Page 12 of Ink & Snow
Once Amory had vanished into the house, I hiked back through the snow. In the flower shop, I locked the door this time around and went back upstairs where I found my candles and my bubble baths and scented oils. Also a bottle of wine from another box as well as a glass that had survived the move.
The bathroom was on the left at the end of a short hallway opposite the kitchen. The room had been the final thing to convince me to put in an offer. The tub sat in a corner, and the tiles were plain white, the windowsills spacious enough to sit on, one close enough I could reach it from within the tub. That was where I put my wine and my tablet. It was the perfect spot.
All in all, the room had the flair of something old, but it had been redone not too long ago, and by someone who knew what they were doing. I’d loved it ever since I’d seen it.
I cleaned the old-fashioned tub with the claw feet as well as the bathroom as a whole before I ran a bath and set everything up the way I liked, using the time the tub took to fill the bathroom with scented steam and warmth to pull the protective sheeting off the new bed I’d bought and make it up so I could just collapse into it.
I spent about an hour, the air scented with vanilla, sage, and patchouli, drinking my wine, watching porn, and masturbating. Once I was done and ready to bask a little, I thought about how off the rails this whole entire day had gone.
And yet, not once did I feel the heated biting anger and frustration that always came with thinking about Cecil. Because I didn’t think about him once. I had found someone else to think about in this weird little town.
Chapter Four
Iwokeupwaytoo early. I’d ordered curtains, and they should have come with the movers, but finding them and putting them up hadn’t been a priority last night. Paying for my laziness, I blinked my eyes open, taking in the unfamiliar bedroom.
There was crown molding on the ceiling here too. The windows, tall, arched things that overlooked the back of the building, offered a view to some of the town’s roofs, though none were tall enough to steal much light. The winter-bare branches of trees reached upward, one of them looking like a cherry unless I was mistaken.
I stretched, remaining mostly under the covers. The apartment was still not really warm. Maybe I’d have to try out that fireplace, which the previous owner had said worked flawlessly. Learning how to make fire indoors was one more thing to add to my massive to-do list for the day.
I turned on my side, deciding I deserved five more minutes. My phone was on the mattress next to me. I woke the screen. Seven-fifty. That was disturbing. Too early for a tattoo parlor to be open probably, I thought, and saw Cecil’s texts in among all the business-related stuff.
Hey
Call me.
Call me?
Can we talk please
Soyer? Can we talk love
Please let’s talk
Soyer, I miss you. Let’s talk
And so forth. I didn’t even read the whole lot and instead muted him for the next seven days, which would hopefully give him the chance to move on like I was doing. If that didn’t teach him, I’d block his ass.
With Cecil-induced anger threatening to bubble up in me, I got up, winced when my bare feet hit the cold hardwood floor, and got presentable as fast as possible.
I went through the remainder of my bagels, which were only mildly stale, as I walked around my new home and took stock.
As far as I could tell, Amory had managed to find the only thing that had broken during the move. One of my paperbacks had gotten snow or slush on the cover, and I’d have to replace it, but nothing else seemed amiss. The shop had a ladder, so I could hang the curtains no problem. The flowers in storage looked pretty good, though some of the roses would need to be cleaned, but I was confident I’d have enough stock until the next flower delivery on Monday.
I decided to spend some time unpacking first, maybe tinker a little more with the website I’d set up over the past two weeks to allow me to sell flowers beyond Clair de la Lune. I’d do that upstairs, lounging on my couch. That meant getting the fireplace running. It shared a wall with the kitchen and was pretty decently sized. Then again, the living room was big, almost as big as Cecil’s apartment. Well, one of them anyway.
I went downstairs, humming a tune I couldn’t place and heading to the back of the shop. Either in the property description or in one of Fran’s emails, I’d read that she had kept firewood there, and sure enough, I found the back door and a basket with old newspapers and kindling sitting conveniently in a corner. It was everything the YouTube video had said I’d need.
I had to go through a few of the keys—I’d have to change all the locks to proper security locks too—before finding the one that fit. The back of the shop came with a small garden, all of it pretty snowed in right now. I’d seen photos from spring or summer, and Fran had grown some flowers here that she used out front. Not a bad idea, but I’d have to experiment, see if it was actually worth my time.
The aged wood lay piled under an awning, covered with a tarp. I moved that aside, managing not to get snow on me, and piled some logs in the basket. After the third, I heard something off.
“Hello?” I said, not quite sure whether it had been a voice or what I’d heard.
Then the wail came again. Like a doomed spark in a snowstorm, the tiny sound rang through the cold air. It was a baby’s voice, a cat or dog. I listened. There it was, a meow, barely there, coming from the other side of the dried logs.
I stomped through snow to get there, which got my feet cold, but the small animal cried again, so I started shifting snow. I didn’t see any paw prints, but finally, I found the source.
Lying on its side next to three other baby cats who weren’t moving, there was a little black cat, eyes open and looking at me. It meowed, showing a pale, dry tongue. It was also trembling all over.
