I smirk. “I did his ink for him, yeah. It took seven hours.”

She casually asks through a sip of coffee, “His design or yours?” The look on my face makes her laugh. “Have you ever actually finished someone else’s design without modifying it?”

I shrug. “It’s called creative license. Anyone going under my needle is warned. Even that hummingbird you sketched for Alex has a few Ivy-inspired adjustments.”

A normal person might get annoyed hearing that. Not Dakota. She sighs. “I miss Alex. She’s such a kind, strong soul.”

“I know. So do I.” Dakota is actually the reason I met our friend Alex. She sent her to the Bend shop that I was working in at the time, sketch in hand, bright ocher eyes filled with nervousness and excitement. She’s also now practically married to the only boy I’ve ever loved, Amber’s brother.

But I’ll never admit that to any of them.

The shrill of my phone’s ring disturbs our morning peace. Normally I wouldn’t even bother looking at it, but the ringtone tells me that Ian got my text about the house.

“Sorry. Gotta get this.” I answer with, “Good times, yo.” I sound like Fez.

“Jesus, Ivy.”

I love the way he says “Jesus,” in his weird Irish-American blended accent. “I know, right? Fucking crazy.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Luckily I wasn’t alone when I got home.”

There’s a moment of pause; I can almost hear Ian rolling his eyes. He’s the kind of guy who dates girls before sleeping with them, and he doesn’t date girls unless he can carry on an in-depth conversation about politics with them, using words like “banal” and “hegemony.”

So he doesn’t date a lot.

“How bad is it?”

“It’s totally wrecked. It’s gonna cost thousands to fix.”

He heaves a sigh. “I’m going to start looking for a flight back.”

Yes! Come back and help me deal with this! I scream inside my head. “No, I’ll handle it. You have school and shit.” Commitments that I don’t have. “I’ll give the insurance company a call as soon as I get to the house this morning.”

Ian heaves a second sigh. “That’s part of the problem . . .”

I can already tell by his tone that I’m not going to like this.

“I was going through some of Ned’s unopened mail. His homeowner’s insurance lapsed two months ago. I called them to see about getting it renewed, and they said it’s not that simple, seeing as he’s deceased. I’m sorry that I forgot to mention it to you earlier.”

My stomach pinches with anxiety. “What does that mean?”

“That we don’t have insurance to cover the damages.”

“Oh my God.” I stare blankly at Dakota as she watches. “We’re fucked!”

“No, we’re not. It just means that we’ll take a hit on the sale price.”

“A huge, enormous hit, Ian. You don’t realize how bad it is.” I blow a strand of hair out of my eyes. “I guess I better go get my broom and start cleaning.”

“Okay. I’m coming back.”

“No. Don’t. There’s nowhere for you to stay anyway.”

“He can stay here,” Dakota mouths.

“No he can’t,” I mouth back. He can’t throw away his PhD for this.

“Send me some pictures, will ya?”

“Sure,” I lie. Maybe I shouldn’t have told him in the first place.

“And call that detective we talked to. Make sure he knows about this. I don’t trust those police departments to talk to each other.”

“Do you really think there’s a connection?”

“Honestly, with Ned . . . yeah. Listen, I gotta run to my next class. Let me know if you need something, Ivy. Please.”

I hang up with my cousin and toss the phone to the table, troubled by what this “connection” may be.

“So, you did his seven-hour tattoo, and then . . .” Dakota prods, pulling us back to the topic of Sebastian.

I sigh. Sebastian is a more pleasant topic, and I can’t tackle the insurance problem right now. “And then he asked me out for a drink. I told him to meet me in the VIP lounge of Daredevils. I went home to shower and change.” That was at around ten thirty. Were they already in the house when I was there? Hiding in the closet, watching me change? No, they broke down the door, so they couldn’t have been. Still, just the thought sends chills down my spine and I hug my blanket tighter to me. “We were at the club for a little over an hour and then he drove me home. I didn’t know that someone had broken in until we were at my front door. He ran in to check things out and I called the cops.”

Sebastian ran to check things out with a gun in his hand. A gun that he had tucked in his boot at the bar, and possibly all day while I worked on him. It startled me to see him with it. But I really don’t know anything about him, other than that he was a soldier and now he’s a bodyguard.

“Thank God he was there with you.” That’s what I love most about Dakota. It’s pretty obvious to anyone who knows me—and people who don’t—why I was bringing Sebastian, a guy I’d just met, home with me. But there isn’t a judgmental bone in Dakota’s body. It could be her spiritual inclinations, or her relaxed nature, but she has always been like that. And she’s always lived life with the expectation that no one should judge her, either. People do, because people are critical assholes, by and large—but the thing is, she doesn’t care, and she’s enjoyed life more because of it.

“Yeah. He was there with me last night. I’m not dumb enough to be counting on him to be there today, though,” I mutter.

My words end with a doorbell and Dakota’s know-it-all smile.

“Shit. He’s early.” I look down at myself, still in my boxers and tank top, my teeth not even brushed. “I need ten minutes. Can you stall him?”

She nods eagerly.

Okay, maybe unleashing Dakota on Sebastian at eight fifteen isn’t the best idea. He may still run. “But don’t start talking about all that weird aura stuff. You’ll freak him out. He’s . . . different. Very reserved.” I dart past her and toward the spare room that I slept in last night, slamming the door shut behind me. I don’t have a lot of choice in clothes—I can’t wear the corset dress I had on last night. All I managed to grab in the chaos were leggings and . . . I rifle through my bag and realize that I didn’t grab a shirt. I don’t have a shirt to wear.

I heave an annoyed sigh at myself. I’ll have to borrow something of Dakota’s.

She’s at least six inches taller than me, so this should be interesting.

I pass through the joint bathroom that connects the two bedrooms and walk directly into her closet. She wears a lot of maxi dresses that would drag around my feet, and likely not stay up to begin with, so my options are limited. Very limited. I manage to root out a rose-pink shirt—just about the last color I’d ever choose to wear in my life. It fits well enough, though its cropped length leaves nothing to the imagination thanks to my leggings.

Maybe Sebastian’s imagination needs help anyway.