7. Maddison
Maddison
“Oh, fuck!” I hear as I crouch down to shove my things back into my purse. “So sorry, girl!”
The impact was hard enough to knock the breath from both of us, phone skidding away, lipstick rolling towards to gutter, keys clattering against the concrete.
“I’m so sorry!” I blurt out at the same time she does, and she drops to her knees opposite me.
“No, no... That was totally my fault,” she says quickly, her voice light and warm. Human. A balm I didn’t realise I needed right now. “I should’ve been watching where I was going.”
I glance up and stall.
Long black hair spills over the girl’s shoulder in a glossy curtain, framing a face that’s sharp in a feline way; High cheekbones, a delicate nose, lips tipped like she’s halfway to a smirk. Her eyes are what catch me, though. Crystalline blue, clear and bright.
She scoops up my phone and hands it to me with a soft smile. “Here. You okay?”
“Yeah,” I say automatically. Though my hands are still shaking. “I mean... yes. Sorry. I wasn’t looking.”
She snorts quietly. “Same. Occupational hazard.”
“Of... walking?” I ask, trying to reassemble my life from the ground.
She laughs, a quick, genuine sound, and gestures over her shoulder. “Work.” Across the street sits a narrow shopfront with blacked-out windows and bold lettering above the door. A tattoo parlour. “Long day. Brain officially clocked out.”
“That makes two of us,” I murmur.
Her gaze flicks over my face, assessing, and then softens. “You look like how I feel. About two seconds from either crying or committing arson.”
I blink. Then, against my will, a breathy laugh escapes me. “Is it that obvious?”
“Only to people who know what to look for,” she says gently, handing me my keys. “I’m a tattoo artist by trade, but technically I’m a therapist when I have the needle in my hand. I’m Roxy, by the way.”
“Maddison.”
“Well, Maddison,” Roxy says, standing and brushing off her ripped black jeans. She’s much shorter than I am, even with her platform Doc Martens. “You look like you need a drink.”
I look at her, not finding the words to reply.
With my upbringing, being homeschooled by people my father deemed good enough and never really seeing people my age except in the work environment, I’ve never really had friends.
Colleagues, sure. Acquaintances, yes. But never a friend.
Is this how people make friends? Running into them in the middle of the street?
“You free tonight?” She pushes, not letting my silences be awkward. “I really could use a drink, and I’ve been dying to try out this cute place on the harbour.”
My smile creeps onto my face without my permission; the idea of having a drink with someone so different from anyone at work has me excited.
“Yes,” I nod. “Yes, I’m free for a drink tonight.”
Her smile widens, and she adds my number into her phone so that she can text me the address for the bar and skips away, while I try to gather myself up enough to go back into work.
I spend the rest of the day sinking into the senator’s event, doing everything in my power to ensure it is one that is talked about for months. One that has everyone’s perception of the sleazy man to be polished into something golden. It’s what I do, after all.
It helps the day fly by, distracting me from the terrible morning I’ve had and that most likely, there is a man in a leather vest, waiting outside somewhere to watch me and report back to his boss.
By the time eight rolls around, my Wednesday workday is complete.
I’ve managed to keep my thoughts strictly on work and not on leather-clad criminals.
My limbs feel heavy in a way that is familiar, and right now a drink sounds perfect.
Roxy sent me the address for the Harbour Bar, and it takes me ten minutes to find the quiet place.
Being a Wednesday, it’s pretty dead, which doesn’t bother me at all.
Parking my car in a gravel lot to the side of the bar, I check my reflection in the rearview mirror.
Why am I so nervous? I take a deep breath of the salty air in.
Walking around the side where I’m parked, the bar sits right near the wharf.
Lights from buildings and street lamps glint off the dark water, the sounds of it lapping at the wharf floating around.
The bar is slightly run down, but nothing like the bar I found myself in last week. Yet, it’s nothing like any bar my work would take me to. It makes me love it all the more.
The uneven floors creak under my heels. The smell of brine and old wood feels comforting.
Warm light spills across the front patio, the windows open to let in the salty night air.
Boats bob gently against the docks outside; their lights reflected like scattered stars across the water.
With the cloudy, moonless night, everything is coated in a sheen of darkness.
Roxy waves me over from a booth next to a large window, already halfway through her first drink.
“You made it!” she grins. “I was worried you’d get trapped in corporate hell.”
