Surviving Ice (Burying Water, #4)(8)

A rare bark of laughter escapes me. Me, manage a shop in San Francisco?

“I was being serious,” he mutters.

My gaze shifts involuntarily over to the chair and that prickly ball that keeps lodging itself in my throat when I let myself acknowledge that Ned is gone forever appears once again. “I can’t,” I whisper hoarsely.

His face softens. “You haven’t said much about that night. I’m sure it was traumatic. Are you going to be okay?”

Everyone—Ian, Jun, my parents, local shop owners, regular customers—seems more concerned about how I am than about what happened to Ned and who killed him. None of them knows exactly what I saw. And none of them ever will if I can help it, because no one needs to hear those gory details. “I’ll be fine. You know me.”

“Yeah, I do. Tough as nails . . . on the outside.” His heavy dark brow furrows with concern. “I would have shat my pants. Were you scared?”

“Terrified . . .” And still am, for so many reasons beyond the obvious. Terrified to think what could have happened had I not gone for subs, had the sandwich guy known a tomato from his * and made the sandwiches in half the time, had I not been so quiet slipping through the back door.

Perhaps me being there could have saved Ned, somehow. Perhaps me running to the front instead of hiding in the back could have saved him. Maybe I made the wrong choice by crawling under the desk like a mouse. I have so many lingering what-ifs, all of them feeding that guilty burn that now festers deep in my core.

But talking about my guilt means facing it, and I don’t have the strength to do that. “So, I guess we should sell it, then.”

He sighs. “All the equipment is already set up.” As much as he isn’t about the money, he’s also not an idiot. “If we could freshen it up a bit, someone may be willing to pay good money for it.” He pauses. “But . . . I really can’t take care of all that.” I feel his gaze settle on me, and I keep mine glued to the deep grooves in the wood floor.

Because I know where this conversation is heading.

Ian just started his PhD two months ago. He’ll be the most highly educated tattoo artist the world has ever seen in another few years, but that means he can’t stay here to handle things. He has all kinds of commitments back in Dublin.

His little cousin, Ivy Lee, is the queen of not making commitments. She’s free as a bird. Only this bird had plans to leave here and pack up all her clothes and belongings today, so she could hit the road as early as tomorrow.

“I need you here, Ivy.”

I groan out loud, but that doesn’t stop him.

“This place is packed with useless shit. The walls haven’t been painted since he opened thirty years ago. We could make a good chunk off it, just by cleaning and painting it. You know, turn it into something from this decade.”

I shoot him a look that says “don’t ask me to do this” because I just want to leave and put this all behind me while I’m still numb.

He folds his arms over his chest. “You owe me, and you know that you owe me.”

Dammit. I do owe Ian. He gave me a job and a couch to sleep on for four months last year, when I booked a one-way ticket to Dublin. I needed a change, and I gave him two weeks’ notice to accommodate my needs. He rolled with it.

“And you are the executor, after all.”

I take a deep breath, taking in Black Rabbit’s interior. Really taking it in. This was Ned’s passion, his life. But the place itself is a dump. Anyone walking in off the street is going to lowball us, and that would be almost as offensive to Ned as selling it in the first place. “Maybe someone would pay for the name, too. You know, keep it alive. That wouldn’t be so bad.”

“It shouldn’t take too long.” Ian rights the trash can. “A week to empty it out, tops.”

I snort. Thirty years of Ned’s memories are in here. Thirty years that I can’t just toss in the trash.

Ian ignores me. “Another week for the painters. It could be ready to go on the market in a few weeks. Staying for a few weeks isn’t that bad. Especially when you have nowhere that you need to be.”

I don’t say anything, prompting him to continue.

“And you know, maybe we could look at fixing up the house a bit. Paint it, too. I was looking at real estate in the area, and we could get another fifty off that place with some paint and a good clean. Or we could keep it as an investment property and rent it out. A lot of people in that neighborhood rent to students from the college.”

“And you’re going to manage all that from Dublin?”

He clamps his mouth shut.

“I like how I’ve gone from staying in San Francisco for a few extra weeks to taking care of a house for months and beyond, in a matter of seconds.” This is not an organic conversation. Ian has been trying to convince me to plant some roots and act more responsible. He clearly had this conversation planned. Everything he’s suggesting means having legal ties and responsibilities to San Francisco. Funny thing is, a week ago I was entertaining the thought of putting down roots.

Now none of that sounds at all appealing to me.

“We have to sell that house fast or it’ll go into foreclosure. Unless you can afford that mortgage and taxes, and all the utilities. I know I can’t.” It would eat my savings up in two months.