rumbled outside, the crash of an angry ocean followed, flashes of lightening sent shadows skittering across the ground next to the sliding glass door.
Aiden, claiming that seagulls weren’t the only things out to get him, cursed at the rain and whipping wind as he pulled some of his potted plants inside.
“Well, there goes our Netflix night,” Shannon said. He reached into his messenger bag and pulled out a tablet, which was a little over half-way charged.
“We’ll figure something else out,” Aiden said, stripping off his wet tank top and throwing it somewhere in the hallway. “What book are you reading now?”
“Some high fantasy that Daisy told me about.�
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Aiden hummed in response.
Minutes stretched into an hour. Shannon lit a few candles and set them on the coffee table, the kitchen counter, on the floor next to the door. They listened to the storm rage, palm trees rustle, rain splatter the balcony, car tires cruise over wet asphalt.
Shannon looked at Aiden sprawled on the floor with Mercy pillowed under his cheek and a half-empty beer bottle next to him scrolling endlessly through his phone and thought of all the times not too long ago when he would’ve mistaken this moment for another.
Mercy meowed at Aiden; Aiden meowed back. He tapped impatiently on his phone and adjusted the beanie covering the back of his head. Everything was slow and tempered, domestic in a way that Shannon never imagined they would be. The moment he mistook this for was one they’d visited and revisited—the time right before something went wrong.
But here he was, sitting on the couch with a book in his hands, failing miserably at giving the story any attention, because he was focused instead on his Rose Road, who was lying comfortably on the floor.
The only thing that had gone wrong tonight was the sudden lack of power, and somehow it didn’t seem all that wrong.
“What’re you looking at, Detective?” Aiden said softly. His gaze hadn’t left his phone, but Aiden never had to look to know when Shannon was watching him. Sometimes his level of perception was unnerving. “You can come down here, you know. Mercy won’t mind.”
“I’m reading, actually,” Shannon mumbled, steering his eyes toward the tablet.
Aiden went quiet. Shannon listened to his finger tap on his phone and heard his breathing, deep and unhurried. It went on like that—Shannon pretending to read, and Aiden looking at the same thing over and over again, until Aiden said, “I have an idea.”
Shannon put his tablet down. “I’m listening.”
“You won’t like it.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Let me give you a tattoo.”
This time Shannon went quiet.
Aiden sat up and turned toward him, leaning against the coffee table, one leg propped up by Daisy’s suitcase. The candlelight cast Aiden into a shadowed, dark thing. He tilted his head; lips were stretched into a thin, brave smile.
“Daisy bought ink,” Aiden added softly. “I have plenty of needles.”
The room tilted one way and then another. Shannon wanted to laugh, but for some reason it didn’t seem appropriate. All of Aiden was serious: his hands, his eyes, his tight mouth. Everything about him said he wouldn’t take it back—that was Shannon’s job.
“All right,” Shannon said. He set the book on the coffee table and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “But I get to tattoo you after.”
It always had been entertaining to surprise Aiden Maar. It happened in stages. First, he unwound, his eyes narrowed, and he lifted one brow. Second, he smiled, usually. This smile, for this surprise, happened to be sharp and quick—a reminder of what Aiden was capable of when he wasn’t wrapped up in being a photographer. There was a third stage, but he bypassed it with a short laugh. The bare expanse of collarbones to chest to stomach to hips made it difficult for Shannon to make a decision.
Where should I put the needle?
“Okay,” Aiden rasped. His head tipped back and Shannon caught his gaze wander to the wall, to Catalyst and the rest of his collection. “C’mon,” he rubbed Mercy’s belly before he stood and grabbed a candle from the coffee table. “In the bedroom.”
They dug through Aiden’s closet for more candles, the tiny tealights that people put in lamps and jars. They set them on the dresser, the nightstand, the windowsill. It turned the bedroom into a new realm. Candlelight stained the walls gold and made Aiden’s skin glow against the darkness. Raindrops on the window created shadows that dripped from the ceiling.
“Why did Daisy get tattoo ink?” Shannon watched Aiden’s long fingers go to work on the small container of black liquid.
“It was on sale,” Aiden said, focused entirely on setting the ink on the nightstand without spilling it. He held his palm open. Shannon placed the lighter in his hand. “Tattooing was always her backup plan,” he added, flicking the lighter until it produced a flame. He held a long needle over the flame and twirled it between his thumb and index finger.
“And are you going to tell me why you have a package of needles on hand?”
“We had to use a safety pin to pierce my ear.” Aiden pushed on Shannon’s chest to tell him to lie back. “I thought it might be good to have the supplies necessary in case we decide to spur-of-the-moment pierce something again or tattoo something.” His thighs slid around Shannon’s waist as he dabbed the tip of the needle in the ink.
Shannon listened to the rain. He watched Aiden’s lashes every time he blinked and followed the candlelight shadows dance along his arms and neck. He was distracted enough that when the tip of the needle jabbed his hip, he gasped.
