Epilogue
THE FRONT WINDOW OF Crown Jewel Tattoo needed one more strand of lights, which put me on a step stool after dark with a staple gun in one hand and a strong suspicion that business ownership was mostly paperwork and upper-body endurance.
Fresh paint warmed under the shop lights.
Disinfectant cut clean through the evergreen garland Crystal had looped over the reception desk, and the new tattoo chair sat under my station light like it was waiting for its first bad decision.
Outside, snow drifted past the glass in soft white flakes, catching in the glow of our sign.
CROWN JEWEL TATTOO.
The shop was mine.
It was ours too, if Crystal was in the mood to let me say that without correcting my bookkeeping language.
"Move that left side down half an inch," Crystal said from behind the counter.
I turned my head. "You're saying that like half an inch is a real amount."
"Half an inch matters when I'm looking at it."
She sat with her pale hair clipped back, cream sweater sleeves pushed to her elbows, and my entire opening week spread over the counter in neat stacks: appointment forms, aftercare cards, a deposit ledger, a permit folder, and a checklist long enough to qualify as light punishment.
Five months ago, my twin had been hiding in a rental cabin with a storage-locker key under her shirt and a warrant with her name on it.
Now the charges were gone. Frank Dugan and Ike Pendleton were locked up where they could enjoy each other's company for a long damn time. Crystal was telling me my Christmas lights were crooked.
Life was weird. I was trying not to complain.
I shifted the strand lower.
"Was that better?"
"That was better," she said.
I stapled the strand in place and stepped down before the stool could become the first casualty of my grand opening.
Crystal glanced over the top of her laptop. "Please don't bleed on anything sterile before we open."
"I've got excellent balance."
"You fell off a curb yesterday because Dex waved from across the street."
"That curb attacked me during a private moment."
Her smile showed up small and real before she went back to the spreadsheet.
The soft click of her keyboard joined the low hum of the fixture and the muffled hush of snow against the window.
My design sheets lined the wall behind me: flowers and anchors, mountain silhouettes, knives with roses, crowns tucked into vines, little jewels cut in black linework and dark shadow.
Each one looked sharp inside a black frame.
I ran my thumb along the edge of one black frame and caught a faint streak of ink on my skin from where I'd touched a fresh test print. I rubbed the streak into my thumb and smiled before I could stop it.
The door opened, and cold air swept in with Dex.
He came through the doorway in dark jeans, boots dusted with snow, and a black winter coat that did rude things to his shoulders. Snow clung to his dark hair and melted along the stubble at his jaw. He carried a paper takeout bag in one hand and a flat package under his other arm.
I tightened my grip on the frame before I remembered I was a grown professional.
Dex took in the lights, the framed designs, and the tattoo chair under my lamp. His gaze came back to me, slow and warm enough to put heat under my skin.
"You did it," he said.
"I supervised very hard," Crystal said from the desk.
Dex glanced at her. "I believe that."
"You should. I've got checklists."
"She has so many checklists," I said. "I'm considering calling someone."
"I brought food," Dex said.
"That offer is accepted. You may stay."
He set the bag on the counter, then leaned down and kissed me like he hadn't seen me twelve hours ago, when I'd left his house wearing one of his thermal shirts under my coat and carrying a duffel I still hadn't unpacked.
The kiss stayed warm, not hot enough to scandalize the unopened aftercare cards, but enough to make Crystal clear her throat with theatrical dignity.
"Some of us are maintaining a professional workplace," she said.
I rested my hand on Dex's chest and faced her. "Some of us made out with a bounty hunter before we had a business license. Standards have been flexible for months."
Dex's mouth twitched against my temple.
Crystal pointed her pen at me. "The same person also got the business license, the sales tax permit, and the appointment deposit policy finished while you argued with a wreath."
"The wreath started it."
"The wreath had no position."
"It had an attitude."
Dex picked up the takeout bag. "I'm staying out of this."
"You're a smart man," Crystal said.
His eyes flicked to me. "I'm learning."
The bell over the door trembled once as the wind pushed at the glass. Snow slid in thin white lines past the window. Across the street, holiday lights wrapped a lamppost, and the town seemed softer than it had any right to after everything summer had done to us.
Crystal's phone buzzed beside her laptop.
She glanced down, and the smile that touched her face wasn't for me, Dex, or a spreadsheet.
I saw it before she tucked the phone facedown.
I drew breath.
Crystal lifted one finger without looking up. "No."
"I didn't say anything."
"You inhaled like you were about to become unbearable."
Dex turned to me. "Were you?"
"Yes," I said. "But quietly."
Crystal stood, gathering a folder, her laptop, and the kind of dignity only a woman with perfect columns could manage. "I'm going to the back office to upload the final intake packets and make sure the printer hasn't decided to ruin our lives."
"You're leaving me alone with him?" I asked.
"I've seen your life choices, and I'm done pretending I can stop them." She softened and touched my arm as she passed. "The lights look good, Jade."
My throat tightened before I could make a joke out of it.
