The Reinvention of the Rose Read online

  And his arms.

  Full sleeves covered with beautiful ink I hadn’t fully examined yet. From my short-term memory, I could pull forth landscapes and flowers, dates and names, faces, military references that made me think that like me, he’d served his country.

  I mean… if you wanted to phrase it in such a polite manner.

  He wasn’t touching me there, but I felt him deep between my legs – inside me.

  It was… strange.

  This feeling I’d heard about, been trained to emulate – the kind of profound arousal I’d mimicked but never actually, deeply, felt. Not in my time in service to the Garden, and not in the time after – the strange, meaningless year without an assignment, without instruction.

  Without… purpose.

  It was numbing.

  Utterly, completely, but with Tristan over me, with his body heat permeating my personal space and the clean, woodsy scent of him filling my nose… I felt something.

  Everything.

  I opened my eyes, watching his deep level of concentration play across his features as he worked. The pink tip of his tongue jutted from between his lips for a few seconds, and his eyes narrowed, like he’d reached some difficult part. His thick eyebrows knitted together, forcing the wrinkling of his forehead in the middles as he focused.

  And then, he caught me staring at him.

  Again, he pulled the machine away from my skin as his lips parted, mouth spreading into a wicked sort of smile that had likely wiped away the inhibitions of a long, long line of women… maybe right here in this chair.

  “What’s on your mind?” he asked, studying me as he sat back. This time, he switched the machine off. “You look like you’ve got something to say.”

  “Nope. Just observing.”

  His gaze traveled over me, slow and deliberate.

  Heated.

  “Seemed like some pretty deep observation.”

  “Like what you’re doing now?” I raised an eyebrow at him.

  His perusal of me was far from professional, but I wasn’t bothered by that – nor was I surprised. I was well-aware of the effect I had on people – men and women. My looks were a carefully cultivated asset that had served me quite well. A face and body with the ability to straddle the dichotomy between innocently angelic and downright devilish.

  And yet, even with this knowledge – this gift, some might call it… I’d never fucked a man simply because I wanted to, before.

  Maybe I’ll start with him.

  “What is it that you do?” he asked, finally sitting forward again, ready to work. “Like, for a living. Besides make motherfuckers crash into rocks?”

  That made me smile.

  He was smart enough to peg me as exactly what I was – a deadly siren, ready to lure men to their deaths – although, of course, he thought it was metaphorical.

  “I’m… on sabbatical right now,” I told him.

  His gaze followed my tongue as I raked it over my lips, one eyebrow hiking as he turned the machine back on. “What does that mean?”

  If he didn’t have the needle on my skin, I would’ve shrugged. “ that I’m taking a break from it all. To find myself.”

  “Yeah?” he asked, half distracted by what he was doing. “How is that working out for you?”

  “It isn’t,” would’ve been the honest answer.

  Not even in the slightest.

  “I’ve been adrift, actually,” I told him, because he, like everyone else, was a stranger. “No focus.”

  “I thought the lack of focus was the whole purpose of taking a sabbatical. A… perk.”

  My gaze drifted up to his again, back to those beautiful dark coffee eyes. “It would seem that way, huh?” I asked, not blinking until he gave his attention back to my skin. We’d been at this for hours, but I refused to look down until it was ready. Until the rose was gone. “I guess… most people would relish the idea of such freedom.”

  His mouth curved at the corners, white teeth appearing to sink into the soft flesh of his bottom lip, scolding it and suppressing a smile. “You’re not most, are you?” he muttered, more to himself than me.

  You have no idea.

  “What did you do before this?” he asked, reinforcing my feeling that his other question was only barely meant to be spoken aloud. “Before your… sabbatical?”

  “Followed orders.”

  He scoffed, chuckling a bit until his eyes drifted back to meet mine, and he realized I wasn’t joking. “Really? You?”

  “Really. Me.”

  One thick, barely-tamed eyebrow went up. “Wouldn’t have thought you were the type.”

  “What type would you have thought?”

  “I told you that already… when I asked about your job before, remember? You were cagey about it then too,” he chuckled. “What are you, some kinda secret agent or something? You did pop up in the neighborhood out of nowhere, getting’ niggas kicked out of the coffeehouse for coming at you wrong. So really, it checks out.”

  “Wouldn’t I have to kill you, if I told you something like that?” I returned his smile with one of my own, mimicking that lip-bite thing he’d done. “Can you imagine how good I’d look in the outfits?”

  “I can,” he admitted, after another of those heat-inducing slow perusals. “You still haven’t answered my question though.”

  “I’m retired from my line of work. Prefer to let it stay in the past,” I said, in a firm tone that made him nod, and lift his tool again as his smile shifted into a smirk.

  “I didn’t mean any harm,” he told me, after a few moments of silence.

  “I didn’t interpret any,” I countered. “Just… letting you know.”

  Just… fucking up the vibe, I realized, when he didn’t say anything else.

  This was the problem, with being in the real world without a yoke.

  I wasn’t “human” enough, not really, to know how this sort of thing was supposed to go. Not without a dossier with every detail about the man I might need, along with a bunch of shit I didn’t want to know. Not without a character to portray, or a script to draw from.

