CHAPTER ONE

      Pointed west home beckons.

      Waits for you like a lover.

      NOT TOO MANY hours after getting off an airplane, Cora approached Whiskey Sharp—a barbershop, and in the evenings, a bar. The lazily swirling red-and-white candy cane sign out front was illuminated and the interior lights cast a shine against the gold-toned flourish of the shop’s title on the front glass doors.

      Inside, it smelled of sandalwood and amber, two of the more popular scents of the products used in hair and beards. Music played loud enough to feel like an embrace but it didn’t drown out the low hum of conversation from the people knotted around the bar area.

      Alexsei Petrov, Maybe’s husband, but also Cora’s friend, owned and ran the place that had become another home for Cora. He saw her come in and smiled, tipping his chin to where Maybe stood, working at her station. Giving someone a shave by the looks of it.

      Three months before, her friend’s hair had been platinum blonde, but currently the tips were a brilliant teal blue that bled into a wash of purple.

      It would have looked absurd on most people, but Maybe managed to make it seem retro and futuristic at the same time when she coupled it with high-waisted gray pinstripe pants and a crisp white button-down shirt.

      Rachel stood, her hip resting against the table, a smile on her face reserved for the client who Cora now recognized as Rachel’s man, Vic, sitting in Maybe’s chair getting that shave.

      The weight of the familiar was lovely and bloomed through her belly. This was another one of her places. Full of her people.

      “You bitches are still the hottest chicks I know,” she said as she approached.

      Rachel looked over, her eyes widening in pleasure and recognition. “You’re here!”

      “I told you I’d come by,” Cora said, swallowed up into a hug.

      “I know but you’re here now. Yay!” Maybe took over the next hug, smacking a kiss right onto her lips before stepping back.

      Laughing, she got hugs from the wild bearded Russians, as Rachel and Maybe referred to their dudes.

      “Everyone missed you. Not more than us, naturally, but still,” Rachel said after Cora had been loved up on by all her friends. “Three months is way too long to go without seeing you.”

      “It’s nice to be missed.” She was pretty sure she’d just finished her last extended trip with her mother. Yes, it was travel for work and she liked to go to new places. But these long stints meant she had avoided getting a dog or a cat. It wasn’t fair to have to leave them with someone for weeks and weeks. It also meant that aside from one long-distance relationship that had ended two years before, Cora hadn’t really seen anyone seriously.

      She wanted more roots. And a dog. And maybe someone to go on dates with.

      She’d settle for a drink and some food as she hung out with her crew to start.

      “Wren said she already invited you to dinner,” Maybe called out as she began to clean her station up.

      “She informed me one of their friends is cooking and that there’d be cake. So naturally I’m in.”

      Gregori—another wild bearded Russian—was Vic and Alexsei’s cousin. He also happened to be a hugely successful artist Cora had known for years through the local art scene. He and his wife, Wren—an artist in her own right—lived in a loft space above Whiskey Sharp.

      “There’s