"Thank you," I said.
Crystal squeezed once, then disappeared through the short hallway behind the reception desk. A moment later, the back office door clicked shut.
The front room went quiet.
The room wasn't empty. Clean light fell over my station.
The chair smelled like new vinyl. Ink caps sat sealed in a drawer.
Crystal's neat stacks covered the reception counter, and my drawings filled the walls.
Outside, Whispering Pines moved through the snow with headlights, boots on sidewalk, and Christmas lights shining in store windows.
Dex set the package on my station counter.
"What's that?" I asked.
"Open it."
"If it's tax documents, I'm locking you outside."
"It's not tax documents."
"That was a suspicious answer."
He leaned one hip against the counter. "You've been spending too much time with Crystal."
"I've also been spending time at your house. Your influence had its chance."
His gaze held mine. "That's what I wanted to talk about."
My fingers paused on the cardboard flap.
For months, my life had been split between three places: this half-finished shop, Crystal's apartment, and Dex's house, where my boots had multiplied by the back door and my shampoo had claimed a corner of his shower.
I kept a duffel at Crystal's place, a drawer at Dex's, and a stack of designs waiting here because apparently I'd become a migratory art problem.
I opened it.
The box held a small green key tag, plain and rectangular, with a brass house key attached to a ring.
My breath stopped in a very inconvenient way.
Dex didn't move closer. He let me look at it.
"That's not a shop key," I said.
"No."
"Supply closet?"
"No."
"Is it for a secret dungeon full of permit folders?"
His expression softened, but his eyes stayed serious. "My house."
The overhead lights hummed.
I touched the tag with one finger.
"You've already got one for emergencies," he said. "This one's not for emergencies."
My pulse moved up into my throat.
Dex pushed away from the counter and came closer, stopping in front of me with the counter between us. "You've been going back and forth for five months between Crystal's apartment, my house, and here. You keep half your clothes in three places, and you keep acting like you're visiting everywhere."
"I'm very popular with laundry baskets."
"You've built a loyal following." His thumb brushed the cardboard edge. "Move in with me, Jade."
The words stopped my hand.
The key sat between us, brass and ordinary and dangerous to my ability to breathe. Dex didn't reach for me. He didn't close his hand over mine or push anything closer. He stood there with snow melting on his coat and let the choice stay where he'd put it.
I checked his hands first. His scraped knuckles were long healed, and his strong fingers hung loose at his sides. I saw no cuffs, no file, and no truck keys hidden from me.
Then I raised my eyes to his face.
"You rehearsed that," I said.
"A little."
"In the truck?"
"At a red light."
"That's dangerously romantic for a man who once offered me vending-machine pretzels."
"I've grown."
"You brought takeout in a paper bag."
"I've grown within reason."
A laugh broke out of me, but it shook at the end.
Dex reached across the counter and took my ink-smudged hand. His thumb moved over the side of my finger, the same place he'd kissed in his bedroom months ago when I'd asked whether what we had was real.
"I want you there because you want to be there," he said. "Crystal's safe now. The shop's opening, and you've got places to sleep, so that's not what I'm asking. I want you in my house because it's better when you're in it."
My eyes burned, which was rude and probably bad for my image as a dangerous professional.
"Dex."
"I want your boots by my bed," he said. "I want your station sketches on the kitchen table. I want you stealing my shirts and pretending you didn't."
"I don't pretend."
"You wore one under your coat today."
"It was lonely."
His smile softened. "I hope you say yes."
I picked up the key.
The brass warmed fast against my palm.
The key bit lightly into my palm. My duffel was in Crystal's hallway.
My boots were at Dex's back door. My designs waited under the shop lights.
Three places, three exits I kept pretending were temporary.
Then the printer kicked on in the back office, fussy and alive, and snow tapped softly against the front glass.
The shop glowed around me, new and clean and mine. Dex stood in front of me with a key to his house and no demand in his hands.
I closed my fingers around it.
"Yes," I said.
Dex went very still.
"Yes?"
"Yes. I'll move in with you." My smile came up before the tears could win. "But I'm bringing my own chair, because yours faces the door in a way that makes me concerned about your hobbies."
His laugh came rough and low.
Then Dex came around the counter and pulled me into him, and I went because I wanted to. His arms closed around my waist. Mine slid under his open coat, over the warm cotton of his shirt and the hard shape of his ribs.
I tipped my face up.
Dex kissed me beneath my lit sign.
His hands settled low on my back. My fingers curled in his shirt. The new key pressed into my palm against his shoulder blade, and the sound he made against my mouth sent heat straight through me.
Behind us, Crystal's ledger sat open on the front desk beside the appointment book and the neat stack of aftercare cards. My station light shone over the new chair, wrapped supplies, and framed tattoo designs waiting for opening day.
Outside, the garland cast a soft green shine over the white sidewalk.
Dex held me tighter.
I kissed him back with his house key warm in my hand, his coat damp from the December snowfall, and his arms around me like home.