Chapter Seven
Chapter
Seven
April woke up to furious meowing.
Bianca had staked her claim on the small navy love seat in one corner of the cabin, her blue eyes slitted in annoyance, because Bob was sitting on Daphne’s bed and making a horrible racket.
“Bob, shut it,” April said. Early morning light streamed in through windows, casting a lavender glow throughout the room. April pulled the covers over her head and rolled over, but Bob continued his protest.
April sat up in a huff, glaring at her cat.
Which was exactly when she noticed Daphne’s bed was empty.
She grabbed her phone from where it was charging on the nightstand and checked the time.
7:09 a.m.
Far too early to be up and at ’em, in her opinion.
They didn’t have a class until two. She rubbed her face, while Bob continued to meow his own concern, everything that had happened the evening before washing over her.
Honestly, Daphne had reacted better to their Elena connection than April thought she would.
She was stunned, sure. She was upset, absolutely.
But she was calm. She hadn’t even really cried, which was honestly a true shocker.
And then, god, with everything Daphne had shared about her family and how she grew up, how she was completely estranged from her parents…
it was a lot. April didn’t particularly vibe with her parents, that was no secret, but total alienation? That was hard to imagine.
But Daphne was an adult.
She knew herself better than April did.
She knew what she needed, how to take care of herself.
April flopped back down into bed, closed her eyes, and tried to go back to sleep, an effort that lasted exactly fifteen seconds before she threw the covers back and got up. She went to the front door, flung it open, and walked out onto the small porch.
The morning was gorgeous—a cloudless lavender-blue sky brightening by the second, a cool breeze drifting in from the cerulean lake, the trees tall and green around her.
But no sign of April’s cabinmate.
She closed the door, poured the cats some dry food.
She washed her face, brushed her teeth, put on her makeup.
She got dressed in a pair of black jeans and a black racerback tank top.
She made coffee in the tiny pot on the desk.
All the while, Bob mewed for the love of his life, and Daphne refused to appear.
Finally, April texted her a very casual Where the hell are you, then determined not to think about the woman again until it was absolutely necessary.
Unfortunately, by the time nine thirty rolled around, April knew thinking about Daphne was absolutely necessary.
She’d spent most of the past two hours on the porch, trying to drum up some ideas for the Devon—her mind either a complete blank or filled with all the wrong things—but Daphne should’ve arrived by now, back from whatever errand she’d been running or walk she’d been taking.
At the very least, she should’ve answered April’s text.
April didn’t want to feel it—concern—but she felt partially responsible for whatever bender Daphne might have catapulted herself into.
She stood up from the porch chair and tapped around on her phone before pressing the device to her ear.
She walked inside and heard a faint buzzing sound coming from Daphne’s side of the room. She hurried to the nightstand and ripped open the drawer, pulling out Daphne’s vibrating phone.
“Fucking hell,” she said, trying to stay calm. They were in the woods. There was a very large, very deep lake not a hundred feet away. Daphne didn’t know the area. She was a heartbroken disaster. And she didn’t have her phone.
“Fucking hell,” April said again, grabbing her bag and stuffing Daphne’s phone inside before she stormed out the door.
April would not panic.
She would not.
She opted for the lodge first, mostly because she couldn’t drag a lake by herself, had no idea where to start in the woods, and refused to give in to the growing sense of astrological doom.
She was living and working with her cheating ex’s ex, for fuck’s sake, and was now searching the wide world for the woman to make sure she was still breathing.
She’d had enough astrological interference for the time being, thanks very much.
Surely—surely—the universe was done with her for right now.
The main lodge was bustling at this time of morning—breakfast dishes clinking in the dining room, guests walking around with towels over their shoulders and beach bags hanging from their arms—and the whole space smelled like rich espresso and bacon.
April hurried down the hall toward the art studio, hoping Daphne had just gotten up absurdly early to prepare for their class.
Inside the studio, however, the light was off, and it was quiet. April stood in the doorway for only a second before walking toward the front of the room, looking for any sign of her cabinmate.
And she found it.
Many signs in the form of a complete and total mess.
Daphne—well, April assumed it was Daphne—had pulled a table over to an instructor’s easel, then proceeded to use every color of paint in creation.
Brushes of all different sizes littered the tabletop, though some were sticking out of murky glasses of water; at least five white plastic palettes smeared with paints were stacked up like pizza boxes; and there were various rags and paper towels crumpled up all over the place.
“What the fu—”
But April cut herself off when she caught sight of the easel. Or rather, what was on the easel.
A painting of a young girl.
Standing in a field of wildflowers, purples and pinks and yellows and oranges flourishing around her, so lush they might swallow her whole.
The sky was clear, only a few clouds marring the pristine swirls of various shades of blue, a white farmhouse in the distance.
The girl had on a plain white dress, and her blond curls were wild and unruly, as though she was shaking her head vigorously. She looked about nine or ten years old.
It was a standard image. Almost boring, even—a country girl picking flowers.
But her face.
