Chapter Text
The apartment above The Curious Cat Tattoo smelled like old wood and lemon cleaner—the kind of scent that clung to floorboards no matter how many times someone mopped. Marisol Navarro stood in the middle of the tiny living room with her hands on her hips, surrounded by cardboard boxes and a sleepy blue-eyed ragdoll cat watching from an open carrier.
“Okay, Miso,” she said. “New city, new job, same amount of chaos.”
Miso blinked, unimpressed, and yawned so wide her pink tongue curled.
Outside, the evening traffic of Butler Street rumbled faintly, mixed with the hum of a tattoo machine from the shop below. The sign out front still glowed from the last of the sunset—THE CURIOUS CAT TATTOO in looping gold letters, a black cat painted beneath it chasing a trail of stars.
Marco had texted earlier: Key’s under the mat. I’m downstairs if you need me.
He’d kept his promise. When she lifted the corner of the doormat, the spare key waited, attached to a metal tag shaped like a paw print. Typical Uncle Marco—equal parts sentiment and sarcasm.
The apartment wasn’t much—one bedroom, exposed brick, a kitchen small enough to cook and bump an elbow at the same time—but it had windows that faced west. Warm light spilled across the boxes, making the space glow. After two years of half-finished murals and sublets that never felt like hers, this place did.
Marisol set Miso’s carrier near the couch and crouched to open it. “Go on, brave girl.”
The cat stepped out cautiously, tail flicking, then padded straight to the window ledge. She sat there like she’d already decided this was home, gazing down at the sidewalk where a pair of teenagers peered through the shop glass at Marco’s framed flash sheets.
“You’re going to love it here,” Marisol said, voice low. “There’s sunlight and people and about eight hundred places to nap.”
The cat’s ears twitched at the sound of Marco’s laugh drifting up from below.
Marisol smiled despite the ache in her shoulders. The move had been a gamble—coming back to Pittsburgh after years away, starting over at thirty-one—but Marco had called her last month with that gravelly, unarguable voice: You need a home base. You need steady work. And the shop needs color again.
So here she was, with paint-stained jeans, too many dreams, and a cat who’d tolerated twelve hours in the car without a single complaint.
She unpacked the essentials first: a coffee maker, her box of brushes, a half-finished sketchbook. From the bottom of a crate she pulled a framed photo—the forest-animals mural she’d painted in the pediatric ER years ago. Rabbits among ferns, an owl perched above them. A tall man, with a radiant smile with his arm around her shoulders. The colors had faded a little in the print, but the memory hadn’t.
Dr. Adamson had stood in that hallway the night she finished, smiling like it was the Sistine Chapel. “You’ve made this place kinder, Ms. Navarro.”
Downstairs, the shop’s doorbell jingled. A client’s laugh followed, then Marco’s voice booming something about coffee and courage. The sound settled the knot in her chest.
Marisol set the photo on the windowsill beside Miso and breathed in the mix of ink, wood polish, and street air. Today, she’d hang her sketches, learn the rhythm of the shop, and start her flash sale.
For now, she just stood there watching the streetlights blink on, her cat a pale reflection in the glass, the golden letters of The Curious Cat glowing below like a promise.
By midmorning, The Curious Cat smelled like coffee, citrus cleaner, and the faint metallic tang of ink warming under bright lights. The “FLASH SALE TODAY! BRING A FRIEND!” sign Marco had taped to the window had already drawn a small crowd.
Marisol stood behind her station, hair twisted up, paint-stained sneakers tapping to the low hum of music. Her flash sheets—bright, whimsical bursts of color—covered the counter: bees with tiny crowns, cartoon cats in teacups, mushrooms with smiling faces. A post-it stuck to the corner read in pink marker: $60 each.
“First flash day in years,” Marco said, carrying in a box of pastries. “We’ll see if you scare people off or make me rich.”
“Both, ideally,” Marisol replied. She was already gloved up, prepping her inks: sunshine yellow, sky blue, poppy red, pastel lavender. “You handle realism, Tio. Let me handle joy.”
Eddie chuckled from his corner. “Joy’s messier.”
“Exactly,” she said, grinning.
Steven was at the front desk, wrangling sign-ups and flirting with whoever looked over twenty-one. Miso had claimed the top of the printer as her throne, tail flicking as she supervised.
The first client—a nurse from PTMC with pink hair and three ear piercings—chose a bee clutching a coffee cup. “You did those forest murals in the ER, right?” she asked while settling into the chair.
Marisol blinked, surprised. “Yeah. A while ago.”
“They’re still there,” the nurse said, smiling. “My kid points out the raccoon every time. Says he looks like he’s stealing snacks.”