  There was no guide anymore.

  I was just… me.

  No cues, no applause, no stage direction to let me know if I was hitting my marks.

  “Okay… I’ve gotta go in with some white now, to layer in the details, get a little definition – this is gonna be the worst part, pain wise. I know you’re a bad ass and all that, you haven’t flinched about the rest of it, but… just a heads up,” he said, only giving me a brief glance before his brow furrowed again as he studied his work.

  “Thank you,” I told him, responding courteously even though I didn’t think his little disclaimer was necessary.

  It did hurt like a bitch.

  So much so that I was relieved when it was over, and he sprayed my skin with the bottle from his cart before wiping it one final time, coating it, and then covering with transparent film.

  “You ready to take a look?” he asked, already grabbing a hand mirror from his cart, like there wasn’t a full-sized one near the door. I opted for the larger one, accepting the hand he offered for assistance from the reclined seat. Carefully, I avoided letting my gaze drift to my fresh ink until I was fully in position, ready to take it all in at once.

  “Holy shit,” I whispered, once I finally let myself look at it.

  The rose was…gone.

  I stepped even closer to the mirror, as close as I could get without going through the damn wall. You’d think that, having had something on your body for a decade, you’d be able to find it easily, no matter what.

  But… no.

  Logically, I knew it lay underneath all the fresh ink Tristan had just applied, but from what my eyes were telling me, based on what I could clearly see in the mirror… it wasn’t there anymore.

  I was as free as the wild fringes of the storm he’d set against the backdrop of a beautifully setting sun – fiery reds and golds breaking through the swirled black and gray ac
cumulations of angry clouds. He’d used negative space, and that painful white ink to create fractured lighting bursts, juxtaposing that destruction against the peace of the sun as it disappeared behind much quieter clouds.

  “It’s exquisite,” I whispered, wanting to touch it, but not daring to disturb it, even though I knew how ridiculous a thought that was.

  Just in case, though.

  “You’re happy with it?” Tristan asked, and I blinked hard, trying to fight back the sudden, unexpected surge of emotion.

  I nodded. “Yeah.” I cleared my throat, then looked at him in the mirror, not realizing until that moment how close to me he was. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Ms. Not Interested,” he teased, breaking the unexpectedly thick tension in the room. “Seriously though… never seen you around here before. You from the city or something?”

  “The city?”

  “Blackwood,” he said, doing that thing again where he gestured in some nebulous direction like I was supposed to know what that meant.

  I did, however, know I wasn’t from Blackwood, which was adjacent to the Heights – the neighborhood that had been my destination in the first place, by recommendation of my mentor.

  “No,” I answered, but didn’t offer anything else, which made Tristan’s smile even broader.

  “You’re really committed to this mysterious shit, huh?”

  I returned his grin as I carefully fixed my shirt, taking pains not to disrupt the plastic covering my tattoo. “Yep. How do I settle up my bill? With you, or at the desk?”

  “The desk,” he answered, tipping his head in that direction. “Pri will get you squared away, and give you a kit with some aftercare information, products, all that.”

  “Nice. Well… thank you, again, for making the time. And for swooping in the other night, although I could’ve definitely handle it myself.”

  He shrugged. “You shouldn’t have to handle it yourself. Shouldn’t have been shit to handle, really, but… such is life, right?” he asked, carefully peeling his gloves off to dispose. “In any case, I was doing my job. On both counts.”

  “Too many people don’t do their jobs for that to go unappreciated, so again… thank you.”

  This time, he nodded. “You’re welcome, swee—Tempest,” he remembered, grinning. “Will you at least tell me if I’ll see you around?”

  Instead of a direct answer, I hiked my shoulders as I moved toward the open doorframe, knowing now that it was definitely time to move on.

  “Maybe.”

  Rain messed up my people watching.

  Instead of congregating on the sidewalks and restaurant patios, everybody was driven inside, traveling in cars or under umbrellas, protecting themselves from the late spring downpour.

  For three damn days.

  Finally, sheer boredom drove me downstairs to the abandoned candle shop I’d been largely ignoring, mostly because it confused me.

  What was the point of a whole shop for candles?

  It struck me as kinda creepy, honestly.

  From the front-facing store portion with all the half empty shelves and dust-covered merchandise wallowing in what seemed to be signature black jars, to the deserted workshop in the back.

  There were boxes and boxes of the same jars from the front – empty, of course. Dozens of cartons filled with soy wax that was probably expired, fragrance oils well past the “use by” dates printed on the bottoms.

  But, even in all its abandoned eeriness… it was kinda intriguing, too.

  I opened all the scent oils, breathing them in and almost knocking myself out with the stench of several that had gone putrid. Looked in all the wax cartons, noting how the color of the wax seemed to correlate with expiration dates long passed. I examined the jars of different sizes and shapes, wrestled with spools of candle wick molded together with age. Wondered over what all the different accessories and tools and knick-knacks actually did.

  So much shit to make something so simple.

