Chapter 2
Chapter two
Ingrid
Islipped inside the house, leaning my back against the heavy wood of the front door the moment it clicked shut.
I exhaled a shaky breath, letting my eyelids flutter closed.
The image of him—the dirty blonde hair, the dark ink swirling on his skin, the sharp angle of his jaw—danced behind my eyes.
I had never, in person, seen a man who looked like that.
The men in my world were clean-cut, polished, and safe.
And they had zero tattoos.
He seemed rugged but careful at the same time. He was the kind of man my father would have called dangerous. But he’d been nothing but careful with me.
He was different. Dangerous looking, sure, but quiet. He wasn’t much of a talker, yet there was something solitary about him that pulled me in. And his scent… God, how I wished I could have stolen his hoodie just to wrap myself in that intoxicating aroma of pure man.
My eyes snapped open as the reality of my own thoughts caught up to me. What has gotten into me? If my father ever heard thoughts like that, I could consider the outside world gone forever.
A sudden click made me yelp as the living room lamp flooded the space with warm light. My abuelita was sitting in her usual armchair, a homemade crochet quilt draped over her lap.
“Parece que te divertiste…” she said: Looks like you had fun…
I gulped softly, clutching my bag tighter as I approached the couch.
“Fifteen minutes late. What happened?“ she asked, her eyes sharp but not unkind.
“The girls wanted to stop somewhere for a while. I asked them to take me home, but they were too busy,“ I answered.
She sighed, waving a hand dismissively. “I’ll let you off the hook. Be lucky your parents aren’t home.”
A soft, relieved laugh escaped me. My parents were strict—a suffocating kind of strict that left no room for error.
Abuelita excused it as love, as protection, as them wanting the best for my future but even she knew they had gone too far.
I was an adult and still had to ask permission to step outside.
Sometimes, I wanted to scream that I was twenty years old, but in this house, that would be a death wish.
Abuelita was the only buffer I had. She didn’t like how they treated me, and she didn’t keep it a secret.
She would start entire wars with them, and when they wouldn’t let up, she would simply grant me permission herself.
She argued with them constantly on my behalf.
Sometimes she won, sometimes she didn’t, but she was the only one who ever tried.
I wasn’t brought up to disobey my elders, so in my mind, listening to Abuelita over my parents wasn’t rebellion; it was just following the next command in the chain.
But though softer than my parents, Abuelita’s questioning wasn’t done.
“Who dropped you off? That car wasn’t May’s or Amber’s.”
I felt the heat rise to my cheeks and quickly looked away. “Just one of their friends.”
I sensed she didn’t believe that as her gaze narrowed so I gave my best smile, and said, “I’m going to go practice music before bed. Goodnight, Abuelita.”
I gave her a quick kiss on the forehead. She patted my wrist with an old, weathered hand. Then I hurried away, upstairs, doing my best to ignore that penetrating gaze on my back.
It wasn’t that my abuelita would judge… at least, I didn’t think so.
She fought in my corner enough that I knew I always had her support.
I just… I didn’t really know what had happened tonight, with the strong and brooding man from the tattoo parlor.
The atmosphere in his car, with his hoodie wrapped around me and his scent filling my nostrils and his presence so, so close—it had been heady, almost drunken.
And his number on that scrap of paper in my pocket…
I needed to think. Or not think. My thoughts were racing a loop on a single track. I needed to break them.
The music room was up the stairs, and I slipped inside.
All elegant, polished wood, the music room was impressive. It was also one of my least favorite places in the world. It was a room made to impress guests, not comfort the child forced to grow up in it.
My father had said I must learn an instrument when I was six, gave me no real choice in the matter. So, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday these past fourteen years, this was where I found myself, stationed before my tutor, Mr. Arthur, plucking harp strings until my fingers were calloused and sore.
Normally I would never come here willingly. But Tristian was striding through my head, every little step tickling neurons that sent confused thrills through me. I needed to banish him. I needed something to focus on, a constant drone of something else to drown out the moody tattoo artist.
I set myself in front of my harp, pulled my hair into a loose ponytail, opened my music book, and tried my best to play.
At first, it was slow-going. My fingers fumbled.
Some residual adrenaline remained flowing within me, made the motions shaky.
But in time, I began to move my thoughts away.
The looming form of Tristian moved into the shadows.
The harp, the feel of its strings harsh yet familiar, its music so melodic and soft, filled the room.
For once, it was actually calming.
I let my finger graze over the harp’s strings softly, the melancholy sound hanging in the air, when I heard the door open. Turning my head, I looked up at my older sister. She wore a permanent scowl.
“It’s late,” she grunted, eyes narrowing at me.
I stopped, biting my lip. “Did I wake you? I thought the sound-proofing…”
“I wasn’t asleep,” she replied, ignoring the core of the question.
Camila shouldn’t have heard. Our home was enormous, lavish, built to the highest standard.