Marisol laughed, tracing the stencil placement on the woman’s wrist. “He was stealing snacks. It’s canon.”
The machine buzzed to life, the needle finding its steady rhythm. As she worked, people drifted through—paramedics on lunch break, college kids, one of Marco’s biker regulars brave enough to get a cartoon frog on his forearm. The day became a hum of chatter and color.
Around noon, Noah stood by the sink looking pale. Steven passed him a donut. “Eat sugar before you faint on my floor, rookie.”
“I’m not gonna faint,” Noah said weakly. “Just… watching all that color’s intense.”
“Stick around,” Marisol told him, rinsing a cup. “You’ll get used to it. There’s nothing better than watching someone see their skin light up.”
Marco grunted. “Except watching them tip.”
“Optimist,” she teased.
By four, her gloves were streaked with color, her shoulders sore, and the counter covered in prints drying under wax paper. Marco tallied the day’s totals while Eddie cleaned his station.
“Not bad for a first flash day,” Marco said. “We pulled in half a week’s take before dinner.”
Marisol wiped her forehead with her sleeve, a streak of turquoise across her cheek. “Told you joy sells.”
Steven leaned against the counter. “Joy and caffeine. You single-handedly kept that nurse from falling asleep in the chair.”
Miso meowed from her perch as if agreeing.
As the last customer left, Marisol leaned against the doorway, watching the golden light stretch across the shop’s floor. The windows glowed with the painted cat from the sign, tail looping toward the words The Curious Cat Tattoo. Laughter drifted down the street from the café next door.
The Closed sign flipped at eight on the dot.
The last hum of the machines faded, replaced by the rustle of paper towels and the soft click of light switches. The Curious Cat always felt gentler after hours—like the shop itself exhaled once the door locked.
Marisol was still wiping down her station when Marco leaned against the doorframe, car keys spinning on one finger.
“Steven’s running inventory,” he said. “I was thinking of bribing him with takeout. You want in? I figured we’d come upstairs and help you unpack a few boxes. Make the place look less like a storage unit.”
Marisol smiled, tired but warm. “You’re assuming I want your decorating advice.”
“You don’t,” he said easily. “But I’ve got strong opinions about where a couch should go.”
She laughed. “Chinese or Thai?”
“Both. The secret to family peace.”
He grinned and disappeared through the front door, bells chiming softly behind him.
Upstairs, Miso greeted her with a chirp and a stretch that could’ve passed for applause. The apartment still looked like a cardboard city—stacks labeled books, kitchen, art stuff, misc chaos. Marisol toed off her shoes and started opening one at random.
Inside were paintbrushes, still rubber-banded together from the move, and a handful of crumpled photo prints. She pulled one free—the pediatric mural in progress. The foxes and raccoons half-finished, her old smudged signature in the corner.
The memory of Dr. Adamson’s voice flickered again: “Make it kind, not perfect.”
She smiled. “Still trying, Doc.”
Miso hopped into the open box, sniffing at a jar of dried paint water, then turned three circles and curled up like she’d been waiting for this exact moment.
Downstairs, Steven’s voice floated up through the vent—something about soy sauce and forgetting chopsticks—followed by Marco’s answering laugh. The sound anchored the space, turned the unfamiliar walls into something that felt like family.
When they finally came upstairs twenty minutes later, arms full of takeout bags, the apartment smelled like sesame oil and fried rice. Steven dropped onto the couch and whistled at Miso.
“Hey, boss lady. Approving the new digs?”
Miso blinked, unimpressed.
“She’s thinking about it,” Marisol said, opening cartons. “Give her time.”
Marco kicked a box aside so he could set his drink on the coffee table. “You did good today, kid. Flash day was a hit.”
Marisol leaned back against the couch, chopsticks poised. “Felt good to make something bright again.”
“That’s what this place needed,” he said. “Color. Lately it’s all been black and realism. You remind people that art doesn’t have to brood to mean something.”
Steven smirked. “Don’t tell Eddie you said that. He’ll sulk.”
“Eddie’s been sulking since ’98,” Marco said. “He’ll survive.”
Laughter filled the apartment, easy and warm. Outside, Butler Street’s neon signs glowed against the windows. Marisol’s chest loosened in a way it hadn’t in months.
When the food was mostly gone and Steven was half-asleep on the couch, Marco gathered the empty cartons. “By the way,” he said casually, “PTMC’s throwing another fundraiser next month—silent auction for community art projects. The pediatric unit’s getting new walls, finally. You should think about putting your name in.”
Marisol paused, eyes flicking to the framed photo of her old mural on the windowsill. The raccoon in the corner seemed to grin back at her.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “Maybe I will.”