Chapter 1
JULIA
“There you are.” I let out a sigh as I approach my husband’s station in his studio. “I’ve been calling you.”
Tripp sits on a tattooing chair with his ankle crossed over his leg, carefully guiding the needle of his machine over the small patch of previously-empty skin left on his calf, one of very few spaces on his body not marked with ink.
My eyes scan over the tray next to him; the ink caps, the ink itself, the sterile equipment, and all that I can see is a stack of dollar signs laid out and going to waste.
“There was another no call, no show,” he explains. “I figured I’d take the slot.”
“Tripp…” I sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose. “That’s the third one this week alone. Maybe it’s time to seriously think about—”
“I’m not selling the shop.”
Taking a step closer, I reach for one of the tchotchkes on his desk, likely a gift from a client, and I turn it over in my hand. “If we take out another loan, we’ll have to put a lien on the house.”
His gaze snaps to me as he wipes a paper towel across his skin, pulling blood and excess ink along with it. “Why not the salon, then?”
“Because the salon is actually—” I stop myself, combing my hands through my hair in frustration. “The shop is hemorrhaging money, Lovey. I’ve tried to wait out the ‘rough patch,’ but it’s not just a rough patch anymore. Even with cutting half of your artists, we’re sinking.”
Reaching for the tray next to him, he picks up a squeeze bottle filled with green soap and he sprays it over the area of skin now adorned with a small cherub. Its wings are like that of a gargoyle and its eyes a pure, haunting white. It’s beautiful and disturbing, like all of his work is.
He puts as much passion and care into the tattoos he puts onto his own body as the ones that he gives to his clients; but talent and good customer service just aren’t enough anymore.
I heave a sigh of both frustration and disappointment as I step away from his station, resigned to going home by myself for yet another night. I don’t even remember the last time that we slept in the same bed.
“Jules, wait,” Tripp calls out, and despite myself, I do. Without wrapping his newest tattoo, he walks toward me and wraps his arms around my shoulders, pulling me into his chest to breathe in the subtle musk of his cologne. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to fight with you.”
All we do anymore is fight, I think to myself.
I snake my arms around his middle to squeeze him tightly as I close my eyes, letting myself soak in the warmth of his body and remember the way that it felt to have him dote on me.
I don’t want to fight with him, either. I miss him all of the time. The way that it used to be between us. His fingers in my hair, his lips on mine often enough to annoy everyone around us, his hand always tangled in mine.
My rock. My husband. My entire universe.
I pull away from him and his hand cups my face, his thumb trailing over my cheekbone as he leans down to press a quick, soft kiss to my lips.
Brushing my fingers through his soft, nearly-white hair, I tell him, “We need to tone and trim you this weekend.”
“Pencil me in,” he tells me with a smile. The black gem at the top of his vertical labret piercing shines with the movement of his lips before he presses them to my forehead, and for a moment, I forget how irritated we are with each other. “I’ll see you at home.”
Home.
Formerly our sanctuary, now a place that I don’t think either of us look forward to going at the end of each day. Nearly two years of distance, months of fighting – if not over trivial things, over money, as if we’re living inside of some Hollywood movie cliché – has taken its toll on us.
The hardest part of this whole thing is that, after we fight, the only thing that I want to do is vent to my best friend about it. I can’t do that, though, because I’m married to him.
“I’m home!” I sing as I push open the front door to our townhome.
As I swing my purse off of my shoulder and drop it onto the kitchen table, our small hairless cat jumps up onto the surface and nuzzles his face against my arm.
“Hi, Drumstick. How’s my goodest boy?”
He doesn’t respond to me, of course, but his presence makes me feel at least a little bit less lonely. Scooping him into my arms, I carry him up the stairs and into our bedroom, setting him onto the bed to hang out while I change into a set of pajamas.
I don’t bother pulling out one of my sleek satin sets; I gave up on that months ago. Tripp won’t even bother to come up here when he gets home. He’ll come in, set down his things, shout ‘goodnight, love you, Jules!’ up the stairs and settle onto the couch for the rest of the night.
As I settle into the bed and pull the blankets up to my chest, Drumstick joins me. His small body curls around itself to tuck into the curve of my arm, and I give his rear end a gentle scratch to thank him for his company.
He’s really Tripp’s cat; they chose each other, and if anything ever happened to Drumstick, Tripp would be a wreck over it, but having him here with me feels like having a part of Tripp with me, and I’ll take any piece of him that I can get anymore.
The house smells like bacon and cheese and coffee - everything delicious in this world - when I wake to the sound of my alarm and throw my feet over the side of the bed.
I follow the scent down to the kitchen, where Tripp is working on breakfast with two plates waiting at the table; something that hasn’t happened in a long time.
“You’re up early,” I comment as I settle into my usual seat.
An envelope rests between the plate and the empty glass, which, if he still knows me as well as I think he does, will be filled with orange juice in the next few minutes.
I pick up the envelope, opening it to find a check inside for eight thousand dollars. “What is this?”
“I sold one of the bikes,” he tells me. He brings a carton of orange juice toward the table and begins to fill my glass, and I smile softly at the gesture. “I told you I don’t want to fight with you.”
“This means a lot. This will keep our heads above water.”
My husband is a good man; the best man I’ve ever met, if I’m being truthful. We might fight like cats and dogs lately, and we may even hate each other some days, but his heart is good, and the gesture of selling one of his motorcycles – one that he’s loved for a long time - is not lost on me.
If I were more comfortable on them, I would have thought about selling our SUV before I ever asked him to give up his shop – or anything else that he loves.
