I looked at the window, considering the question for a moment before I shrugged.
“I’ll be sure to let you know, when I know the answer to that.”
Do you really think you’ll ever be more than an asset?
A puppet?
You can’t possibly believe you’ll ever be able to function without someone else pulling your strings.
Stupid girl.
Those were the thoughts that woke me from my sleep in the wee hours of the morning, driving me from the warm comfort of my bed. It was frustrating, really, because sleep was already a scarce resource for me – one I refused to augment with artificial means.
Even if it meant I’d be dragging ass for the rest of the day.
It wasn’t as if I had any place to be anyway.
Phone in hand, I went downstairs, to the workroom that was now pretty empty. After a deep dive of research – the one plus side of my insomnia – I’d gotten rid of all the old expired wax, fragrance oils, old candles and everything else that was no longer usable.
And ordered all new things.
Fresh soy wax flakes and wood wicks that would crackle like a fireplace when burned. Essential fragrance oils, and thermometers and all kinds of other shit.
I kinda needed an obsession – somewhere to focus my energy and attention that was… healthy. And I’d found one.
None of the new things had arrived yet, though.
So, I sat down in the middle of the empty workroom, imagining what it could be, and marveling at the fact that I…. was really about to make fucking candles, of all things.
Chuckling to myself, I picked up the phone and unlocked the screen, dialing my mentor’s number. It was early – or late, depending on how you looked at it – but before she’d sent me here, she’d insisted on something.
If you need me… call me.
So I did.
“Are you okay? Did something happen?” she asked, picking up after the second ring. She sounded breathless, but not in ran to the phone kinda way – a suspicion furthered by a male voice mumbling in the background, far too close for him to not be intimately near.
“No. Not really. I’m fine,” I quickly shot off. “Is this a bad time? Because—”
“No,” she insisted. “Will you get off me?” she hissed, half-annoyed, half-giggling, in a damn-near identical tone to what Charlie had been using with her husband in Pot Liquor last week.
That in love sound that grated at me.
“Are you sure?” I asked, not wanting to interrupt, and also not wanting to hear her go back and forth with her lover about whether or not he was going to give her any peace.
“Yes,” she answered, clearing her throat. “Cree is going to behave himself—”
“Hey Tempest!” he called in the background, and despite myself, I smiled.
He was cool.
And fine.
“Tell him I said hello,” I told Alicia, and she delivered the message before demanding that he really did leave her alone, this time.
He promised.
And then he made her giggle again.
Giggle.
As if she wasn’t one of the deadliest Roses the Garden had ever seen, damn near a legend before she left to re-integrate into “normal” society. We were only Roses at the same time for the briefest of periods, but I, like the other girls, idolized her.
Romanticized her story.
The truth was ugly though.
I only barely blamed her for upending my entire life by bringing the Garden down.
“Assuming you’re still in Blackwood, you’re what, three hours ahead of me? So you should be good and sleep right now, but you claim there’s nothing wrong?”
Her mention of the time difference made me not feel as bad about calling at this time – it wasn’t as odd of an hour for her as it was for me.
“There’s not anything wrong,” I insisted. “I can’t sleep.”
“You called because you can’t sleep?”
“I called because I’m going to make candles.”
There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment, and then a quiet, happy chuckle. “You found your hobby.”
“I did.”
“Good. Good,” she repeated. “Does that mean you’re getting settled in pretty well?”
I shrugged, as if she could see me. “It’s fine. I guess. I got my tattoo covered.”
“Really?”
There was a hint of surprise in her voice, but no judgment. We’d talked, at length, about the mental block she’d had for so long about having hers covered or removed – a decision she’d come to realize was for the best.
And… maybe it was.
If she hadn’t been able to show it to me when she requested to meet with me, to help me transition as successfully as she had… I wasn’t sure I would have trusted her.
Hell, I wasn’t sure now that I trusted her.
But that rose made her the closest thing I had to family.
“Yeah,” I answered, after a deep sigh. “It was either that, or I was going to end up carving it off.”
“I’m glad you went with a healthier option. What did you get it covered with? Does it look good?”
“It looks great,” I admitted. “It’s beautiful. The artist who did it, he… he did a wonderful job.”
“Hold up – what was that?”
My eyebrows shot up. “What was what?”
“Your whole entire tone changed when you mentioned the artist.”
“Did it?!”
It was an earnest question.
Tristan and his beautifully inked biceps had flashed in my mind, but I didn’t think—
“Yes, it absolutely did,” she laughed. “So… spill the beans. You met somebody?”
“I’ve met a lot of people,” I lied, and she knew it, because the next thing out of her mouth was a scolding. “Fine,” I admitted. “The guy who did the tat for me… he’s been… not horrible to run into.”
So not horrible to run into that I’d actively avoided it since the day he and his umbrella had rescued me from the rain.
“Is it serious?”
“There’s no it for it to be
