Ink & Snow (Clair de la Lune #1)

2. Chapter Two

Chapter Two

O nce my car was unpacked and the sheriff, his beard, and his snowplow gone, I took a moment and inhaled the flower-scented aroma of the shop.

“This will be good,” I told the place, heading to the counter, and knocking on it. The wood resonated as if to confirm my proclamation.

The shop itself was much like in the photos. The antique register that sat on the counter was eye-catching, even bigger in real life than in the photos. On the wall opposite the counter, the former owner had kept the potted plants as well as shelves with produce from a local farmer she sold here for a cut of the proceeds.

On the table in the center, the finished bouquets would sit, while on the shelves that lined the rest of the place, artisanal soap and candles had their places alongside greeting cards, chocolates, and lots of other cutesy stuff people might need when they shopped for flowers. From what I had been told, the local high schoolers liked the modest selection of stationery right next to their flower-scented hand and lip balm.

My eyes caught on the snow globes, which I knew Fran, the previous owner, had made herself in her downtime. How she managed to have downtime while running a business, I had no idea, but I was going to have to learn the art of making landscapes in miniature, buy them elsewhere, or give up on them. I decided I’d see how the remaining stock sold before making a decision.

I walked over to them to get a closer look, and yes, more than one featured the town name. There was Clair de la Lune Pumpkin Fest with glittery snow and pumpkins next to pies and fall leaves. Clair de la Lune Winter Magic showed the gazebo and the decked-out fir, some carolers, and when I shook it, stars glittered in the water.

“Saccharine.”

I turned and walked back to the counter, finally giving my full attention to the box. Stuck to it was a Post-it with a semi-cryptic message: Housewarming :)

No signature, nothing. Maybe former snowplow Ed or mysterious Elias or the sheriff-call-me-Dwayne had snuck in here with the movers yesterday to leave it. Fuck knew things so far had been weird enough to allow for the possibility.

I pulled the ribbon and opened the box. Inside, there was a chocolate cake, all glossy and inviting. On the frosting, in buttercream white, were the words Welcome to Clair de la Lune!

Okay. Was this the traditional greeting in town? Since it was a chocolate cake, I decided it really didn’t matter. You couldn’t refuse chocolate cake. It was a sacred cosmic rule, and I’d be damned if I broke it. I closed the lid and took the cake upstairs with me.

The stairs were at the back, on the left. On the right was the cool storage where Fran had said she’d put the flowers still in stock. Going by the excellent condition of the potted plants in the shop, I didn’t feel the need to check on those right now, not least because I was still cold and desperately needed that bubble bath.

The movers had sent me photos after they’d completed the job, showing they’d neatly arranged the majority of my boxes and the furniture, so when I arrived on the landing and opened the door, I expected to find everything in order. And it was. Except...

“The fuck,” I said, because it was like an icebox up here.

I turned left into the kitchen and put the cake on one of the counters. Right there, between the sink and the dishwasher, the window stood open. Snow had blown in, covering both the countertop on that side of the kitchen as well as the floor.

“You have to be fucking kidding me.”

I slammed the window shut, nearly slipping and falling on my ass as I did so. I cursed some more, moved to step out of the kitchen, and did fall on my ass.

“Fucking hell,” I said, looking at the ceiling, which had some very nice crown molding the photos hadn’t shown at all. Huh.

Loud steps echoed toward me from the hallway, and moments later, the door burst open.

“Hello? Everything okay?”

Some dude appeared in the kitchen hallway. He was around my age or in his late twenties, though it was difficult to tell with his pom pom winter hat. The hat was black, which was reasonable, but it had pink reindeer on it, and the pom pom was pink. That was completely fucking insane.

“Are you okay? I’ll call Dr. Ben.” He came into the kitchen to squat next to me and pulled out his phone.

I let go of the shock his hat had induced. “I’m fine. No need to call anyone. Although maybe the sheriff.”

His eyes widened. They were real pretty, blue with a circlet of gold in the center. His lips were very pink, but not a lewd pink. They were a subtle color, flower petals crushed and diluted, then carefully applied though he’d not done any such thing, came naturally by that look. My cock took interest, and I realized the universe had finally done me a solid. At a minimum, Pink Pom Pom was the nice guy piece of ass I needed to get over fucking Cecil.

“Was anything stolen? Did someone come in through that window?” he asked.