Her face was a blur, as though the paint wasn’t quite dry and someone swiped a hand through her features. April wasn’t sure what it meant, but it made her feel something.
Something big.
“Holy shit,” April whispered, taking a step closer, nearly pressing her nose to the canvas. The textures were incredible, the brushstrokes almost circular. The juxtaposition of the serene landscape with the girl right out of a horror story in the middle of it all…well, it was striking.
“Oh, god, I fell asleep.”
April yelped at the voice, clutching at her chest and whirling toward the sound in the back of the room. Daphne sat up from the love seat in the back corner, her hair a wild mess, and squinted into the sunlit room.
“Jesus,” April said.
“Nope, just me.” Daphne rubbed her face.
“Have you been here all night?”
Daphne stood up and stretched. “I think so? I don’t know. What time is it?”
“Nearly ten.”
“At night?”
April just glanced pointedly toward the sunlight streaming in through the windows.
“Right,” Daphne said, straightening the T-shirt she’d worn to bed the evening before.
“Is this yours?” April asked, motioning toward the painting.
Daphne froze, her mouth dropping open a little. She walked toward the front of the room, eyes never leaving the canvas. She stopped next to April, pressed her folded hands to her mouth.
“Is it?” April asked again.
Daphne nodded, gaze still locked on the blurry girl.
“It’s incredible,” April said.
“Really?” Daphne asked, dropping her hands.
“Are you serious?” April asked. “Do you see this thing?”
“I see it.” Daphne still stared at the painting as though for the first time.
“Is she you?” April asked.
Daphne sighed. “It hurts to look at her, so I think she might be.”
“What do you mean?” April asked.
Daphne shrugged, her eyes a little glassy. “She’s like a bruise that’s not quite healed. Or maybe it’s already healed, but you still remember that achy press.”
April stared at her. Of course, she knew art reflected human experience, pain, joy, everything. But somehow, Daphne’s explanation was like poetry.
“Is that what art is like for you?” Daphne asked.
April frowned, the simple question like a sudden electric shock. She took Daphne’s phone out of her bag, handed it back to her just for something to do with her hands. “My art is ink and needles and working off someone else’s vision.”
Daphne’s eyes scanned the flowering tree curling over April’s collarbones, the vibrant bloom of wisteria and irises on her inner forearm. “You’re a tattoo artist?”
April nodded, her eyes on the blurry-faced girl in the painting.
She was proud of her work. People trusted her with their bodies, and she took that seriously.
She already missed her clients, missed the collaboration, but as she looked at Daphne’s painting, she knew she wanted more too.
Not even more, necessarily, because she loved tattooing, just…
different. She wanted to create something she loved so much that it made her feel drunk.
She hadn’t felt that in a long time. To be taken over by something inside her that didn’t even make sense except on the page.
She wanted to create something for the Devon that changed her, altered her entire world.
And she wanted Nicola to feel that too, feel it so much she had no choice but to put April in her show.
“Will you design a tattoo for me?” Daphne asked.
April lifted her brows. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah, I’m serious,” Daphne said. “Surprise me.”
“Surprise you?” April laughed. “With a tattoo.”
“Just the design. Then we’ll go from there.”
“You don’t strike me as someone who has many tattoos.”
Daphne frowned. “I don’t have any.”
“Exactly. You really want to mar that soft baby skin?”
Daphne’s frown stayed in place as she turned back toward her painting, but her eyes were suddenly distant and sad.
April felt a pinch of guilt. “Look, I didn’t mean—”
“It’s fine,” Daphne said. “I know I’m…” But she trailed off, shrugging and shaking her head.
April sighed, the silence between them thick and heavy. She wanted to thin it out, change it somehow. Offer Daphne something real.
“I was a tattoo artist,” she finally said. “I owned a tattoo shop. Wonderlust. Opened it when I was twenty-three, with some financial help from my parents. And a few weeks ago, I closed it for good.”
Daphne blinked at her. “You mean…”
April nodded. “Couldn’t do it. Even ten years in.”
Daphne let that settle between them for a second, and April was grateful for the beat of space.
“I’m sorry,” Daphne said.
“I haven’t even told my best friend yet,” April said, picking at her nail polish.
“Why not?”
April shrugged, stuffed her hands into her pockets. “She lives across the country right now. She’s busy. She’s…I don’t know. We’re barely talking these days.”
“That all sounds really hard.” Daphne shifted next to her, shoulder just an inch from April’s own. “But I don’t think any of that means you’re not still a tattoo artist. Or any kind of artist you want to be.”
Something in April’s chest went tight—honestly, she wasn’t sure what the hell she wanted to be. Who she was right now at this moment in time. She felt adrift and angry about being adrift, and she had no place to direct her anger, no one to share it with.
No one but Daphne fucking Love.
She nearly laughed at the irony of the whole thing. She motioned toward the painting again. “This is really good. You should do more. Like a series.”
“More?” Daphne said. “This one nearly killed me.”
“Maybe,” April said, “that was the whole point.”