Page 16 of Painted Scars
I get into my pink apron dress with tiny black daggers. Sweet meets stabby. Hopefully, Burt takes the hint. Over that, I throw a chic white cardigan. Dressed and ready for work, I slide the bug into my pocket and head downstairs to eat breakfast.
Harper’s already at the table, wrapped in her black onesie with black panther spots, cradling coffee like it’s an IV drip. She only wears the thing because it’s black, and I gifted it to her last Christmas. Hair everywhere, eyes red, and mouth set in a scowl, she looks like death reborn—and that’s her style. She’s not a morning person. At. All. If there were a pill to become a Goth Fae or some other gothic creature like a vampire, she’d take it in a heartbeat. After dusk, of course.
Three wooden pots sprouting petunias steal all available space on our kitchen table. A closer examination shows they’re coffin-shaped. Nothing saystrucewith a grouchy neighbor like burial décor. I’m too distracted with more important topics to care.
“Morning!” I chirp.
Josh snorts and curls up on her slipper. Traitor. I wonder what it’s going to take to get him back to Team Kate.
Harper’s eyes do that painful squint as if I’ve exposed her to sunlight and set her on fire. “You missed buttons on your cardigan.”
I check. Shit. Three are out of order, one looped through the wrong hole entirely. I’m a damn mess.
“Thanks.” I fix them into place, smooth my clothes, and run a shaky hand through my flat-ironed curls.
Fashion faux pas corrected, I work off uneasy energy, filling up the kettle and setting it to boil. Then I click on the music to calm and ground me. Celine Dion,Unisonalbum, her first foray into the English language.
Ms. Dion raised me on love songs and abandonment issues. Mom played her when she cleaned the house, cooked, or ironed. Even more so when she was lonely and cried every time she got stood up on a date, or when a man didn’t call back, and she struggled to raise a kid alone. I grew up to Celine’s soundtrack of power ballads, heartbreak, and the throat and lungs of a goddess. Somehow, we both still believe in love.
Harper covers her ears, hiding her dragon wing ear cuffs. “If you playBecause You Loved Meagain, I’m staging an exorcism at breakfast.”
“This is my safe space.” My fingers are still shaking, and my brain is looping through worst-case scenarios, but Celine’s sequins and soprano are my balm.
Busying my hands, I take a cloth to the spilled coffee grounds and scrub like I’m punishing it. I don’t even realize they’re long gone and washed down the sink. On I go, wiping harder and faster, until my hand cramps. Celine hits a high note that I massacre, Harper groans too, and Josh lifts a paw over his eye.
Harper observes me for a beat. “You’ll wipe a hole in the stone, and a fairy will lose another wing with those notes.”
I blink at the gleaming surface. So much for hiding my panic.
Speaking of panic, I remove the reason for it, and drop the listening device beside her cradled coffee mug. “Is that what I think it is?”
She doesn’t blink, and I can’t tell if it’s because she’s tired, doesn’t care, reserves her energy to block out the warbling goddess, or summons the vitality from her drink to kill sunrise.
She shrugs. “A gift from your secret admirer with the helmet kink?”
Funnily enough,Where Does My Heart Beat Nowstarts, and I think of my lonely heart as I flash back to the long chat where we dissected him over hot chocolate and questionable life choices.
“Who is the man that saved me? Enemy or a dark protector?” I pull the blanket tighter over me, wondering if he watches me still, when I swore a dark bike tailed me home.
“Whoever he is, he’s not one of Blackthorn’s men. He’s got a conscience. Blackthorn’s crew doesn’t have one.” Harper sips at her drink like she’s made of stone and doesn’t feel the scald of boiling milk.
My thoughts too. His men travel in black, armored vehicles for protection from bullets, and always in pairs of two muscled meatheads to control the situation.
Tingles radiate across my body at feeling worthy enough to be followed and rescued. I just hope it’s by an obsessive,dangerous man from my books, and not the type who runs me off the road.
“Being rescued is kind of romantic,” I admit.
Harper rolls her head to me. “Those thoughts are reckless and shouldn’t be entertained.”
“Aw. Why do you have to spoil my fantasies?” I shrug and stroke Josh’s back as he lies curled on her lap as if I don’t exist when she’s in the vicinity.
I cradle my mug for warmth and go over every little detail, psychoanalyzing them like I’m in a true-crime podcast.
Harper elbows me. “I’m serious, cupcake. Be smart and safe.”
“I am. I’ve got a can of mace in my handbag.” But I didn’t use it last night.
A weapon I wish I had when… no, not going back there.
