8. Chapter Eight
Chapter Eight
Jordan
For days, Mac has ignored me in the daylight hours almost as much as he has at night.
We’ve been all over the place, chasing his niblings around, accompanying Toby to AA meetings, and even hitting up Leo’s office.
And by we , I mean that I have followed Mac like the guard dog that I am, and sat silently in the car or the corner until he’s ready to move onto the next thing.
I don’t hate it. This is part of what I signed up for. The reason why his nickname has become Vida.
Because my life revolves around him.
But there’s something hanging heavy between us and the normal banter seems to have just … disappeared, taking the best friend energy right along with it.
It’s planted me firmly in the irritated category and I’m on the verge of snapping at him, demanding he just tell me what’s going on, when he ushers me to the car and denies my request to go home.
“What could you possibly want to go do now? Nothing is open.”
Mac throws me a look from under the hood of his hoodie that he’s wearing despite the warmth still clinging to the air, then slides a pair of aviators onto his nose.
“Cedar closed up shop.”
He pulls on the hood’s strings, tightening the material around his face and making the curls not held back by his bandana stick out around his forehead.
I let out a long sigh. “So, we’ll be there all night?”
“Hell yeah,” he responds with a grin that doesn’t quite meet the rest of his face. “Tomorrow, too.”
That same grin fades when he turns to the window and watches the world pass us by for the rest of the ride to the tattoo shop.
He doesn’t say a single thing when I jump from the car and clear the alleyway we’ve parked in, and not a word when I usher him in the back door.
The building is on twenty-four-hour surveillance and yet, I still find myself breaking away when the drummer finds his ass in the chair of his sister-in-law’s best friend to do a sweep of the place. Blinds are drawn, doors all locked, and the on-duty guard that gets to hang out here for the next few hours is sitting sentry at the door.
It should give me that settled feeling in my gut to know that this is probably the second safest place for Mac to be.
Instead, my stomach is still in the same knots it’s been for days now.
“Hey, Jordan,” Jonathon greets from his perch by the front door—the only spot with a vantage point to the outside—and juts his chin. “How’s it going?”
Leaning just to the side so that I can also see what’s going on outside, I shrug. “Same old. How about here? All good?”
Jon lifts a shoulder with a nod. “Had to chase off some shitty patron earlier, but otherwise quiet today.” I nod. “Hey, if you wanna take five, I got him.”
My gaze flicks to Jonathon’s at his offer. “Nah, man. I’m all good.”
“Seriously, it’s no big deal. Did he eat this time?”
My brow furrows.
Mac is a grown ass man. He’s already got a ton of tattoos all over his body, including plenty of places I’ve tried not to pay too much attention to, and knows about how well he takes getting ink. What he needs to prep beforehand. How he throws up if the pain lasts more than a few hours.
But something in the way that Jon is asking me has me questioning myself.
Should I have asked him first?
“Go,” Jonathon says, interrupting the beginnings of a spiraling thought process. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t leave before you get back.”
“Yeah … yeah, I should get him something.”
It takes a literal shove and a chuckle from Jonathon to get my feet moving.
Mac’s already got headphones in when I walk by, his eyes closed, his chest rising with steady breaths.
It eases something in me to see him calm, to see him getting himself in the zone and surrounded by a safety net of people that care about him.
Including the woman that’s already pricking him thousands of times with a color-doused needle.
Cedar catches my eye, shoots a wink my way, then goes right back to inking over his abdomen.
It feels odd as shit to leave him here without me, but when I catch sight of the baseball bat leaned up by the back door, an airy chuckle escapes me.
And because I can’t seem to make myself walk away just yet, I do an entire round of the whole building that includes Mac’s sister-in-law’s boutique next door and the third shop that sits mostly empty. I check all the locks and windows, including the empty apartments above, before I clamor into the car and make my way to one of Mac’s favorite drive-thru joints. It takes longer than I’d hoped, the line moving slower than a snail, but the bag is filled to the brim with piping hot burgers and mac and cheese when I finally pull away.
The drive back across town seems to be taking forever. Long enough that I’m near bouncing in my seat when I glance at the clock and realize I’ve been gone too long.
I should have told him I was leaving.
“Shit,” I mutter to the windshield as I finally pull up to the parlor and there’s another car parked behind the building. I think I recognize the SUV, yet it still makes my skin tighten with nerves.
Is he okay?
Snatching the bag from my passenger seat so fast part of it rips, I jog the length of the broken alley past the dumpster and curse when the back door opens freely.
Why does no one lock fucking doors?
The stock room is a blur of bottles and boxes, my sights set on the light spilling from the shop floor, my gaze zoning in on Mac the second he’s in view.
What I expected to see was my drummer propped up by a trashcan and ready to tap out.
Instead, I’m struck frozen by his glimmering smile and shirtless torso. There’s a black patch taped over his left hip, all the way up to nearly his rib cage and dipping low into his jeans.
But that’s not what my sight is stuck on.
No, it’s his eyes.
They’re brighter than when we got here, the green of them shining behind a hint of black eyeliner.
My breath catches when he laughs at something Cedar says and my brow furrows.
Am I the reason they’ve been dull?
The thought rocks me, though I don’t understand it, and I swallow against the building lump in my throat.
“Vida,” I say, and it cracks, but I ignore that with a clearing of my suddenly dry throat. “I got you food.”
Mac’s sight swings on me and softens the tiniest bit. “Shit yes!” He jumps up, scrambling over to me like I’m holding the answer to everything instead of just a bag of greasy shit. “I’m fucking starved. Cedar’s granola bars suck.”
“Hey!”
I let loose a soft chuckle at the scowl Cedar throws at Mac’s back and hold the bag steady as he dives right in and takes what he knows is his.
“So, she force fed you?” I ask with a crook to my brow, and desperately hoping for a distraction against the weird flutter happening in my stomach.
Mac’s gaze flips to mine over the bag and a tingling of recognition rushes over me.
“Uh-huh,” he mutters, taking a bite of his now unwrapped burger. “Get her.”
I roll my eyes, the break in connection taking that weird tingling along with it, and I instead offer the bag to Cedar. “Burger?”
She snorts and accepts. “Thought you weren’t supposed to feed the gremlins this late.”
Mac glowers over his cheeseburger at her. “You would know since you have one at home.”
There’s a snort that has me shaking my head, the aura around the drummer too palpable and contagious to ignore. Like getting ink has somehow reset his mind back to normal.
I missed him like this.
It’s making me both warm and fucking exhausted inside.
One minute without me and he’s got his light back.
That shouldn’t feel as bad as it does … right?