Ink & Snow (Clair de la Lune #1)

6. Chapter Six

Chapter Six

A mory had exhausted Cherry to the point she’d fallen asleep on his lap, and once he left to get to work, I’d moved her back to her box, folding a blanket over her. It was then that I realized I’d been asked on a date.

I growled, and Cherry stirred in her sleep, so I fell silent. Him asking me out was wrong. How I knew this I wasn’t sure, but it was like breathing water, just wrong .

You didn’t want to date him, you wanted to fuck him, that mutinous voice in my head said as I went downstairs to get some more work done.

“I can do both,” I mumbled.

My inner voice laughed, near hysterical. I wonder what Cecil would have to say about that.

No. No, I didn’t fucking wonder. I didn’t want to know, I didn’t care, good riddance.

Propelled by the annoyance and anger the mere thought of Cecil made me feel, I went about making bouquets, rearranging and cleaning the shop, and trying out that antique register. The noise it made while taking money was demonic, perfect for my mood.

At around three in the afternoon—I’d just fed the baby again and changed my shirt because she was a messy eater—I was beginning to flag.

The solution was obvious: make coffee and bring some over to Amory. Him asking me on a date first still irked me, and I knew I had to do something about that. Coffee seemed a good start.

Before I could head upstairs though, I had my first walk-in.

“Hello, Mr. Bennet!” the black-haired guy bringing in a dusting of snow said.

He was on the younger side, polished, though his hair had escaped its neat style and stood up in messy spikes. His big jacket looked both new and expensive. I saw a tie poking out from the collar. And he knew my name. Not a walk-in then.

“That’s me,” I said, approaching him.

He examined my hanging wreaths and the bouquets I’d arranged on the display table. He took a step toward my displays and brushed his finger against the fiery leaf of a poinsettia.

“Hmm. I think I can spend some petty cash.”

“Excuse me?”

“Yes, of course. I was thinking out loud. My name is Elias Cromwell, the mayor’s secretary. We left a cake for you? Did you get the cake, Mr. Bennet?” He smiled. “Did you like it?”

“Yes, I got the cake, thank you. I’m not quite sure how just moving here earned me chocolate cake though.”

Elias gave me a once-over, and he wasn’t shy about it, lingering on my hips and shoulders.

“Well, it’s what we do here in Clair de la Lune. What the mayor does at any rate, and I do whatever the mayor tells me to. He sent me as the welcoming committee on account of my boundless charm and esprit. I’m here to show you around town. And help you with your winter jacket. Dwayne mentioned you need one.”

Fucking small-town gossip. “I think I’ll be fine. I’ve bought jackets for myself all my adult life after all.”

Elias chuckled, lowered his chin. I was sure he was doing it so he could look up at me, show off his long lashes. “But I’m fun company. And I might be able to get you a bargain. Oh, how is the kitty cat?”

“Anything you don’t know?”

“So many things. Your shirt size, although I feel comfortable guessing.”

I’d left a few flowers out to make into bouquets. They sat on the counter next to the register. I rounded it, picked up the shears, and started snapping off leaves and shortening stems.

“That would make me very uncomfortable. And I don’t like being uncomfortable.”

Elias shivered. “You don’t? I find I enjoy it quite a lot.”

On any other day, yes maybe. Elias was very good looking, clearly open to something, and available, from what it looked like. But I didn’t want an Elias. He was a day too late. Now I wanted Amory, wanted to chase the way he’d blushed when talking about piercings all the way to the ones he so clearly hadn’t wanted to bring up right away.

I sighed. “No, thank you.”

Elias gave me doe eyes and sucked his bottom lip. It was all show. Well-curated show, but I’d met his type before. Extremely high maintenance and demanding, even with your cock down their throat.

“Seriously, no thank you,” I repeated.

He pouted. “Fine. Can you please not tell Valentin? He says I can’t flirt with people within five minutes of meeting them. He wouldn’t understand I know you better than that after looking into you. Can I get that wreath in the middle there? It’s so pretty.”

And yes, he had an eye for good work. That one really had turned out the best. So, from all the many options I had to respond, I chose to remain calm and get my ladder from the back.

I wasn’t in the least surprised to see him look at my ass the moment I got up there and unhooked the wreath. I took my time with it, asked, “Why’d you look into me?”

“It’s what I’m supposed to do when new people move in, especially when they start businesses. Can you imagine a florist who’d refuse to handle the flowers for the ceremonies we hold at city hall? The queer ones, obviously. That would be a very big mess, though I don’t think one quite as sizeable as the kinds of messes you’re used to fixing.”

