"The new ribbon is here, Mandy," I called to the back.
Ron nodded as he piled the boxes onto the counter. "Ribbon. See, that's why I love delivering to your shop. The boxes are always light." He leaned his forearm on the counter. "Mandy mentioned you were celebrating your twenty-first birthday soon."
"Sure am. You know, you go through your teen years just waiting to turn eighteen. And you count the minutes until you turn twenty-one. Then the day arrives and it's meh. No big deal. I mean, I won't have to sneak sips of my friends' beers in restaurants anymore, and I can finally order a strawberry margarita at Francisco's Hacienda. Still, it's kind of a letdown. Guess my next benchmark is the arrival of gray hair and crow's feet."
Ron laughed. "Think you've got a while to go before you need to worry about that." He held out the tablet for me to sign.
My phone rang and I picked it up as I trailed my finger over the screen. "Thanks, Ron."
He smiled. "My pleasure." He stayed a second longer and busied himself with the tablet as I answered the phone.
"Taylor's Trousseau," I answered with the businesslike voice I'd been perfecting. Ron waved again and left the shop.
"All right, what the heck is this corset thing that Clutch has been bragging about? Dray hasn't shut up about it all week."
"Hey, Cassie. Jeez, I didn't know he'd be sharing it with the world." I walked over to set up the design table. "Just what did Clutch say about it?"
Cassie paused. "Uh, there was something about a coat and high heels and an unexpected office visit. Dray has been completely annoying about it."
"Sorry about that, Cass. I have some prototypes that I'm sure will fit you. Or I could custom design something for you, something with a twist of romance and an edge of goth, maybe?" Cassie had a unique style, a sort of intellectual gothic mash-up that I adored.
Another pause. Cassie was always great at analyzing and thinking things through. I'd always admired that about her. I depended on her for a lot of advice. Both she and Nix's wife, Scotlyn, had become like sisters to me. I counted on them to keep my head straight in everything from my career to my relationship with Clutch. I'd been making far less missteps on both accounts because they'd kept me on track. My days of teasing Clutch and pulling silly stunts to make him jealous were far behind me now. Our relationship had never been better. In fact, things had been going so well in my personal life and my career, I was walking on the proverbial eggshells, afraid to upset the perfect balance of happiness and life with one wrong move.
"Well, I guess I could put a little effort into our sex life," Cassie continued. "It's been a little stale lately. And by stale I mean both of us tired and cranky and barely able to blow an air kiss toward each other before we flop into bed and slip into a coma. Then there's my trip to South Africa for the photo shoot in January. I think I need to leave an impression on Dray before I leave. And I don't want that impression to be me falling asleep and into a deep snore before he even gets my bra off." She took a breath. "Well, now that I've divulged all my embarrassing shit, how about if I come by your shop later and we can talk about my custom corset? It sounds like a fun idea."
"If Clutch's reaction to the corset was any indication, I can guarantee fun. Maybe too much fun."
My newest customer walked into the shop. She was a petite woman with baby fine blonde hair, glasses and pale skin. It was going to be hard imagining her in an Assassin's Creed style bridal gown when she seemed more suited to delicate lace and frilly chiffon.
"I've got to go, Cass. I'll see you Saturday night at the dinner party. Can't wait. Is Dray upset about wearing a suit?"
"Are you kidding? He's a total ham. I had to talk him out of renting tails and a top hat."
"Ah, you should've let him. He'd look like such a cute dork in tails. I'll talk to you later, and come by the shop when you want to talk about the—" I looked up and my customer was waiting politely for me to finish my conversation. "The thing that we were talking about."
"Sure will. Bye."
I hung up and stuck out my hand. "You must be Carol. I'm Taylor."
There was an impressive rock on her finger as she reached out to shake my hand. "Nice to meet you. I've heard a lot about your designs. I'm excited to get started."
"Me too." I motioned her over to the design table. "So, Assassin's Creed, huh?"
Her thin shoulders lifted and fell with a sigh. "It was either that or Avatar. Blue makeup and all."