Inside, the air is warm and cozy. “Barely escaped,” I laugh, sliding in across from her. “I guess my outfit gave me away, hey?”
She looks me up and down slowly with a cocked eyebrow. “Nobody wears clothes like those, let alone affords them unless they are raking in cash in some wild company.”
I giggle because she’s right and I’m that level of exhausted that makes everything funny.
We order drinks, Roxy asking for a Long Island Iced Tea and me copying her because it sounds perfect right now. The conversation flows as if we’ve known each other longer than the quick, literal run-in.
“So you own the tattoo parlour?” I inquire after two and a half Long Island ice teas and a bowl full of fries. She nods, swirling a fried potato in a tub of ketchup. “What’s that like?”
Roxy shrugs, but she wears a wistful smile on her face. “I dunno. It’s wild, busy days and sleepless nights. But it’s mine, you know? Like I had this vision, and I created it, built it from the ground up with my bare hands. There is something special about that, I think.”
I stare at her, suddenly envious. Because there is something special about that. And I don’t think it’s going to be something I’ll ever get to experience in my lifetime. Everything I own, everything I do, is because of someone else. Everything I know, is controlled by someone else.
My brow draws as I drop my eyes, swirling the straw in my drink in circles, ice cubes clinking around the glass.
“But,” Roxy continues, her eyes slightly glassy.
“A part of me still thinks it’s going to be taken away from me, even if I know it can’t be.
I’ve never really had anything that was all mine, and I always get this feeling like I’ll wake up one day and I’ll lose this little thing that’s mine. Does that make sense?”
A flash of vulnerability crosses her pretty face, and I think for the first time, I’m having a real and honest conversation. One that isn’t full of strategy and games. One that words are said sincerely, and I don’t have to read between the lines.
“It does make sense,” I answer honestly. “And you should be so proud of yourself. I’m proud of you, and I barely know you.”
She nods, smiling, before a mischievous smirk twists her lips. “Proud enough to let me tattoo you? I’m really good and I’m willing to bet you don’t have any ink under those expensive clothes.”
My mouth gapes as I look at her. I’ve never once considered getting a tattoo in my life, and the thought feels so outrageous, even though I know it’s not.
She cackles as she goes on. “Maybe an angel, like those little cherub babies, since you seem so sweet and light like an angel.”
This time my face heats at the mention of angels. A gravelly voice calling me that word in my ear. Goosebumps stand on my skin.
“Fuck, I’m just joking, Maddy!” Roxy snorts, sensing my discomfort. I shake myself off, plastering a smile onto my face and huffing out a laugh. “I know you aren’t the tattoo type.”
She lifts her arms, showing off the patchwork of art covering them, pretty, delicate pieces that suit her perfectly. “We actually couldn’t be more different, could we?”
I study her, black long hair compared to my short blonde. Dazzling blue eyes compared to my brown ones. I’m tallish for a girl, and she is a little pocket rocket. My pale, unmarked skin, to her tanned, inked skin.
“Complete opposites,” I giggle, and she follows suit. “But I like it.”
“So do I.”
Music filters out of a tinny speaker as we sip on our drinks, my eyes peering out of the glass window to the water and wharfs, feeling calm for the first time in a while.
Everything is quiet here. That, mixed with the feeling of laughing, really laughing, for what feels like the first time, has me smiling off into the darkness.
Roxy begins to tell me about the time she tattooed a portrait of some guy’s ex on his back as he tried to win her back, but my eyes narrow on something outside.
The glow.
A soft, pulsing ember in the darkness, beyond the bar’s window.
My laughter falters for a second.
Across the wharf, half- hidden by a streetlamp and shadow, stands the silhouette of a man.
Massive and broad, standing casually as he sucks deeply on a lit cigarette, facing the bar.
His hand rises to grip the cigarette, letting it burn between his fingers, illuminating the sharp cut of his jaw for just a heartbeat before fading again.
I know immediately who he is. Ash.
My pulse kicks up in the visceral way it does only for him. I lift my glass and take another sip, forcing myself back into the conversation while my eyes betray me, flicking back to him again and again. He doesn’t move, just watches from the shadows.
Roxy follows my gaze just once, then looks back to me. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I lie, even though a lump has formed in my throat. “Just... such a long day.”
She studies me for a beat, then nods. “I should probably call it. Early start tomorrow. Wanna share an Uber?”