Uh. So he’d gotten it right. Officially, I’d been a business consultant. Unofficially…yes, I’d fixed messes, many of which Cecil had provided me with through his connections, dubious though they were.

“Just to keep the town safe,” I said, stepping down the ladder. “Want this wrapped?”

He beamed. “Oh, yes please! I like a shiny wrapper.”

Of course he did. All the shiny things for this one. “I don’t have shiny I’m afraid. Just plain.”

He shrugged. “The memory of you doing the wrapping will have to suffice.”

If Elias was trying to rile me or get a reaction out of me, he’d fail. Or he’d need to try a lot harder. As I began folding the paper over the wreath, he drifted pretty close, but he didn’t make the mistake of getting into my personal space.

I considered what to charge for the wreath, then doubled it. Elias smiled and pulled out his wallet, counting out cash.

“You might be fun, Mr. Bennet,” he told me as he handed me the money.

“I have no intention of being any fun whatsoever.”

“What a waste of an opportunity that would be. Did our local artist tell you about the club?”

Huh. Amory, the local artist? I really had to check out that tattoo parlor from the inside.

“Your boss’s sex club?”

He brightened like a child being offered candy. “Yes, that’s the one.”

“Mentioned it in passing.”

Elias made a moue. “I’ve been trying to get him there so he can share a fruity cocktail with me. Ah, he can even have his own. You can come too. Our doorperson will let you in. They know a shiny wrapping when they see it.”

“Uh-huh. You see, I have flowers to take care of.”

Elias smiled his broadest smile yet. “All the flowers, yes. Well, if you change your mind—”

He handed me a business card, heavy, black. The design was simple, tasteful, a wave of silk winding around the gold and silver embossed Silken Chains. It had the address, both physical and online.

“Thank you. Have fun with your wreath.”

“I will. I’ll hang it in the mayor’s office. You have to kiss under mistletoe, those’re the rules, you know.”

I wasn’t sure exactly what he was insinuating there, but if that was why he’d gotten the job…no. A secretary kept for the pleasure of their boss wasn’t going to dig into my past and realize what my work had really been. It wasn’t that obvious. I’d made sure of that.

“Uh-huh,” I said, figuring he was just baiting me again.

He was almost at the door when he stopped. “If you change your mind about a tour of the town or the shopping, don’t hesitate to call me.”

“Sure. Take care.”

With a longing sigh and one more look all over my body, he left.

“What a weird fucking town,” I said, flipping the lock and heading upstairs to make coffee.

My jacket really was not suitable for the weather, and I really would have to stop by that outdoorsy place, maybe even get some nice boots, because the sidewalks had a good two inches with more coming. I wasn’t sure who did the clearing, but it looked like the shops themselves were responsible. That got me somewhat excited, because I was an idiot and knew I’d be able to offer Amory my snow clearing services, seeing as how his thumb wouldn’t be improved by physical labor.

Unless it’s labor between the sheets. Hmm.

I tried not to think about that when I stepped into his shop. He had a nice little bell over his door that announced me with a twinkling noise and made him look up from what looked like a teenager in his chair.

“Oh, hi,” he said, a smile creeping over his face.

“Hello, Amory.”

The teenager turned her head to examine me. Fuck. She was wearing a lot of eyeliner, and black was not her color.

“Is that the new Fran?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.

“Do I look like the new Fran?”

She gave me the dismissive teenager stare. “If I knew that, I wouldn’t have asked. Are you going to carry those raw chocolate bars she did? Can’t get them anywhere but Fran’s Flowers.”

“Ella, meet Soyer. Uh. He is the new Fran, I guess,” Amory said, tapping a handheld mirror the girl was angling to see her left ear Amory was about to mark with a pen. “Like that?”

“Yeah, that looks good.” Her eyes darted to me. “You can watch. Are you going to faint when he puts a needle through my ear?”

“No. Are you?”

She snorted, dismissing me fully.

I didn’t want to interrupt Amory while working, so I looked around. The shop was the same width as mine though deeper, lacking the cooling unit and the extra storage room mine had for cleaning supplies and all the extra stock for bouquets and such.

It was also spanking clean, absolutely up to my standards and maybe surpassing them. The black and white checkerboard floor gleamed, the small sink with the soap and disinfectant on the left was spotless, and the mirrors mounted in among drawings and sketches had not a speck of dust on them.

The drawings ranged from large and colorful creatures to black and white abstracts, much like the rose on the sign out front. My eyes caught on a drawing of two characters, one apparently a male version of Medusa, the other Perseus, Athena’s shield in his hand held loosely by his side as the two of them kissed, snakes slithering from Man-dusa’s head to tickle Perseus’s ear and neck.