I grinned and tried to look dapper. Not easy in a puddle of melting snow on a kitchen floor I hadn’t personally cleaned, but I knew to work with what I had.

“Did you?” I asked. “Steal anything when you came in here uninvited?”

He blinked his eyes a few times. “Oh! I’m sorry. You’re talking about me. I’m your neighbor, Amory Saintclair. I own Wicked Lines, the tattoo place next door? I saw the car, figured it was yours since I didn’t know it, and the light was on downstairs. I knocked, but no one answered, and the door was open, so I came in. Then I heard a noise and figured you might need help, so I ran upstairs and—well.” He pulled off a sheepish look that made him appear very young.

I scrambled to my feet, and Amory Saintclair of Wicked Lines helped. It was awkward. It made me feel frail and entirely too self-conscious.

“I forgot to lock the door,” I told him. “And one of the movers left that window open.”

“Oh, that’s why it’s so cold. That’s not very responsible of them.”

“It really fucking isn’t.”

He smiled at me. “You sound mad. Don’t be mad. Life’s too short. I’ll help you clean this up.” He pointed at the cake. “At least you found the mayor’s cake.”

“The mayor left me a fucking cake?”

That smile again. “It’s not a fucking cake, it’s chocolate cake, and it’s just a little welcome to Clair de la Lune. I’ll mop this up for you. I know where Fran keeps the cleaning stuff for downstairs. Won’t even take me a minute.”

Yup. They were saccharine, brainwashed cultists, all of them. Only this one was cute, so I figured I might as well keep him.

“Would you really?” I asked, giving him a long look and batting my eyes.

He scratched the back of his head, blushed slightly, and looked first at my eyes, then my mouth. Ding ding ding! I had a winner here, either gay-curious or the real thing. With any luck, I could fuck Cecil out of my system before bathtime.

“Sure.” He pointed at the puddle. “Watch that. I mean, I’ll be right back, watch out so you don’t fall again.”

The fuck? Did he think I was geriatric or dumb enough to fall on my ass twice in as many minutes?

I put on a sweet smile regardless, deciding I could forgive the cutie who would help me fuck my way into unfettered singlehood even if he didn’t know it yet.

“Of course. Thank you, Amory.”

He nodded, pointed at the apartment door. “I’ll go. Get the mop. For the water.”

I indicated the puddle. “I’ll be right here to watch the puddle and make sure it doesn’t go anywhere.”

He cleared his throat and left, though he looked over his shoulder before he closed the door behind him, meeting my eyes. Yup, he’d do.

Amory came back with a mop and a bucket. Thankfully, he’d gotten rid of the atrocious hat. Yet that minimal undressing was a mixed bag. He’d also taken off his winter jacket, which had been a normal grayish-blue affair. I sort of wished he’d kept it on because the man who owned a tattoo parlor was wearing a fucking holiday sweater. And yes, it was a spooky holiday sweater with a skeleton rather than a reindeer and mostly black as the base color, but honestly, it wasn’t an improvement. If anything, it added to my determination to get him out of his clothes.

By now, night had fully fallen even if it wasn’t that late yet. And while I’d opened a few boxes and surreptitiously watched Amory’s ass while he mopped, I’d managed to locate some of my kitchen stuff.

“You’re staying for cake and coffee, right?” I asked, carrying the box with my coffee maker over.

He straightened and faced me, one hand wrapped around the broom handle. “Oh. Isn’t it late for coffee?”

I shrugged. “I like living on the edge. Plus, it’s still really cold in here. Maybe I can convince you to share body warmth with me.”

“I think Fran actually left a space heater downstairs. Do you want me to fetch it?”

I lifted an eyebrow. Cecil had hated that I could do that. He knew it looked cool, and he was jealous. Served the little fuck right.

Amory just seemed confused. “Do you…not want me to get the space heater?”

Maybe my gaydar was a little off after all, although that hadn’t happened in, well, ever really. There was one other possibility, so I decided to test the waters.

“Do you always fetch things for your boyfriend, Amory? Has he not learned to get his own things instead of making you serve him?”

He turned crimson. It absolutely clashed with his skeleton holiday sweater.

“Uh, I don’t actually, you know. Have one. A boyfriend, I mean. Sorry.”

