Chapter 2
SMOKING A DOOBIE
IVY
“Alright, Ivy. I’ve got almost all your appointments rescheduled or moved to The Inkwell.
The only holdout is Darren Miller. You’re supposed to start the line work on his chest piece on the fifteenth.
He’s not happy about the prospect of change and wants to know if you’re willing to come back that day? ”
I roll my eyes as my former apprentice turned right hand-woman, Devi, tucks a pen into the tightly coiled curls she has tied into a ponytail on top of her head.
Of course, Daren Miller is unwilling to work with me on a schedule change.
The dude is a supposed up-and-coming country star (who is currently still playing for tourists and their dollar bills at a honky-tonk off Broadway) and is already in full-on diva mode.
I hate tattooing him. He’s a total bitch about the pain, always twitching and wincing, begging for numbing cream.
He even once asked if I’d be willing to tattoo him while he’s under general anesthesia.
I swear, men are the species’ weak link. We’d all be better off if we could figure out how to reproduce through cloning like those New Mexico whiptail lizards.
Talk about women in men’s fields, right?
But Daren’s money is green, and he’s given me a bit of creative license to turn his skin into an American Traditional flash sheet, so I let him keep coming back.
Turning to Devi, I shove my iPad into my duffel bag and sling it over my shoulder.
“You tell Darren Miller that he can either come to Fox Hole and let me do his line work at The Inkwell, or he can waltz around Nashville shirtless with his chest bare as the day he was born and see if his lackluster personality is enough to lure unsuspecting tourists on Broadway into his bed, okay?”
Devi’s pupils go wide as she gapes at me, stuttering.
She’s the sweetest angel pop I’ve ever met who never has a bad thing to say about anyone.
Even though she’s been working with me since she started as a receptionist and has had her own chair in my studio for years, I still shock the woman with my attitude from time to time.
“I’m kidding, Dev. Don’t worry about Darren. I’ll shoot him a message myself. You handle your own appointments and help the ladies hold down the fort while I’m gone, yeah?”
I offer my fist up, and after Devi’s knuckles meet mine, I throw up a peace sign as I head out the back door. The overhead bell chimes as I step into the night. I know that Devi and the other women who keep Lilith the last thing she needed was me grilling her before showing up to support her.
But Mr. Hudson is right. It doesn’t take a genius to know that whatever happened; it was most definitely the Earl’s fault.
“Well, I’ll let Delilah give you the details, but yeah. I think it’s a good thing that I’m here, too.”
My eyelids droop, exhaustion weighing down on me as I rest my head on Mr. Hudson’s shoulder. He drapes his arm heavy around mine, and the two of us sit together in silence for a moment.
My parents died in a car crash when I was just a baby, leaving this world before I knew what it was like to have a mom and dad.
My dad’s mom, Grandma Millie, took me in and raised me.
She was about a thousand years old and mean to everyone but me, but she truly did her best to take care of me and give me the life I deserved.
I couldn’t have asked for anyone better, but when Delilah and her family came into my life, it was like they filled a void in my heart I hadn’t noticed was even there.
I always missed my own parents, but only in that abstract way you can miss someone you’ve never known.
Henry and Suzanne Hudson have loved me like one of their own since I was a teenager, and I feel incredibly lucky to have a paternal figure to lean on.
I yawn long and loud, and Mr. Hudson gives me a squeeze.
“Go on upstairs, Ivy. You can sleep in Stephen’s old room. Suzanne and I just cleaned all the sheets last weekend.”
“Alright, Old Man. I’ll see you in the morning.
” Mr. Hudson chuckles at my use of the nickname given to him years ago, and I give him a kiss on his stubbly cheek before tiptoeing into the house.
I don’t go to Stephen’s room, though—there is no amount of laundry detergent in the world that would make me okay with sleeping in sheets that once belonged to a teenage boy.
Instead, I quietly crack open the door to Delilah’s room.
She and Sadie are lying in the bed, Sadie snoring away while Delilah murmurs in her sleep, the two of them bathed in the moonlight's glow shining through the window. The lines around Delilah’s eyes and the grown kid I watched her give birth to in her arms are the only indicators of the passage of time.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think we were still sixteen and staying up way too late in this very room playing round after round of M.A.S.H until we got the spouses, homes, jobs, and cars we wanted the most.
A part of me wishes there was room in the bed for me to climb in, too.
To cuddle the two women who mean more to me than anything in the world.
But I know I shouldn’t, and not only because if I squeezed myself onto the sliver of mattress, one or all of us would wind up kicked to the floor by morning.
Instead, I lay down on the carpet, resting my head on a pile of stuffed animals that have been here since I was fourteen, bearing witness to all the highs and lows Delilah and I have navigated together in this room.
I close my eyes, and whether it’s the exhaustion setting in or the sound of my Lilah breathing a few feet away from me, I don’t know. But there on the cold, hard ground of the Hudson’s house, I sleep better than I have in months.