The art was signed with what I assumed was Amory’s art name, Clair, the C curving elegantly.

“How’d you get your sibling to give you permission?” Amory asked, picking up a needle in his gloved hands. He’d managed to fit a glove over his bandage, which was probably not fun.

“They asked for excellent grades so I got excellent grades. And I got the mayor to give me an internship,” the teenager said.

“Wow.” He pushed the needle through the girl’s ear. She didn’t flinch.

“Exactly. You have no idea how hard I worked to get some guy to shove a needle through my ear. No offense.”

Amory chuckled. “I’m some guy, huh?”

“In the argument I built to get this, yes.”

Amory seemed to struggle a bit to get the piercing screwed in place, but it didn’t show on his face.

“There you go,” he said after a few more seconds.

Ella picked up the mirror and looked at herself. “Yes! Finally. You know, if I ever want to get my belly button done, I’ll have to graduate top of my class.”

Amory whistled. “That would be pretty cool.”

“It would be a metric fuck-ton of work. It’s too bad I can’t bribe you to just do it without calling Rae first.” She looked at me and the thermos mugs in my hand. “I don’t think you can bribe him either. Oh, don’t ever play poker with him. He will gut you and make it look like an accident.”

“Ella, shh!” Amory said, grinning at me as he rolled his little table aside and pulled his gloves off, going slow with the right one.

The kid grinned at me. “You’re welcome, New Fran.”

“Thanks, kid. I appreciate it.”

She made a dismissive noise. “I’m not a kid.”

It took the kid some time to take photos of her new piercing, get her winter coat on, grab her shit, and leave, but she did, and I was finally alone with Amory.

I said, “Sorry I just barged in.”

“No worries.” He cleaned his little rolling table and deposited the needle in one of those special containers usually reserved for doctor’s offices. “I always get walk-ins. You know what you want?” he asked with a cheeky grin.

Oh, did I ever.

I held out the coffee. “I made this especially for you. I want to watch you drink it.”

“You and your coffee,” he said, taking the offered mug from me.

He kicked his little rolling stool toward me and hopped up on his client chair himself, sipped the light roast Americano.

“Ah. This is good coffee, and I really needed it.”

I sat and drank some of my own. “Agreed. Oh, I’ll clear the sidewalk out front for you. Don’t want you to aggravate that hand.”

He blushed, hid it behind the mug. “You don’t have to do that, Soyer.”

There were so many other things I wanted to do to him. Get him out of that sweater he was wearing, ghosts holding bedsheet-covered hands and wearing Santa hats. I wanted to have him in my bed, under me, wanted to kiss those pink lips and never stop. Amory was like catnip. I had never met anyone who had that effect on me.

“I’ll do it. I saw you struggle just now. Don’t think the kid noticed, but you should take it easy.”

He sighed. “Yeah. I’m going to. I’m actually closing up after this and heading home. That means I technically have the afternoon off and time to clear your sidewalk while you set up.”

“Oh, please. Dr. Ben would chase me out of town if he saw you do that for me. Plus, I did enough for the day as far as the shop is concerned. Even had my first customer.”

“Congrats! Can I ask who? Or is that weird?”

I turned left and right on the stool. The thing was well-oiled. “Mayor’s secretary.”

Amory slurped noisily. “Elias knows everything and everyone in town. He’s a little odd, but in a good way.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Did you feed Cherry?”

I chuckled. “Of course I fed Cherry. Demanding little sucker.”

“She’s a baby. Of course she’s demanding.”

Amory looked away to the side as if he wanted to say something but wasn’t sure how. My instinct told me to press him, but it was the instinct that had made me an excellent fixer.

And I’m not that person anymore. Don’t ever want to be that person again.

I finished about half my coffee in silence while Amory thought, stopped thinking, looked at me, went right back to thinking. I couldn’t tell if he liked the silence or if he was hoping I was going to fill it or force words out of him.

I wasn’t going to. Much like Elias could bait me all he wanted, I’d give Amory time to feel comfortable around me. I thought he did, but clearly he wasn’t in the place where he trusted me with his innermost thoughts yet.

Which was a place no one had ever been in with me if I was being honest. I’d fooled myself into thinking Cecil had, of course, but I’d been wrong. And an idiot.

When we were both done with our coffees, I collected the mugs and headed back over to my shop, extracting a promise from Amory to close up and head home so he could rest his hand.

Before I left, I pointed at his male Medusa and Perseus drawing. “I like that one. I don’t know much about art, but it looks like you are really talented. See you around, Amory.”

My words stunned him into blushing speechlessness. Seeing him like that filled me with satisfied warmth.