One More Day Read Online Free

violet kissing the edge of each serrated petal.  She moved on to a pansy, setting it just beside the rose on the same page.
    Everything faded to the scratch of the ball on the rough page and the ink staining the paper.  Roses, pansies, petunias, zinnias, daisies, climbing vines, apple blossoms, they covered every inch.  She was working on a water lily, when a man's chuckle made her look up.
    Ryan leaned against the door frame watching her.  "You didn't drink the coffee."
    "Ah crap," Mack sighed.  "I forgot."
    "Yeah, but that's impressive."  He pointed at her page.
    "My doodles?"
    He nodded.  "What was it you did before you got fired today?"
    She sighed, closing her eyes.  "Call center stuff.  Incoming sales."
    "Can you do that on demand?"  He pointed at the page with his chin.
    "That, which that?"
    "Say I want a black dragon, with iridescent wings that breaths blue fire?  Can you draw it?"
    She nodded.
    "How long?"
    "I dunno, thirty minutes, depending upon how detailed you want.  I mean..." she flipped through her pages, and found a miniature dragon perched on a flower.  "That was something I did at lunch."
    Ryan nodded and pushed himself away from the door, glancing at the dragon while he grabbed her cup.  He didn't say anything, but she could see he was thinking about something as he dumped out her cold coffee and poured each of them another cup.  With a chuckle, he added cream and sugar, then brought it back. 
    "Let me see that again?" he asked, sinking into the chair beside her.
    She just passed over her sketch pad.  It was nothing but childish drawings.  She kept her real art in her apartment.  Oil paints and canvases weren't exactly something easy to haul around, but her hand always wanted to make something, so she let it.  It kept her in practice.
    He looked through the pages again, pausing at a few.  When he got to the phoenix, he stopped, staring at the unfinished lines.  He chewed on his bottom lip for a moment, and then flipped to her page of tribal flowers, smiling.
    "Thing is, Mack, I could really use an artist.  The pay isn't great, the hours are kinda weird, but, it's a job."  He looked up at her, smiling shyly.  "Ten hour days, from two pm to midnight, Thursday, through Monday, with options to work Tuesday and Wednesday, too."
    "Full time?"  She couldn't believe it.  "Why?"
    "Plus overtime.  Well, like I said, I don't work so good under pressure.  The weekends, we get hit with the college crowd.  They all have an idea, and no ability to schedule an appointment.  If you can draw up their design while we're finishing someone's tat, then yeah.  It'd make all of our lives a lot easier."
    "You want the crazy girl to draw tattoos?"  She couldn't believe what she was hearing.  What a weird day.  What a very weird day.
    "If you're interested.  I mean, dress code is pretty casual, hours aren't so great, and I could only give you ten bucks an hour, but you'd get twenty five for every tattoo you design."
    "Serious?" 
    She could draw and get paid for it?  That didn't even take into consideration that the scenery was amazing - well, the hot boss.
    "Serious," he said.  "If you show up at the same time on Thursday, I'll even buy you a caramel macchiato before we do paperwork."
    "So, when you said this is your shop, you weren't kidding."  She didn't ask.  She'd pretty much already figured that part out, but she just couldn't believe it. 
    Ryan nodded.  "My shop.  My baby.  This was kinda my dream since I was like ten years old, trying to give myself tattoos with markers and safety pins."
    She'd been walking down the street bawling her eyes out a few hours ago, and now she would not only have a job, but be working for the sexiest man alive.  No, Super Hot Guy.  Which ever!  He was nice, beautiful, and offering her a damned job.  For the first time in Mackenzie's life, it looked like something was trying to go right.
     
     

 
     
    Chapter 3
     
    Wednesday passed in a blur of