I’ve worried a lot over the last year that I might lose him, that our marriage is beyond saving, but this is one of those small moments which show me that maybe my fears are unwarranted. It shows me that, after everything, he still cares.
It shows me that there might still be even the smallest shred of hope for us.
His lips meet the top of my head before he sits down to join me for a breakfast that is more pleasant than most that we’ve had lately. The last time that we had a nice breakfast together was two months ago, when his brother visited us with his girlfriend and her daughter.
It felt performative then, in that restaurant, but this feels as close to real as possible.
I’m not sure exactly when we drifted away from each other or when we started caring as much as we do about our finances. Neither of us used to care about money at all; as long as we had each other and we could do the things that made us happy, we would be fine, but now…
Everything is a battle. Water pressure in the shower, the grocery list, what we’re having for dinner.
Every day feels more and more like we’re hanging on by a thread.
“I have two six-hours today,” he tells me, sticking a piece of bacon into his mouth. “I might not be home until late.”
Would I notice if he was?
“Okay.” I pick at my plate with my fork for a moment, turning too many thoughts over in my head. “I can bring you lunch.”
“I won’t have time,” he says. Standing, he pulls a deep drink from his glass and sets it on the table, leaning over to kiss the top of my head. “See you tonight. Love you.”
“Yeah,” I nod, my lips pulling into a tight smile. “Me too.”
I watch as he plucks his jacket and helmet from their seemingly-permanent resting place on a chair that sits near our front door, once again leaving me alone in the house.
After clearing the table, refilling Drumstick’s water bowl, and taking a quick shower, I stand in the bathroom, swiping mascara through my eyelashes.
I paint my lips a warm cherry red and run a curling iron through my hair to give my locks a nice bouncy curl before tying back the top half with a ribbon, and then I’m out the door.
My salon, like Tripp’s studio, only exists because of my brother-in-law, who gave us the startup money that we needed, and who financially supported us for our first three years here, while we got ourselves established.
When we finally decided to tuck in our feet in Miami, we were down to our last hundred dollars. We were hungry and we were exhausted, but we had dreams, and this was as good a place as any to try to make them come true.
I pull in a breath as I flick the power switch to the overhead lighting, illuminating the flamingo-pink walls and crisp, white furniture waiting inside.
It took some time, but I finally managed to carve out an hour each morning, before everyone else arrives, that I can spend by myself here.
I usually spend that hour updating our website and social media pages or balancing our accounts, but every few weeks, I’ll use that hour to put a quick glaze in my hair, especially if I need a pick-me-up.
Today, the hour is dedicated to posting on our social media pages that we’ll be hiring for someone to help work the front desk.
It will be bittersweet to give up the job, but I’m grateful for the need to; needing to leave the desk means that more clients have been filling our seats, and I can’t run both shows on my own, anymore.
A pang of guilt hits my chest at the thought of my hiring someone new while my husband has had to let go of not just employees, but friends in his shop.
“The honeymoon is over, and I’m back with my wife,” a voice calls into the office.
I let out an excited squeal as my best friend steps through the door wearing a smile, a sunkissed tan, and a brand new wedding band wrapped around her left ring finger.
Jumping up from my desk, I run toward Aislin and wrap her in a crushing hug, rocking side to side as the two of us laugh together.
“How was your trip?” I ask her, pressing my palms to her cheeks.
“Oh my god, so good,” she answers. As she moves to the series of hooks on the wall to reach for her apron, she says, “Our resort was adults-only, so it was sun, sex, and daiquiris all day.”
“I hope rejoining us here in the peasant world won’t be too painful for you,” I tease, bumping my hip against hers as I reach for my own apron to tie it around my waist.
“It already is,” she sighs playfully, “but at least I have the second love of my life here to make it better.”
I remember that – the glow on her face.
I used to glow the same way she is.
Our honeymoon was a stop at a drive thru and three days off of work, not three weeks in the luscious St. Lucia, but it was still just as special. It fit us.
With a breath, I pluck two appointment books from the small stack on top of my desk and hand the one with the holographic cover and the ‘mind your business, not mine’ sticker to Aislin, keeping my soft pink, undecorated one for myself.
While Aislin preps her station for her first client of the day, eventually joined by the other stylists as they trickle in before their shifts, I work on setting up our refreshments area.
We keep a selection of chilled wine, chocolates, and fruits for our clients to sip and munch on while they’re in the salon, and they go absolutely crazy for it.
I get it; it’s the few hours each month that most of them get to take a break from the real world. They don’t have to be Mom or wife or boss or whoever it is that they need to escape from for a little while. It’s the small break they get to be the one who is taken care of, instead.
I tend to do my own hair at my own station rather than having it done by someone else, but while I was in cosmo school, I did teach my husband how to do a shampoo and scalp massage, and every time he’s done it for me since…heaven on Earth.
A sharp pinch to my ass pulls me from my thoughts and forces me to round on the person behind me. Aislin smiles at me innocently as she stuffs a color brush into the pocket of her apron.
“Box wine and charcuterie boards at our place tonight?” She asks.
I consider her offer for a moment, finally shaking my head with a scrunch to my nose.
“I have Negative Nancy in my chair all day,” I tell her. “I think I’ll just want to curl up with my boy and a new book.”
She doesn’t need to know that the boy in question is actually our cat and that my new book is not some trending self help book, but my newest download of unhinged omegaverse smut that would send me into hiding for years if anyone found it on my e-reader.
A girl has to have some secrets, after all.