Page 17 of Where Angels Fall

The bar is slightly run down, but nothing like the bar I found myself in last week. Yet, it’s nothing like any bar my work would take me to. It makes me love it all the more.

The uneven floors creak under my heels. The smell of brine and old wood feels comforting. Warm light spills across the front patio, the windows open to let in the salty night air. Boats bob gently against the docks outside; their lights reflected like scattered stars across the water. With the cloudy, moonless night, everything is coated in a sheen of darkness.

Roxy waves me over from a booth next to a large window, already halfway through her first drink.

“You made it!” she grins. “I was worried you’d get trapped in corporate hell.”

Inside, the air is warm and cozy. “Barely escaped,” I laugh, sliding in across from her. “I guess my outfit gave me away, hey?”

She looks me up and down slowly with a cocked eyebrow. “Nobody wears clothes like those, let alone affords them unless they are raking in cash in some wild company.”

I giggle because she’s right and I’m that level of exhausted that makes everything funny.

We order drinks, Roxy asking for a Long Island Iced Tea and me copying her because it sounds perfect right now. The conversation flows as if we’ve known each other longer than the quick, literal run-in.

“So you own the tattoo parlour?” I inquire after two and a half Long Island ice teas and a bowl full of fries. She nods, swirling a fried potato in a tub of ketchup. “What’s that like?”

Roxy shrugs, but she wears a wistful smile on her face. “I dunno. It’s wild, busy days and sleepless nights. But it’s mine, you know? Like I had this vision, and I created it, built it from the ground up with my bare hands. There is something special about that, I think.”

I stare at her, suddenly envious. Because there is something special about that. And I don’t think it’s going to be something I’ll ever get to experience in my lifetime. Everything I own, everything I do, is because of someone else. Everything I know, is controlled by someone else.

My brow draws as I drop my eyes, swirling the straw in my drink in circles, ice cubes clinking around the glass.

“But,” Roxy continues, her eyes slightly glassy. “A part of me still thinks it’s going to be taken away from me, even if I know it can’t be. I’ve never really had anything that was all mine, and I always get this feeling like I’ll wake up one day and I’ll lose this little thing that’s mine. Does that make sense?”

A flash of vulnerability crosses her pretty face, and I think for the first time, I’m having a real and honest conversation. One that isn’t full of strategy and games. One that words are said sincerely, and I don’t have to read between the lines.

“It does make sense,” I answer honestly. “And you should be so proud of yourself. I’m proud of you, and I barely know you.”

She nods, smiling, before a mischievous smirk twists her lips. “Proud enough to let me tattoo you? I’m really good and I’m willing to bet you don’t have any ink under those expensive clothes.”

My mouth gapes as I look at her. I’ve never once considered getting a tattoo in my life, and the thought feels so outrageous, even though I know it’s not.

She cackles as she goes on. “Maybe an angel, like those little cherub babies, since you seem so sweet and light like an angel.”

This time my face heats at the mention of angels. A gravelly voice calling me that word in my ear. Goosebumps stand on my skin.

“Fuck, I’m just joking, Maddy!” Roxy snorts, sensing my discomfort. I shake myself off, plastering a smile onto my face and huffing out a laugh. “I know you aren’t the tattoo type.”

She lifts her arms, showing off the patchwork of art covering them, pretty, delicate pieces that suit her perfectly. “We actually couldn’t be more different, could we?”

I study her, black long hair compared to my short blonde. Dazzling blue eyes compared to my brown ones. I’m tallish for a girl, and she is a little pocket rocket. My pale, unmarked skin, to her tanned, inked skin.

“Complete opposites,” I giggle, and she follows suit. “But I like it.”

“So do I.”

Music filters out of a tinny speaker as we sip on our drinks, my eyes peering out of the glass window to the water and wharfs, feeling calm for the first time in a while. Everything is quiet here. That, mixed with the feeling of laughing, really laughing, for what feels like the first time, has me smiling off into the darkness.

Roxy begins to tell me about the time she tattooed a portrait of some guy’s ex on his back as he tried to win her back, but my eyes narrow on something outside.

The glow.

A soft, pulsing ember in the darkness, beyond the bar’s window.

My laughter falters for a second.

Across the wharf, half- hidden by a streetlamp and shadow, stands the silhouette of a man. Massive and broad, standing casually as he sucks deeply on a lit cigarette, facing the bar. His hand rises to grip the cigarette, letting it burn between his fingers, illuminating the sharp cut of his jaw for just a heartbeat before fading again.