  Venturing to the front, I started pulling the cork tops off the already-made candles, curious about the scents chosen for each blend. The labels were all rudimentary, with mostly-faded names that offered no clues about what went in, and without even a proper store name.

  Just, the candle shop.

  “I guess you were really that bitch back then,” I said aloud… to the store, I guess. And then, “You are really fucking losing it,” to myself.

  Because I was.

  I needed to get my ass outta here.

  Instead of doing that, I kept opening and smelling candles, until I was satisfied I’d taken in every scent.

  There was one that was a clear favorite, and for the briefest of moments I thought about curing my boredom by trying to replicate it.

  Then I decided I was probably hungry.

  Little by very little, I’d been branching more and more into the neighborhood, familiarizing myself with what was available.

  There was a lot.

  Today’s interest lied in the restaurant at the fringes of my purview from the window – a spot frequented by locals and visitors alike, who all looked happy and full when they left.

  Pot Liquor.

  They had food, and I liked food, so… seemed like a match made in heaven.

  I went back upstairs for my wristlet and keys, grabbing my umbrella on the way out. It was a wet walk, but in less than ten minutes I was walking through the doors of Pot Liquor, having my senses instantly assaulted by… warmth.

  From all directions.

  The rainstorm had brought a distinct chill with it, but the inside of the restaurant was nice and cozy.

  And homey.

  And bright.

  It felt like stepping into a completely different reality from the gloominess outside, and the delicious aromas wafting from the kitchen felt indulgent at this point.

  “Hey pretty girl, what can I get for you?” a woman called, from behind the front counter. I stopped my observation of the space to zero in on her – a beautiful woman a few shades lighter than me, with thick short-cropped curls.

  More warmth.

  “Um… this is my first time here, actually. So I’m not sure,” I told her, not fighting the urge to draw closer.

  “That’s no problem – I’ve got recommendations, starting with the mac&cheese unless you’re lactose intolerant or vegan or something. I made it today, so you picked a good one for your first visit,” she told me, lowering her voice for the last part like she was telling me a secret.

  Before I could offer any response, a male voice bellowed, “She lyin’!” from… somewhere. A moment later, a tall, fine ass man came bursting through the swinging doors of the kitchen, scowling at the woman behind the counter. “You think I can’t hear you, woman?”

  “I think you need to mind your business before you scare off this customer,” she countered, the smile in her eyes and on her lips contradicting his glare.

  “She ain’t scared. You ain’t scared, are you?” he asked me, wrapping a big arm around the woman to drag her against his side as she giggled. “Ay, you’ve gotta come through tomorrow if you want the good mac&cheese.”

  “Mixing it up will be your only reminder of a certain sound for a while if you don’t go somewhere,” she said, pinching him, hard, under the arm.

  “You so mean,” he yelped, jumping away from her as he rubbed the tender spot. “Hey,” he said, addressing me again. “Remember what I told you.”

  “Nixon.”

  “Okay bye!” he called, disappearing back through the kitchen door as she aimed a swat at him.

  “I’m sorry,” the woman said, her face flushed with happiness as she turned back to me. “I’m supposed to be recommending a plate for you, not playing around with my foolish husband.”

  I shook my head, returning her smile. “No, it’s fine. Y’all are sweet,” I assured her, not bothered in the least by their display. If anything, it was a bright spot in this gloomy ass day, seeing their natural chemistry.
br />   The kind of love I’d feigned for the purposes of a mission, but never actually experienced before.

  That whole interaction could’ve been pulled right from a training video.

  “Did you want to try the mac?” she asked, taking us back to the matter at hand. “If you eat meat, we can put some fried chicken with it, some greens, some yams…”

  “Yeah that sounds amazing, sign me up.”

  She grinned. “I gotcha sis.”

  I paid for my meal and then ventured to the open dining area to take a seat. It wasn’t prime lunch time, so it was semi-empty enough for me to relax and let my mind drift.

  Back to the candle shop.

  Damn that space for being so intriguing, cause now I was wondering about it. Well… daydreaming, really.

  I didn’t need money, thankfully, so I didn’t have to give a job much consideration. The work force was not ready for me, nor was I ready for it.

  I had some acclimating to do first.

  What I could use, was a hobby – one I could safely engage from the privacy of my own space, without anybody getting into my damn business. Honestly… I was getting a little excited about the thought of figuring out the whole process without much instruction, blending and formulating my own scents.

  I did good with something to focus on.

  Unfortunately, the bell over the front door drew my attention, breaking me away from my thoughts. My eyes instinctively went to the new arrival, going wide for a moment at the familiar sight of locs, a beard, and dark bronzed skin.

  Tristan.

  I watched, enthralled, as he interacted with the woman behind the counter – Charlie, according to him. They talked and laughed while he ordered his food, their conversation drawing Nixon back out to the front to join the fun for a few moments before Tristan moved on, to take a seat and wait for his meal.

  I’d already looked away, pretending to bury my attention in my phone, but of course he spotted me.

  “Ms. Not Interested,” he said, and I looked up in time to see him taking it upon himself to slip into the seat across from me in the booth I’d claimed. “So I did end up seeing you around.”