Falling In Love With You

Chapter 20

Kayla

The shop felt haunted after she left. Usually, when a client walks out that door, the energy goes with them, leaving me with nothing but the hum of the refrigerator and the smell of green soap. But Sera—no, the Princess—had left a residue. It was in the air, a faint trace of jasmine and something clinical, like expensive stationery.

I spent an hour scrubbing the station she’d sat on. I bleached the armrest, replaced the barrier film, and reorganized my needles, but my hands were clumsy. My mind kept looping back to the moment I’d tucked that stray lock of blonde hair behind her ear.

What the hell am I doing?

I sat down at my drawing desk and pulled out my sketchbook, but I didn't start on the traditional Japanese sleeve I was supposed to be designing for a regular. Instead, my charcoal pencil began tracing the curve of a ribcage. I found myself drawing the way her skin had dimpled under my thumb, the way her breath had hitched when the needle first broke the surface.

"You’re brooding, Kay," Sam said, appearing from the back room with a grease-stained paper bag. He tossed a burger onto my desk. "Eat. You haven't moved in two hours."

"I'm not brooding. I'm thinking about a composition," I lied, slamming the sketchbook shut.

Sam pulled up a stool, his eyes landing on the biohazard bin where a piece of blood-spotted gauze sat on top. "That girl. The McBurry. She’s different from the usual trust-funders, isn't she?"

I scoffed, unwrapping the burger just to have something to do with my hands. "She’s exactly the same. She’s got a name that buys the city and a face that’s never seen a real problem. She’ll wake up tomorrow, look at that bird, and realize she can't go to the yacht club without a cover-up. She'll regret it within forty-eight hours."

"I don't think so," Sam said thoughtfully. "Most people cry or swear when you hit the ribs. She just... stared at you. Like she was trying to memorize your face so she could survive the pain."

I stopped chewing. That was the part that bothered me. The silence. She hadn't been a client; she’d been a martyr.

"She’s a McBurry, Sam. Her father probably owns the air we’re breathing right now," I said, my voice hardening. "She’s the enemy. People like her are the reason the rent on this block is tripling next month. They don't want us here. They just want our 'aesthetic' once we're gone."

"Then why did you give her your best work?" Sam asked, raising an eyebrow.

I didn't have an answer for that. I looked at my hands—stained with black ink, calloused and scarred. I thought about her hands—soft, manicured, probably never having felt a day of hard labor in her life.

I hated her. I hated everything she represented. But God, I couldn't stop wondering if she was looking at my work in her mirror right now. I wondered if the ink was burning her, or if it was the only thing making her feel warm.

I stayed in the shop long after Sam left, the red neon "OPEN" sign the only light in the room. I pulled out my phone and looked at her contact info—Seraphine. I should delete it. I should block her before she decides to sue me for "corrupting" her image.

Instead, I typed: Don't forget the ointment. Three times a day. If you pick at it, I'll know.

I hovered over the 'Send' button for ten minutes. Then, with a curse, I deleted the draft and threw my phone across the room.

I wasn't going to be the one to break first.