I stared at her a second to see if she was joking. The smooth-faced look she returned assured me she wasn't.
"Sounds like you made the right choice then. Let's get started."
Three
Clutch
There was no parking in front of Freefall. My best buddy, Nix, had become one of the most sought after tattoo artists in the city. His success, like mine in the car restoration business, had been hard earned and well-deserved. We'd both worked our asses off to make a go of it. All three of us, Nix, Dray and I had been fuck ups in high school, always more interested in finding the next good time than in finding our futures. But we grew up fast once we were tossed into the real world. We'd even managed to find our soul mates. Nix had already married his one true love, Scotlyn, a woman who he'd fallen for long before he met her. Dray had finally wised up enough to convince himself that Cassie was the woman he needed to keep his life complete. And I had Taylor. Or more accurately, Taylor had me.
Afternoon traffic was already choking the main streets leading to the freeway. It was going to be another tangled nightmare of cars for the trip home. It was just weeks before Thanksgiving, and heat rolled up off the sidewalk as if it were still August.
I parked my car four blocks from the shop and decided to call Barrett on my walk to Freefall. Barrett, or Rett as we mostly called him, was my youngest brother. He was in high school at the same time as Taylor, and they had always been friends. He even still hung onto Tater Tot, the nickname he had for Taylor. Rett and his girlfriend, Finley, weren't going to make it to the dinner party. I knew that if I didn't let my brother know about the proposal before he heard through someone else which, with our close network of friends, would eventually happen, then he'd be pissed.
The phone rang four times before Rett answered out of breath.
"Shit, what the hell were you do—Wait, don't tell me."
"Yeah, Fin and I were just going at it in the hayloft."
"I told you not to tell me."
"I was chasing down this stupid escape artist goat Finley took in last week. His name is Harry Houdini. What's up?"
"Just a second. Mango ice cream bars just caught my attention." sAn elderly man, who was hunched at the shoulders and weathered from the sun, stood behind the mobile ice cream cart he'd set up on the sidewalk. Ice cream season never ended in Los Angeles. I handed him a five and waved at him to keep the change as he handed over the ice cream.
"Hey, Jimmy, I've got a goat to catch."
"Thought you already caught him."
"No. So what's up?"
I unwrapped the bar. "I'm going to pop the question." I took a bite.
"What question?"
I shook my head, hoping my brother could sense the movement through the phone. "Do you like pineapple on your pizza? What the fuck question do you think I mean?"
"You mean to Taylor?"
"Shit, Rett, go out and catch the fucking goat."
"Yeah Taylor, of course Taylor. That's awesome, Jimmy. I'm happy for you. Did Tater Tot say yes?"
"Don't know, air head, because I haven't asked her yet."
"Oh, right."
I took a bigger bite of the ice cream deciding a brain freeze would be less painful than talking to my brother. "Got to go. I'm just getting to Freefall. I haven't told the guys yet. Just thought I'd fill my bubble headed brother in first."
"Thanks. Quite the honor. Oh, and I hate pineapple on my pizza. Let me know what Tater Tot says."
"Why?" His last words struck me like a slap. "Do you think she'll say no?"
/> He laughed. "How the hell should I know? Whoever knows what the women are thinking? I mean no one would ever turn down a proposal from Barrett Mason, of course, but Jimmy Mason is another story. After all, you can be kind of an asshole sometimes. And then there's that habit you have of talking while you're chewing, like a few seconds ago when you were muttering over the mango ice cream."
"Fuck you. Now I'm sorry I even told you."
He laughed again. "Just messin' with ya, bro. Tater Tot has loved you forever. Why the hell would she say no?"
"Yeah. Well, thanks for fucking up my confidence, Rett. I'll see you later."
I opened the door to Nix's shop and was feeling way less upbeat about the whole damn thing than I had been five minutes before. Ursula, the woman who ran the front counter and who stepped in when Nix was too swamped, looked up from a catalog of tattoo designs. "Hey, Clutch. Nix is in back. I think Dray left some burgers for you in the office."
