Page 21 of Ink & Snow
I wasn’t sure exactly what he was insinuating there, but if that was why he’d gotten the job…no. A secretary kept for the pleasure of their boss wasn’t going to dig into my past and realize what my work had really been. It wasn’t that obvious. I’d made sure of that.
“Uh-huh,” I said, figuring he was just baiting me again.
He was almost at the door when he stopped. “If you change your mind about a tour of the town or the shopping, don’t hesitate to call me.”
“Sure. Take care.”
With a longing sigh and one more look all over my body, he left.
“What a weird fucking town,” I said, flipping the lock and heading upstairs to make coffee.
My jacket really was not suitable for the weather, and I really would have to stop by that outdoorsy place, maybe even get some nice boots, because the sidewalks had a good two inches with more coming. I wasn’t sure who did the clearing, but it looked like the shops themselves were responsible. That got me somewhat excited, because I was an idiot and knew I’d be able to offer Amory my snow clearing services, seeing as how his thumb wouldn’t be improved by physical labor.
Unless it’s labor between the sheets. Hmm.
I tried not to think about that when I stepped into his shop. He had a nice little bell over his door that announced me with a twinkling noise and made him look up from what looked like a teenager in his chair.
“Oh, hi,” he said, a smile creeping over his face.
“Hello, Amory.”
The teenager turned her head to examine me. Fuck. She was wearing a lot of eyeliner, and black was not her color.
“Is that the new Fran?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.
“Do I look like the new Fran?”
She gave me the dismissive teenager stare. “If I knew that, I wouldn’t have asked. Are you going to carry those raw chocolate bars she did? Can’t get them anywhere but Fran’s Flowers.”
“Ella, meet Soyer. Uh. He is the new Fran, I guess,” Amory said, tapping a handheld mirror the girl was angling to see her left ear Amory was about to mark with a pen. “Like that?”
“Yeah, that looks good.” Her eyes darted to me. “You can watch. Are you going to faint when he puts a needle through my ear?”
“No. Are you?”
She snorted, dismissing me fully.
I didn’t want to interrupt Amory while working, so I looked around. The shop was the same width as mine though deeper, lacking the cooling unit and the extra storage room mine had for cleaning supplies and all the extra stock for bouquets and such.
It was also spanking clean, absolutely up to my standards and maybe surpassing them. The black and white checkerboard floor gleamed, the small sink with the soap and disinfectant on the left was spotless, and the mirrors mounted in among drawings and sketches had not a speck of dust on them.
The drawings ranged from large and colorful creatures to black and white abstracts, much like the rose on the sign out front. My eyes caught on a drawing of two characters, one apparently a male version of Medusa, the other Perseus, Athena’s shield in his hand held loosely by his side as the two of them kissed, snakes slithering from Man-dusa’s head to tickle Perseus’s ear and neck.
The art was signed with what I assumed was Amory’s art name, Clair, the C curving elegantly.
“How’d you get your sibling to give you permission?” Amory asked, picking up a needle in his gloved hands. He’d managed to fit a glove over his bandage, which was probably not fun.
“They asked for excellent grades so I got excellent grades. And I got the mayor to give me an internship,” the teenager said.
“Wow.” He pushed the needle through the girl’s ear. She didn’t flinch.
“Exactly. You have no idea how hard I worked to get some guy to shove a needle through my ear. No offense.”
Amory chuckled. “I’m some guy, huh?”
“In the argument I built to get this, yes.”
Amory seemed to struggle a bit to get the piercing screwed in place, but it didn’t show on his face.