I reconsidered my initial evaluation of Amory. Yes, he was cute-looking bordering on hot. He had also committed a felony by randomly walking into my home uninvited, then he’d made me look past that by offering to clean up slush from my kitchen floor. And now he was acting all kinds of innocent, almost like he wanted to seduce me rather than the other way around.

He was either deviously calculating or blessedly ignorant and good-hearted, and in that moment, I couldn’t really tell which was worse. Which was better.

“All the more reason to have chocolate cake and coffee with me. Trust me, chocolate is better than boyfriends any day.”

“Oh, okay.”

“You have to close up your shop?”

He shook his head. “Already did that. There are no more bookings for today, and with this weather and it being a weekday, there won’t be any walk-ins. I left a note though, so people can find me, just in case.”

I chuckled, pointed at the mop. “Scared I’ll take that broom from you, beat you over the head with it, and lock you into my basement?”

His eyes went wide. “That is…oddly specific. But no, I don’t think you’re a bad person. Bad people don’t drive electric cars.”

“Which a bad person would know. A bad person might pick the car just to appear good to cute little things who come into other people’s homes like brownies doing chores and spreading cheer. If you’re done in the kitchen, I’m making coffee.”

He nodded. “Brownies… Do you have a knife?”

“Huh?”

He pointed. “For the cake, not for you. I can’t stab yet another neighbor in the back. If they keep vanishing, Dwayne will notice.”

It was my turn to stare at him. Amory wasn’t good at the whole poker face thing though, and before long, he broke out in giggles.

I snorted, took a step closer, and ran my index finger up the mop handle just above the point where he was holding it. “Hilarious.”

“Thank you. I try.” He ignored my finger stroking wood. Was I off my game already?

I kept my poker face in place. “That box there should have what you need.”

He put the mop’s business end in the bucket and leaned it against a wall. As he got ready to open the box, he pushed his sleeves up, revealing color snaking all over his forearms. I couldn’t make out any designs, not from where I was, but I was looking forward to exploring at my leisure later on. Perhaps it could be made into a game, perhaps it could be made into a sweet torture. My lips quirked into a smile before I could stop myself.

Amory found my knives and chose the bread knife for the cake. I was willing to ignore that the poor man was no use in a kitchen. I let him use the bread knife because cake was bread, kind of, but also because one did not correct his first fuck when one was freshly single. While my coffee machine warmed up on the counter, I unwrapped a couple of plates. They were dinner plates, but I hadn’t located the dessert plates yet.

“How’d you get into tattooing?” I asked Amory in an attempt to ignore what he was doing with the bread knife. It just wasn’t the right tool for cutting chocolate cake.

“Oh. I went to art school at first, and I guess it started when a friend asked me to design a tattoo for her. I came along when she had it done. It was fascinating, you know, because it’s a different kind of art than just drawing on paper or digital. You have to take into consideration how the person will move, what the muscles and the skin will do.

“Anyway, I got my first one done not much later, and from there on out, I was sort of hooked.”

He bared his left arm, showing me the inside of his wrist. A prettily shaded crescent moon shone there, so far removed from the night sky, yet bright on Amory’s pale skin.

“That was your first tattoo? That tiny moon?”

“Yeah. Not everyone starts with a big piece, you know. It’s to remind me to keep dreaming.”

Daydreaming, no doubt. “I see.”

He plated two pieces of chocolate cake, and my coffee machine had warmed up. I hit the double espresso button for myself, the sound of it grinding the beans and starting the brew cycle calming.

“I can do Americano, espresso, or regular coffee,” I told Amory.

“Americano, please,” he said. He picked up the plates and headed out to what was to be the living room. “Is the couch okay?”

“Couch, bed, whichever you want.”

“Couch it is then.”

Huh. He didn’t even sound like he was flirty at all. Odd, that, but I was determined.

I finished making his coffee and brought the mugs over. He’d put the plates on one of the moving boxes. I’d not taken the coffee table given that it was a gift from Cecil, and it had gone to the curb with all the rest of the stuff he’d given me.

Amory looked at me. “We need some forks. Or spoons.”

He went back to the box with the knives.

“I don’t think I put the rest of the cutlery in there,” I said, observing him as if this were foreplay. “Try the one on your right.”

“Oh, okay. Moving is a bitch, isn’t it? I spent four years in Korea to learn tattooing there, and packing up everything and then unpacking was just the worst.”

“Oh, I don’t mind unpacking things,” I said suggestively and put the mugs down on the box he’d chosen, probably books or office stuff.