The customer she'd been talking to, an older woman who was wearing leather pants and a motorcycle gang logo on her jacket, hopped up on the counter stool and pulled the catalog closer for a better look.
"Thanks, Ursula." I could hear the buzz of Nix's tattoo gun as I walked past the backroom to the office. I had to dodge out of the way as the backroom door swung open. Dray shot out looking as if he was holding back a laugh.
"Shit, sorry, didn't hear those giant Frankenstein feet in the hall," Dray said as he motioned for me to follow him to the office. Once inside, he swung shut the door and stumbled forward with laughter. He landed hard on Nix's desk chair. It rolled back and smacked the wall. "Did you see that guy in there?"
"All I saw was the backroom door flying at my face." The aroma of onions drew my attention to the greasy bag on Nix's desk. I reached for it. It felt light. "Only two burgers? I asked for three."
"I was low on cash."
He rolled the squeaky chair forward again. There was a sticky looking gash above Dray's eye. I hadn't seen him with a gash or black eye in months, ever since the doctor had basically ordered him to stay out of the fight ring for good. But I also knew my buddy Dray was great at ignoring orders.
"The guy is getting a tattoo on the back of his head. He's one of those shiny as a bowling ball dudes." Dray lifted his arm and made a fist. His knuckles were black and blue. "But he's a big motherfucker with fists that are bigger than your head. Which says a lot because, you've got a massive noggin. Guy looks like he could almost beat me in a fight. Almost." Dray lifted his finger and dragged it down his cheek in a confusing attempt to tell me something.
I stared at him over my burger. "What the hell does that mean? He's a nose picker?"
"No." He leaned forward and lowered his voice. "He's a crier. He's got big old fucking tears rolling down his face. Nix is having a hard time holding it together. Of course, that's why I keep walking back there. Just to bug him."
I finished off the rest of the first burger, wadded the wrapper and shot it into the can. "Guess I better do my duty as a good friend and walk in there too."
Dray smacked his hand on the desk. "That's the spirit."
I headed down the short hallway. Ursula had turned some funky jazz music on, and it vibrated the walls and the windows. It might have been a request from Nix to distract him from the crier.
I pushed open the door to the backroom. Just as Dray had described, the client was big, beefy and bawling. Like a little kid who’d just lost his puppy. Nix's eyes appeared over the shiny dome of the guy on the table. He pulled his gaze quickly away. I knew I'd done my part in torturing my buddy.
"Hey, are you gonna eat that second burger?" I asked over the brassy pulse of the music. The mention of a burger seemed to help the oversized guy on the table forget his pain for a second. His eyes widened with interest.
Nix's head popped back up. He shook it ever so slightly to let me know he was not having fun. "No, you can eat it."
"Thanks. I'm going to pull off the onions though. They make my eyes tear up."
Nix's face flashed above the bald head again. He looked pissed. I took that as my cue to exit.
I got back to the office. Dray had his feet propped up on the desk as he sipped his soda. "So, did you get Nix to lose his cool?"
"Nah. You know Nix. Cool is his natural state of mind." I grabbed up the bag of food. "But I did get an extra hamburger out of the deal, so it was worth the walk down the hall."
Dray had come to the end of his soda and sucked long and hard on the ice. "Was the dude still crying?"
"Like a giant, bald baby. Man, why put yourself through that when you don't like pain?"
"Please. Pain? That's not pain. Three broken ribs and a busted lip. That's pain."
I pointed to the cut over his eye. "Thought you were staying out of the octagon these days. Didn't the doctor mention something about cottage cheese brains?"
"Yeah, he did. But we had a string of fights lined up for fight night at the gym, and three guys didn't show up. I'd sold a lot of tickets. It was enough money to get some badly needed repairs done, so I didn't want to give refunds." Dray had gotten his dream job when he took over as manager of Tank's Gym. And he was great at it.
I started in on the next burger and plopped down on the office couch. "Shit, you filled in for three missing fighters?"
"Just two. The third guy's opponent refused to fight me. Can't blame him. Even with me going a few rounds before, it wouldn't have been a fair fight. Then this happened." He pointed at the ugly gash. "And I knew I wasn't going to be able to hide fight night from Cassie."
