I knew this long-term relationship arrangement would not work for Amber. “You should just stay over there. I don’t know why you’d want to come back.”
“Because I have family here, Ivy!” she exclaims, exasperated. Amber is a daddy’s girl, through and through. “Just like you do, by the way.”
“Right. I do, don’t I?” I say dryly. A mom and dad and two younger brothers, whom I love very much but don’t feel related to. “I just saw my parents a few days ago, for the funeral. They came down and stayed with my aunt Jun at a hotel for two nights. It was long enough.” My dad glared at my sleeve of tattoos with disappointment. I’ve sabotaged any chances for a decent job and respectable husband, he told me. My mom didn’t say much of anything at all, having already given up on her daughter. Her focus is now on her two boys—Jin, the nineteen-year-old, who’s on his way to med school in another two years, and my twenty-one-year-old brother Bo, who also has Spanish citizenship and was just added to the roster of their national soccer team. “You know, the more I think about it, I wonder if Ned and my mom had a secret affair and I was the result.” I frown. “But I guess that wouldn’t explain the whole Chinese thing. Maybe I’m just Ned’s child, and I have no mother. I just appeared one day.”
“Oh my God, Ivy. When did you sleep last?”
“It’s been a while,” I admit.
“Maybe you should think about coming home for a while.”
My mom said the exact same thing at the funeral. I hadn’t expected them to show up, to be honest, but they didn’t necessarily come to pay respects to Ned—they had no respects for him. But Jun and Ian were here, and they wanted to support them, and me, I guess. “Sisters was never my home.” It was just another place that I stayed for a while.
“Portland then, at least? It’s only a few hours away.”
I sigh. “I know you can’t survive without me, but I’m not moving back.”
Amber’s soft laughter carries through my bedroom, bringing with it much-needed life. “So . . . where to next?”
She has learned about my wayward tendencies by now, although it baffles her that I’m happier not having permanent roots, while she thrives on those roots. She’s clearly trying to relate to me by asking this question, but still, I’m tired of answering it. “I don’t know. I have friends in New York. I think I’ll go squat over there for a while. Pick up some work.”
“And what’s the plan for the house and the shop?”
“I was at the shop all day, cleaning it out so it can get painted. It’s going to take a while, though, seeing as I’m on my own.”
She sighs. “I tried to get a few days off so I could come down and help you, but I think I’ve already pissed my boss off with my crazy schedule and constant traveling.”
“Don’t worry. I get it.”
“What about Dakota? Can she help?”
I snort. “Honestly, I’ll be faster working on my own than with Dakota there to distract me with her musings about spirits and auras and the meaning of life.” We’d probably just end up smoking a joint and staring at the wall for the afternoon. “I’m managing on my own just fine. Though I had to get help loosening a seized bolt today, from this guy who came in for a tattoo.”
“That was nice of him to help. What’d you end up doing on him?”
“Nothing. I refused to do his tattoo,” I mutter.
“Ivy . . .” Amber’s got the whole motherly reproachful tone down pat already. Her future kids are screwed.
“I know.” The guilt over being a complete bitch to him still lingers. “And he was really hot, too.”
“Let me guess—J.Crew and Calvin Klein?”
“Levi’s and Hanes, actually.” Amber’s making fun of the fact that I wear tats and leather and shave the sides of my head, and yet I go after guys who look like they belong in a chain store catalog. She’s right and I can’t explain it.
“So Miss Picky actually found a guy she deems ‘really hot’ and she turned down the chance to tattoo him and then, I’m sure, sleep with him?” Amber mocks. “I think that’s a first.”