“I’m good at staying,” Lee called, just as a woman pushed a stroller around him. Lee realized he blocked the middle of the sidewalk. “Pardon me, ma’am.”
The young mother rolled her eyes at him as she passed.
“See, Wren? Another woman came along, and I didn’t stray!”
He shouted this down the street, and he could have sworn he heard Wren’s laughter echo off the courthouse walls. Still, she unlocked the door of her Mustang and ducked inside. The engine turned over a second later.
Lee willed her to look at him before she drove past.If she looks,he told himself,there’s hope.
Wren pulled away from the curb, facing straight ahead, her eyes averted. She didn’t even glance in his direction as the Mustang rolled past. Lee’s heart fell in his chest, and he turned on his heels to watch her go, feeling like a fool. And then, he saw it. Her eyes locked with his in her side mirror.
And Lee smiled.
EVEN WITH HISunscheduled stop, Lee made it on time to his lunch meeting. Over fried crab fingers and seafood gumbo, Spokes and Yeng went through the details of their offer: attending physician in obstetrics and gynecology, six-figure salary, supervising three residents a semester. The best part, by far, would be his new hours, four, twelve-hour shifts per week — two a.m. and two p.m. — alternating holidays with the other attendings.
He would never build the kind of career that would lead to a beach house and a new Lexus every two years, but he would be able to take care of patients and still take time for himself. And his family.
If he ever had one.
Lee knew that his father would never approve of the deal, but he had no doubt that his mother would have if she were still alive. Before she got sick, his father had missed most dinners, virtually all of his Little League games, and even a few birthdays. Lee could remember having to wait to open his Christmas presents until after his father had finished rounds, which sometimes didn’t happen until past 11:00 in the morning. All the kids on his street would be playing with their new bikes or archery sets or remote control cars, and he’d still be waiting to find out what Santa had brought him.
He didn’t want that life for himself, and he definitely wouldn’t want it for his kids.
Spokes and Yeng really didn’t have to go to the trouble of taking him to lunch. He wasn’t seriously considering his other offers, though he had a few. He would have signed their contract over a turkey sandwich in the breakroom.
Lee left the restaurant with a sense of wellbeing. He knew what he wanted, and it was there for the taking. The job was perfect for him. A satisfied smile warmed his face as he crossed Vermilion Street toward his Jeep.
He thought about Wren’s backward glance as she’d driven away. If only he could get her to go out with him — or even talk to him for half an hour. Lee knew he wasn’t wrong. There was a connection between them, and it shouldn’t be ignored. He was sure she felt it, too.
He had come off-shift at six a.m., and he’d be back at the hospital at six that night. The lunch appointment had cut his sleep time short, and Lee had intended to go home again and nap before heading back to the hospital, but as he climbed into the driver’s seat of the Jeep, another plan began to take shape.
Tapping on his phone, Lee searched for the address. If Wren was at work, he’d talk to her, and if she wasn’t, maybe he could get someone at the studio to give him her number. Worst case, he could go back to her apartment, climb the narrow stairs, and leave a note on her door.
HE PULLED OFFJohnston Street into the parking lot of the studio, and his heart broke into a gallop in his chest. If there had been a time in his past when he was this wired to talk to a girl, he couldn’t remember it. Wren was like a foreign language, one that was musical and enchanting. One he ached to learn.
She had shown him — more than once — that she could be sharp. Her words and the look in her eyes could carry barbs, but he knew, too, that there was a side to her that was soft, sweet. A sweetness that ran so deep, even the thought of it settled his spooked heart. Only someone thoughtful and tender would have made him those pies, and he longed to sit in a room, alone, with that part of Wren as much as he hungered to spar with the side that now pushed him away.
As he left his Jeep, he spotted her Mustang under the shade of two pecan trees at the edge of the lot, but a couple other cars were parked in front of the entrance. Lee braced himself as he approached the entrance. Inside the small studio, he was about to have an audience.
He pushed open the door and felt his eyes go wide. With her back to him, Wren knelt on a table behind a mammoth, shirtless man in motorcycle leathers. The heels of her ankle boots pointed up at him, and above those, the outline of her bottom under the gray skirt made the perfect shape of an inverted heart. At the sight, his own heart inverted.
Wren didn’t look up, even when the bell on the door jangled as he entered.
“Just take a seat. Be with you in a minute.” This came from the man at the opposite table. The exposed skin below his chin — neck, shoulders, arms — was a riot of color, a dizzying spread of tattoos. He looked to be in his early forties. Fit. Head shaved clean. Salt and pepper goatee. Lee guessed he was Wren’s boss, Rocky. With his ink gun in hand, Rocky bent over the midriff of a blonde woman who was dressed much like the shirtless man on Wren’s table. This woman’s top, a tattered, sleeveless tee, was hiked up just under her ample bosom.
Lee sat on the bench by the door and let his eyes drift back to Wren. From this spot, he could see past her to the biker’s skin. A lion — life-like and highly defined — spanned the flesh of his right shoulder all the way to his spine and down the middle of his back. The lion’s mane fanned out past its ears as though the savannah breeze lifted it. The beast’s eyes honed in on unfortunate quarry in the middle distance. Lee would not have been surprised to hear the rumble of a growl come from his invisible throat. The tattoo was that good.
Wren looked to be almost finished, darkening the surface of the lion’s black nose. Lee watched her and smiled in awe. She worked with uncanny focus, never taking her eyes from her creation. He couldn’t see much of her face, but when she angled her head to the left to peer closer at some detail, twice Lee saw the tip of her tongue dart out over her bottom lip in concentration.
He’d seen pictures of her work in her living room, but watching her art come to life had him spellbound. He didn’t want to stop.
“Okay, Big Cat, you’re done." She pulled her ink gun away and sat back to survey her work. “I’ll get you a mirror.”
In one fluid motion, she untucked her legs from beneath her and hopped off the table. She passed a hand mirror to her customer before turning away. And that’s when she saw him.
“Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” She stood, frozen, staring at him, and then Lee felt three more sets of eyes join hers. But he could only peer into her green irises because, despite her tone, he thought he saw a spark of welcome in them.
“Wren?” her boss questioned, his confused frown turning away from Lee and toward her. Their two customers just watched in silence.