I attempted to position myself on the couch in an enticing fashion. The room was still a mess, of course, given the movers hadn’t really taken care with where they put stuff, and the couch was at an angle. All the same, the off-white wainscoting and the buttery wallpaper above it had to make both me and the furniture stand out. The couch was black, just like my pants and sweater, and at least on that base color, Amory and I could agree.

“I guess you’ll be enjoying—ah! Oh, fuck.”

Amory stood, holding his right hand. Blood welled up from his thumb, creating a color contrast no one needed in that moment.

“Shit.” I stood but realized I didn’t know where my first aid kit was. Amory turned toward me, and the already pale man had just gone as white as a sheet.

He said, “I think I’m about to—” before fainting.

I only just managed to break his fall and make sure he didn’t hit that pretty head of his on one of the boxes with a potentially sharp object in them. The easiest option was to get him to the ground, so I did that, huffing as I manhandled the dead weight of a fainted dude who looked to be about two or three inches taller than me.

He was bleeding a lot, the cut on his thumb looking pretty deep from what I was seeing. I put his hand on his chest for now, lifted his legs. His shoes were slightly wet, either from outside or from mopping.

“Amory? Hey, Amory.”

He came back, slow, eyelids twitching, lips trembling, and then he looked at me.

I didn’t really believe in sparks or love at first sight, yet something about this, Amory looking up at me from the ground, pale, helpless, touched a spot deep inside of me. It wasn’t even a very horny spot. It just felt good, his eyes on me and only me.

“Uh.” He lifted his bleeding hand, and his eyes went wide.

“Leave that. Stay right where you are. I’m going down to my car. I have a first aid kit in there.”

“My sweater. It’s all bloody.”

I looked. It was. The thing also had ink stains on it though, something I only saw now that I was this close and looming.

“I’ll buy you a new one. Stay where you are and don’t fucking move.”

“I have a first aid kit in the shop. I think this needs stitches though.” He looked at his hand, lip twisting at the sight.

“We’ll see about that. Don’t move.”

“Okay. Can you hurry, please?”

I did, taking the steps two at a time. Out on the sidewalk, I nearly fell on my ass again but managed to stay upright. I got the first aid kit and made it back up to the apartment in what had to be record time.

“You doing okay?” I asked.

“No,” Amory said. “I ruined my sweater. I’m sorry.”

I couldn’t help it, I chuckled as I opened the kit and dug through the contents. “I think I should say that.” I opened a sterile wound dressing and started on wrapping his thumb to staunch the bleeding. “This isn’t the kind of treatment anyone should get for breaking and entering.”

He smiled up at me. “Sorry about that. Hey, by the way, you didn’t say what your name was. I think because you were lying on the kitchen floor and all that.”

He’d been mopping my floor and ignoring my flirting without knowing my name? Who did that? Then again, it was a normal thing to do in the early stages of a casual relationship, ignoring people’s names. Which I knew. Because I had done casual before I’d done Cecil. Why the idea of Amory not really caring about my name unsettled me just a fraction, I wasn’t sure.

“Right. You want to guess?” I asked to distract him. For a guy ramming a needle into people’s skin, he sure had an issue with blood it seemed. He was looking all right, just getting more and more upset about it by the second.

He smiled a little. “Are you a John? Or a Mike? We have both in town already, so we’d have to come up with a nickname for you.”

I snorted. “Calling me random, Amory?”

“No. Oh, maybe something fancy like Antonio?”

I rolled my eyes, lifting his free hand so he would hold the gauze in place while I found tape and scissors. “No. It’s Soyer. Soyer Bennet.”

He hummed, a corner of his mouth lifting. “Nice to meet you, Soyer Bennet.”

“Same. Thanks for making it such a memorable occasion.”

“I didn’t. One of your glasses broke, I think, and I found the shards.”

“Right. Do I call someone for you? To come pick you up? Or you could stay.”

The last came out very desperate-sounding, and I bit my tongue.

“Can you, uh, get my phone from my right back pocket? I’ll just call Ben and ask if he’ll come over.”

My eyes narrowed. “Who the fuck is Ben?”

“Dr. Ben,” he said. “He’s really nice.”

So I fumbled Amory’s phone out of his right cheek pocket, so very much not how I’d imagined me touching his butt for the first time would have gone.