“This is forever,” Aiden whispered. His thumb rubbed across the scar on Shannon’s waist. He hadn’t touched it—not until this night, during this storm.
“I know,” Shannon said.
Aiden kissed him, a chaste press of lips as thunder cracked over the ocean outside, and then pulled away to settle comfortably on Shannon’s thighs. The needle pricked Shannon’s skin once. It stung, and a bead of blood appeared on his hip, right above the seam of his gray sweatpants. Aiden did it again and again and again.
Shannon watched golden light flicker over cheekbones, brows, and earlobes. He watched the storm manifest in the room, on skin, and in breath, and he thought he might be dreaming. It was too dark and too light at once, it was too intimate and too permanent, too real.
Aiden glanced at him. “Does it hurt?”
Shannon saw candlelight reflect off Aiden’s eyes, copper under cinders under earth.
He shook his head.
Sometimes Shannon Wurther mistook one moment for another.
“Jesus Christ,” Daisy hissed, crashing through the door with Chelsea close behind her. “Does this storm ever end?”
Chelsea flung her coat off and tossed it, careful to avoid the slow-burning candles on the floor. “They said it’ll pass in the night, but who knows.” She tugged at her wet sleeve and groaned. “Can I borrow a shirt?”
“Yeah, go ahead,” Daisy gestured at her suitcase. “Where are they?” She stripped off her leather jacket and tossed it on top of Chelsea’s. Her eyes fluttered from Mercy asleep on the couch to the plants gathered by the balcony. Light stretched from the open bedroom door, casting shadows on the wall.
“Shannon’s car is here; Aiden’s bike is here,” Chelsea said, running her fingers through wet hair. She crouched, rummaged through Daisy’s suitcase, and eyed each article of clothing before she settled on a black crop top.
Muffled voices came from the bedroom.
“They knew we were comin’ right?” Chelsea whispered. Her mouth flexed into a grimace, eyes squeezed shut as she waited for another sound.
“Took you guys long enough,” Aiden shouted, followed by a flurry of curses and a whimper. “Ow, careful, Shannon, that’s my skin—you can come in, it’s fine.”
Daisy and Chelsea shared a questioning glance. Chelsea looked far more skeptical than Daisy and less willing to follow her down the hall. Daisy pulled off her beanie, ruffled her hair, and peeked around the frame of Aiden’s bedroom door. What she found wasn’t exactly surprising, but she gasped anyway.
“Stick and poke? Seriously?” Daisy couldn’t help a delighted laugh.
Shannon loomed over Aiden with one hand holding a needle clasped and the other pressed above Aiden’s belly button, holding him down. A tiny crescent moon, fresh and dark, stained the hollow of Aiden’s hipbone, inches away from the wild, flaming phoenix that decorated his side.
“Seriously.” Shannon dabbed at the tattoo with a clean paper
towel. “There, it’s done.”
When Shannon sat back on his heels, Daisy noticed a dime-sized black sun placed below his hip bone.
“You guys gave each other tattoos,” Daisy deadpanned.
Chelsea leaned against the open door and dried her hair with a towel. Her gaze roamed over the two boys, first Shannon, then Aiden, locking on to each tattoo individually.
“They gave each other matching tattoos,” Daisy repeated. She lifted her hand, waving her index finger between the boys. “Like, permanent, real, ink-in-skin tattoos.”
“I can see that.” Chelsea watched Shannon put the needle in a paper towel and bundle it up. She looked curious—intrigued, even. Her gaze didn’t crack or harden; her body stayed loose and relaxed. Her thumbs were hooked through the belt loops on her jeans. “How many more needles are there?”
The room went quiet. Shannon stopped moving altogether. Aiden lifted up on his elbows and analyzed the moon on his hip while a knowing smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth.
Daisy tilted her head, going over all eight syllables that’d left Chelsea’s mouth. Everything kept coming apart and colliding. Things that made sense suddenly didn’t, things that were supposed to be suddenly weren’t, and people suddenly became someone else altogether.
Perhaps Daisy had spent too much time wondering if she would ever know Chelsea Cavanaugh instead of spending that time discovering her.
“Plenty,” Aiden said softly. He looked at Chelsea and arched a brow. “Why? Feeling a little reckless, Charm School?”
“We brought Thai food.” Chelsea finished drying her hair, which toppled over her shoulders in damp blond waves. “And my recklessness is none of your business, Aiden Maar. If I would like Daisy to give me a tattoo, I’m allowed to ask her.”
“You swore,” Shannon growled, pointing a finger accusingly at Chelsea. “You said tattoos were trashy, that only punks and criminals got them! I wanted a tattoo when I was eighteen, and you said you’d break up with me if I got one.”
Aiden lifted a brow and shrugged.
Curved Horizon Page 29