The music room was no exception. Thick, heavy sound-proof insulation was built into all four walls, under the floor and in the ceiling.
I could set up an electric guitar on a stack of Marshall amps cranked to ten in here, and no one else in the house should be able to hear it.
She sneered at the harp. “Why are you even bothering with that thing?”
“Mama and Papa said that learning the harp will help me focus better on my studies…” I said softly.
Camila rolled her eyes, the gesture heavy with disdain. “You’re so damn annoying with this Mama and Papa shit—“
“Papa says it’s not good for young ladies to swear,” I cut in, the words automatic, conditioned.
She arched a brow. “And do I look like I care what he says?”
“N-no, but—“
“Exactly,” she said, her voice harsh. “Take a page out of my book instead of this weird baby shit you do. He says jump, you say ‘how high?’ It’s pathetic.”
I was quiet.
She was right. I hated it, but she was.
My parents, both successful accountants, viewed me as an asset to be managed. They wanted me to follow in their footsteps. They had trapped my life in a small, pristine bubble with rigid rules and standards.
It had all started when they lost faith in Camila. She’d become too much, a wildfire they couldn’t extinguish, so they let her burn and eventually, they gave up trying.
They were determined not to repeat that “mistake” with me.
“Why don’t you do something with your hair? I already told you it doesn’t look good.”
I sighed, turning back to fix my music sheets.
All my sister ever did was put me down. There was nothing wrong with my hair.
An unruly mess of waves and curls yes, but it reached past my tailbone when it was a straight curtain of dark silk, and even in a ponytail, it fell gracefully down my back.
It was healthy, with no split ends, yet she always advised me to cut it, as if she wanted to sever the one part of me that was effortlessly perfect.
“I think that’s enough, Camila.”
My father came down the hall. He drew to the music room, a dark scowl upon his face at sight of Camila.
When he appeared in the doorway he filled it completely.
Tall, broad, immaculate. A wall of a man who’d never needed to raise his voice to make a room feel smaller.
His presence did it for him. My spine straightened automatically, the way it always did when he was near.
He must have just gotten home. Despite the late hour, the long day he’d had at work, he was impeccably dressed in a buttoned-up shirt and fitted trousers.
The air instantly grew colder.
“Piss off,” Camila said, shouldering past him.
I cringed as the harsh words were hurled at him, but my father—Samuel Rodriguez—merely tightened his jaw. He tolerated no out-of-line behavior from me, but Camila was a lost cause.
My sister gone, his black gaze turned to me.
“Good evening, Papa,” I murmured. I hated to keep his gaze—he was so intimidating—yet if I so much as glanced away, it would set him off and he would unleash his rage. So I kept my eyes up, obedient.
“You went out today,” he said. “With friends.”
He hadn’t approved. He’d known about it, of course. Abuelita had stepped in when he refused my request this morning, and he’d backed down. Obviously he’d hoped I’d listen to his initial order instead.
He was disappointed I hadn’t. So was I now that I was facing him.
“Did you finish your classwork today?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yes.”
He probed again, looking for something to berate me with, to withdraw permissions—as if I had any. “Morning studies?”
Another nod. “Yes.”
He was quiet a moment, no angle of attack.
“I have a few people I’d like you to meet in a few weeks, and I think you’d benefit a lot from what they have to say. They may even offer you an internship.”
My father was ruthless in his ambition, and to go against his wishes would be unwise. My mother was different, maybe more lenient, although disengaged was a fairer way of putting it. Papa controlled the house. Mama just floated around it, letting him. I was outnumbered.
He looked like he had more to say, but just then, his phone rang. He answered it immediately, turning his back on me and walking out of the room without a backward glance.
I didn’t breathe until the sound of his footsteps disappeared. When they were out of earshot, I hurried to the door and pulled it closed. Then I leaned back against it, finally exhaling a breath that’d been trapped in my lungs.
Inexplicably, my mind turned to Tristian once again, as if that was its default state and the past forty-five minutes had been only a brief interruption.
Somehow, despite the short time I’d spent with him, something seemed to have clicked.
Maybe it was how nice he was, when most people in my world, including my own friends, weren’t.
Or maybe it was something else, something more magnetic.
Whatever it was, somehow I’d felt different—almost free—with him.
I wanted to feel it again. Almost like I wanted to be near him again… Slowly, I reached into my pocket and retrieved the scrap of paper he’d handed me. I unfolded it, my fingers trembling slightly.
His phone number was scrawled in black ink, bold and unapologetic, just like him.
I stared at the digits, my heart hammering against my ribs. I wanted to call him. I wanted to hear his voice. But I wondered what I would say, or if he’d even pick up a call from a girl like me.
I looked down at the paper, my chance at rebellion sitting heavy in my palm.
It… didn’t feel distant anymore.
It felt… possible.
And it felt close.
Almost too close.