It won’t ever be over, will it? That’s what happens when you give your heart to someone. They leave their fingerprints on it when they give it back, and there’s no way to get rid of them.
Chapter Five
PAIGE
My heart lights up as Skye bounds into the bus the next day. The great thing about living fifteen minutes apart is having the same commute to work. She might hate mornings, but she’s got enough energy to fool anyone.
“Good morning, milady. May I have this seat?”
“Why, yes, you may.”
While I’m the one everyone treats like a kid, Skye’s the one with the cherub face. Her long brown hair glows golden in the sunlight and has always grown with the same ferocity as her opinions. Today, it’s parted down the middle and braided, showing off seven neat studs that curve around one ear.
My ears are always bare. The left hole had to be redone when I was a kid, and I’m always going for the wrong one and hurting myself. So, at least I’m consistent.
“Fabulous,” she says, emphasizing theAanddropping into the seat beside me. “Hmm.” Her eagle eyes scan me from head to toe. “Well rested, makeup all washed off, no sex glow. You held strong! I’m proud of you.”
I’m proud too. “It wasn’t easy. He looked really, really good.”
“So, he’s a good-looking shithead. It doesn’t change what he did.”
Nothing could, but it would help if my heart could stop twirling whenever he walked into a room.
Two years in, and we have opening down to a fine art. I hit the lights while Skye goes into our studio to greet Bernard, our giant stainless steel wax vat, who needs at least an hour to warm up properly. Same, honestly. He’s a real one for that.
California’s July temperatures threaten to melt everything—including your bones—before you make it home, but the shop is always cool. Practically frosty. We use the candles as an excuse—they have to cure!—but honestly, it’s the perfect lure for customers who want to escape the heat.
Skye throws on a playlist at random while I review our online orders, and I hum along as a half-drunk synth starts to pulse through the shop.
Another day of doing what we love.
“All right, Bernie, let’s see what magic we can create today.”
Skye prefers to hide out in the studio, where she can make candles and ignore customers, which sucks because so do I, but one of us has to man the register. When westarted, it was an even split of who got to hide and who had to serve, but these days, we’re not above gambling to get our way.
“Batter up,” Skye says, holding up her fist.
Neither of us has sat through a single game of sports in our lives. I bring mine up to match and count us off.
“Three.”
She’s going to pick scissors. She always picks scissors.
“Two.”
Do I go paper or rock?
“One. Go.”
I flatten my palm.
“Aha!” Skye celebrates as she hits my hand with hers.
When Skye smiles, it’s with unrestrained glee, the kind you see on Christmas morning or on a carnivorous animated cat as he lunges for a bird. She’s whip quick, too, her mind and mouth running a hundred miles a minute. It’s the times she’s quiet when I know she’s really upset. It’s not like her to miss a tongue-lashing or a double entendre. For as long as we’ve lived, Skye’s always been the more interesting, more entertaining, more off-putting one.
“Put on your happy face, princess. You get to serve customers today.”
“Yay,” I deadpan, but in truth, I wouldn’t last two seconds in the back today. I can’t see Benji’s shop from there.
