EPILOGUE
Aaron — Ten months later
“Manicki?”
Looking up from the counter where I’m talking to Shannon, I find Easton leaning against his stall with a smirk on his face. So, he wants to do the customer/tattoo artist thing, huh?
“Good luck,” Shannon says, flashing me a wink.
Smiling, I walk toward my man with butterflies in my stomach. He looks positively predatory right now. He’d better not look at all his clients like that.
Leaning in for a kiss, I’m met with a hand held up between us. “Ah, ah! Hands to yourself, please. We don’t want other customers getting the wrong idea.”
Oh, my gosh. He’s enjoying this way too much. Snickering, I roll my eyes and take a seat in the chair I’ve seen dozens of customers in, but have never once sat in myself. I never thought I’d want a tattoo. I can’t say that I even really do now, but I want what it will mean. I want it with every breath in my body. It’s just a huge bonus that I’m going to get to experience firsthand the sight of Easton at work from this perspective.
“I was thinking,” he says off-handedly, pulling on a pair of nitrile gloves. “Why don’t we take a vacation?”
I guess this means we’re dispensing with the customer/tattoo artist dynamic now. Good. I think I prefer the special treatment of knowing it’s my boyfriend who’s giving me my first tattoo.
“You just bought a house. Why don’t we wait a while?”
“We bought a house,” he corrects, raising a challenging brow.
This again… I know he wants me to feel like I contributed equally to the down payment, but we both know the truth is that I didn’t. And his claim that him staying at my place for the better part of the past year after Wolf moved into his old apartment was payment enough holds no water is this debate. I would have settled for the home he referred to as the seventies drug house, but when he saw how much I loved the craftsman we looked at, he called the realtor when I wasn’t around. The rat… the sweet, spoils-me-rotten rat.
“I barely contributed anything,” I mutter, my face heating.
I get an eye roll for that remark, but it has no effect on me. I make sure to hold my own these days and put my foot down, knowing there won’t be repercussions. I know I won’t ever feel beholden or beneath him the way Jason sometimes made me feel; Easton would never let me. While it’s a wonderful feeling to have such a caring and compassionate partner, I’m still looking forward to the end of next year when my strict budgeting plan will have allowed me to pay off the few remaining debts that Sam wasn’t able to get cleared. Grace was none too happy about having to take over several of them, but in the end, she decided it was preferable to jail.
“So…you won’t take me on a vacation?” he tries to pout.
“Of course, I will. Just give me a few more paychecks, maybe. Why? Is there somewhere in particular you want to go?”
Leaning in, his lips give mine a sweet kiss. “Anywhere,” he whispers with a smile.
Oh. My. Word. I’d get a tattoo every week if it made him this lovable.
“You’re way too happy about this.” I laugh.
Smirking, he grabs his sketch pad and holds it out in front of me. I’ve seen some of the other artists put their designs on stencils that they can transfer to a customer’s skin, essentially using it as a pattern. I’d be wary about getting it done freehand if it was anyone else but Easton. I know that’s why he’s showing me the sketch—my last opportunity to change my mind or request any changes. The way I deliberate over little things, it’s almost comical that I have zero doubts about this. It’s absolutely beautiful just as he’s drafted—two halves of a heart that can join like puzzle pieces. His name is on one of them, mine on the other.
“It looks just as good as it did the other day,” I tell him proudly, giving him a thumbs up.
Lifting my T-shirt, I draw it over my head and hang it over the armrest. Settling back in the chair, I try to relax my muscles and take in the view of the shop from this vantage point.
“It’s going to hurt,” he cautions, tracing his gloved fingertip over the center of my chest. “You know that, right?”
I can see in his eyes that he’s really asking if I’m sure I want to do this for him. It’s as much for me as it is for him, though. He’s already permanently engraved on the organ inside my chest. I figured having it on the outside, too, might make me not feel like I’m going to burst with the overload of affection I feel for him every second of the day.
“And then it won’t.” I smile. “Because that’s what love does. It heals.”
His features soften, and he closes his eyes for a moment. Leaning forward, he rests his forehead against mine. “Don’t talk like that right now, or you’ll leave here with half a tattoo.”
“It’s okay. I know where you live.”
Chuckling, he brushes his nose against mine. I love the look he gets on his face whenever we talk about how we’ve officially moved in together. He gets this gloat about him like he’s absconded with sought-after treasure.
Reaching over to his supplies, he grabs his bottle of skin disinfectant and applies it to my chest. My heartbeat seems stronger under the touch, knowing what’s coming. Sitting back, he looks serious again. Eyeing my exposed chest, he blows out a breath.
Is he… nervous? This better not be about his whole tattoo lore speech of how it’s a bad omen to tattoo a couples’ names on each other. We went over this, and I told him I don’t believe that. I’m not letting a superstition break us up after all we’ve been through.
“What’s with the jitters? I’m the one getting their first tattoo.”
“First?”
“ Last ,” I correct.
Smirking, he swings his plastic-wrapped worktable over and unwraps a new needle. “Oh, I think I can find some other places I wouldn’t mind seeing my name.”
“What? Where?”
Grinning with the devil in his eyes, he inserts the needle into his gun and sets it to the desired tip depth. Glancing at my chest again, there’s this haze in his eyes that looks a lot like pride. Grinning, he traces the shape of a heart over my skin and murmurs, “Just here is fine.”
“Yeah?” I venture hopefully. He’s asked me if I was sure dozens of times over the past few days. Well, it’s not just my name going over my heart.
“Yeah.” He nods.
“Does that mean you’re not going to look for other places to put one?” I tease.
“No,” he scoffs. “I’ve already thought about that hundreds of times.”
Well, that’s interesting! I will now fear for my flesh each time he stares at me when I’m naked. “Oh, really? Care to share?”
“No.”
“Come on.”
“It’s not important.”
“It is to me. What did Fantasy Aaron have? An ass tat?”
I kind of love that I can still make him blush sometimes. Checking his ink, he shakes his head and murmurs, “That was before I knew what love was.”
He’s not going to have to tattoo a heart over my chest at this rate. The one beneath my ribcage is about to beat itself to the surface.
When he looks up, his gaze travels to the place where I want my ink. Blowing out another breath, he scrubs his forearm down his face, mindful of his sanitized glove.
I had no idea this was going to be such a big ordeal for him. I knew he was happy about it when I first asked—minus the whole superstition thing—but this … this is a whole other level of something. Is he worried he’s going to mar me for life?
“I should be nervous. Not you. Do you want me to have Wolf do it instead?”
Those green eyes flick to mine with a warning in them. I hear the click of a switch and the tattoo gun buzzes to life as he holds that heated look on me. Oh, my word—someone just went total caveman on me.
I burst out laughing. For the next hour, there are plenty of moments when I have to try to keep from cracking up at his antics and comments so I can hold still. I’m a little sore and numb by the end of it, but I can’t stop smiling. I used to yearn to know what his laughter sounded like. I never realized I’d discover the sound of my own along the way. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it, but I’d better. It’s the sound of my future with him .