Page 23 of Dream On, Ramona Riley

No, let’s do it.

That’s what’s she’d said when Dylan was giving her a very clear, very kind way out.

Let’s do it.

Why the hell had she said,Let’s do it?

Of course she knew why—her demon best friend April’s voice in the back of her head, whispering all sorts of nefarious plans.

Seriously though, this is it. Your way in.

And somehow, someway, in the last three hours since April had texted those fateful words, Ramona had truly considered them—Dylancouldbe her way in.

A connection.

That’s all it was. Not like she’d beusingDylan, but it was just—

Let’s do it.

Ramona wanted to smack herself in the head, a wash of guilt cresting through her stomach.

Okay, breathe, Ramona. She had to breathe.

“I really do love this town,” Dylan said, jolting Ramona out of her guilt spiral.

They’d just turned onto the block where April’s tattoo shop—Wonderlust Ink—was located, and Ramona couldn’t get there fast enough. Unfortunately, the source of a lot of her stress was also the only person she wanted to talk to when she was melting down internally.

“Oh yeah?” Ramona asked, her voice way too high-pitched and obvious. “It’s cute, I guess.”

“Cute?” Dylan waved at the vintage lampposts, the navy and hunter green roofs lining the street, the cobbled sidewalks. “It’s adorable. I actually came here once, years ago.”

Ramona nearly tripped on her own feet.

“Did you?” she managed to squeak.

Dylan nodded, ambling along with her hands in her pockets. “With my aunt. We stayed in this cabin by the lake. It was over the Fourth holiday, and I met this—”

“Oh, wow, look, here we are,” Ramona said quickly, because one thing she knew she could not do right now was hear her own story come out of Dylan’s clueless mouth.

She swung open the glass door of Wonderlust, the sound of a buzzing tattoo gun drifting through the room. The place was small, but in a small town, a tattoo shop didn’t need to be huge, and April did plenty of business. There were only two work areas—one for April and one for Mac, her apprentice turned full-time artist—but April made up for the lack of space with lots of flair. Art covered nearly every inch of the walls, but in a way that felt both sophisticated and cozy. Multicolored frames of all different sizes featured various illustrations, most of them April’s from her time at RISD and beyond, everything from flowers and luna moths and queeridentity flags, to Moira in her crow costume fromSchitt’s Creekand Dolly Parton’s dimple-cheeked face. The fixtures were all antique bronze with amber lighting, the walls a moody teal. It was strange and beautiful and very, very April Evans. She’d redone a lot of it over the past year, as Elena’s taste had bled into the shop when they were together. Needless to say, Ramona liked April’s style much more.

“Hey,” April said when she spotted Ramona. She was with a client—Molly Engle, a fortysomething mom who had nearly two full sleeves on her arms—and, by the looks of it, April had just finished inking a tendril of ivy around her left wrist. “I didn’t know you were—” But she froze when Dylan came into view, her mouth falling open only a little before she smiled broadly. “Well, hello.”

“Hi,” Dylan said. “I’m—”

“Dylan Monroe, oh my god,” Molly said. She was sitting in the workstation’s chair, her brown eyes wide and her short red hair sleek and lovely.

“Hold it together, Molly,” April said out of the corner of her mouth.

Molly nodded, cleared her throat. “Right, right, sure, yeah.”

Dylan just laughed. “It’s nice to meet you, Molly. And you, April. Very cool place.”

Ramona smiled. Despite the mess back in the diner, Dylan was good with people. Or maybe, she was just better in smaller, more intimate settings, which made sense. A lone tattooed MILF was probably much easier than an entire room of excitable, small-town oglers.

“What brings you here?” April said, her eyes widening in Ramona’s direction.

“Um, just thought Dylan would like to see your shop,” Ramona said.