Clipped Wings (Clipped Wings, #1) by Helena Hunting
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To my Filets: you’ve been my advisors, my commiserates, my cheerleaders, and my armor through this process.
Mina, thank you for your instrumental role in introducing me to my agent extraordinaire. Brooks, your tireless effort and dry wit got us through the downs until we reached the up.
Alice, if not for you, this path might have been very different. I owe you a truckload of cupcakes.
Micki Nuding, my fabulous editor, and the rest of the S&S team: You’ve been amazing on this journey. Thank you for making this a fun ride.
To my girls at The Writers’ Collective: Alex, Anne, Kris, and Kathy, I am forever indebted to you for all the time, love, and energy that you put into helping me polish up this piece (among others). Your encouragement, red pens, and no-holds-barred commentary were exactly what I needed.
Deb, Alice, Enn, Mina, Neda, Tara, Christina, Lo, Laura, Kassiah: thank you. I am ever grateful for you.
To the fandom community who supported this story in its initial draft, who encouraged me to keep writing, and who stayed with me through to the end: You are the reason I was able to travel this road. Thank you.
1
HAYDEN
My head ached. A night of piss-poor sleep had turned the mildly irritating into infuriating. Between the droves of freshmen who had been passing through the shop recently and the na?ve girl currently in my chair, I’d had it.
I rubbed my temple to ease the dull throb that had developed over the course of the day. Ten more minutes and I’d be done with the design if I could stay focused. I was having difficulty winning the battle, because I was preoccupied. Once I completed the unicorn tattoo, there were no more appointments scheduled and more than an hour before closing. If I was unlucky, I would get stuck with another college brat walk-in who wanted a cartoon character slapped on their skin.
The preferred option was to finish with my client so I could duck across the street to my aunt Cassie’s used bookstore and café. Coffee runs to Serendipity had become my new favorite pastime over the last four weeks, ever since Cassie hired the new girl. She was the reason I was so distractible. I hadn’t seen her lately even with my increase in caffeine consumption, and I was looking to rectify that, stat.
I swiped a damp cloth over the fresh ink. The girl in my chair had been relatively quiet since I started shading in the outline, which was fine. I wasn’t in the mood for idle chitchat. Instead I focused on the hum of the tattoo machines. The sound never bothered me. It soothed, like good music.
It was the superfluous stuff that irked: the inane chatter of teenagers, the nervous tapping of a shoe on the polished hardwood, and on the flat-screen, the loud drone of a newscaster as he spouted off the devastation of the day. The nasal timbre of his voice annoyed the hell out of me. Yet I couldn’t stop listening, drawn in by the desire to know that other people’s lives sucked more than mine.
“Can you turn that down?” I called to Lisa, our resident bookkeeper and piercer.
“Just a minute.” She waved me off but palmed the remote.
The other artists in the shop were also working fixedly on clients. I seemed to be the only one with attention issues. The bell over the door tinkled, saving me from further irritation. Lisa changed the station and heavy rock beats filled the air, the bass vibrating the floor. She turned the volume down to a reasonable level.
Pausing, I glanced over, praying it wasn’t another insipid college girl looking to flirt with deviance. The next client would be mine. Then I’d never get to Serendipity before it closed.
Any potential aggravation evaporated the moment I saw Cassie’s new employee. She clutched a pile of books to her chest like a shield, her long hair windblown around her face. Her eyes darted away when she caught me looking at her.
Her name was Tenley. I didn’t know this because we’d been formally introduced—even though I had spoken to her a few times—but because Cassie imparted the information upon my request. Cassie, fountain of information that she was, also informed me that Tenley came from Arden Hills, Minnesota, and was in a master’s program at Northwestern. She didn’t act like one of those typical Ivy League type snobs, though. She seemed pretty down to earth based on what little she’d said to me. Which, admittedly, wasn’t a whole hell of a lot.