"Was she mad?"
"What do you think?" The chair rolled again as he dragged his feet off the desk. "But I did manage to talk her into having Taylor make her one of those sweet little corset things you were bragging about."
I wadded the next wrapper and arced it toward the trashcan. It went in. "Yes. Three pointer. I'll probably hear an earful from Taylor for telling you about her visit to my office."
"Nah, she got a sale out of it. You said it was for marketing purposes. Can't beat that kind of advertisement."
The office door opened. Nix walked in, looking uncommonly tense. "Get out of my chair."
Dray hopped up and Nix replaced him. He grabbed his burger on the way down. "What a fucking day I'm having. I had this one lady who, get this, was so ticklish, a tiny one hour rose tattoo took me three. The next client, an older guy, had garlic or something for lunch and he reeked of it. Then 'bubba, the bald' walks in asking for just his girlfriend's name in black. I'm thinking—it's going to be a breeze. Then he starts crying, and his shoulders keep twitching like he's about to sob uncontrollably. I'm still not done. He needed a break, and frankly, so did I." He leaned back with his burger. "So what's new? Rett texted that you had some big news."
"That fucker. He knew I was walking in here to tell you." I sat forward. "Anyhow, I'm sort of rethinking the whole thing."
Dray sat on the couch next to me. "What thing?"
The quick conversation with my brother had put a kink in my plan. I worried that a proposal was a mistake. Taylor was only turning twenty-one. Marriage wasn't even in my vocabulary at that age. On top of that, her business was really starting to take off. Would I just be an obstacle in her plans?
Dray tapped my leg with his foot. "Don't keep us in suspense."
I pointed my finger right in Dray's face. "No annoying comments or laughter."
"Hey no fucking promises, big guy. Annoying comments and laughter are sort of my thing."
"Glad I can always count on your support."
He fisted me on the shoulder. "You bet."
I focused on Nix because I knew he'd give me a straight up opinion, which was what I needed at the moment. "I was planning on proposing to Taylor at her birthday party."
Dray's feet smacked the ground. He hopped off the couch as if something had just come up through the cushions to bite his ass. "Don't fucking do that."
I looked up at him. "Why the hell not?"
"Becaus
e then Cassie's going to be giving me grief. Taylor's five years younger than her."
The topic had interested Nix enough that he stood and walked around to lean against the front of his desk. "Thought you said Cassie didn't want to get married yet. She thought it might jinx everything."
"She says that now, but once she sees this big ape get down on his knee to propose to Taylor, Cass is going to get all drippy and teary. Then she's going to want a ring too." Dray walked over and grabbed the darts off the dartboard, a diversion Nix had set up for himself to help when he was wound up from work. I only hoped the darts weren’t meant for me.
Dray heaved the first dart at the board. It bounced off the plaster wall.
"So what? Then get engaged too," Nix said. "And try not to leave holes in my wall."
Nix crossed his arms and turned to me. "I think you should propose. Taylor loves you. You love Taylor. You're both earning good money and making a success of your businesses. Why wait?"
The couch creaked as I leaned back. "Guess I'm worried she'll say no."
A short laugh shot from Dray's mouth as the dart torpedoed toward the bull's-eye and stuck. He swung around to face me. "The girl has been obsessed with you since she was a bratty kid with braces and a training bra. Why the hell would she say no?"
I looked over at Nix. As usual, he knew exactly what I was thinking. "She is young. None of us were thinking of getting hitched on our twenty-first birthdays."
"Exactly." I got up and walked to the small refrigerator in the corner and pulled out a beer. "I was feeling too damn confident. Even found the antique ring she'd been looking at online." I guzzled the beer and squashed the can in my fist.
Nix walked over. We'd been best friends for so long, he knew when something had me in a twist. Ever since my conversation with Rett, the whole idea of proposing had turned into a hard knot in my gut. Or it could have been the three burgers I’d downed. Either way, I wasn't sure about anything now.