Chapter 4 #3
Thinking about Juliette. Constantly. Every second of the day I had been focused on her. On what we used to have, on how good things used to be, on how once upon a time, all I wanted to do was love her for the rest of my life.
I shrugged. “I’m a busy guy.”
“If anyone sees those watches, we’re screwed. And then…” He squinted at the couch. “What’s that? You kept that too? You didn’t even hide it? See, this is why I do the bags and clothes.”
Following his gaze, I saw what he was talking about. That stupid fucking purse. The one Juliette didn’t want me to grab. I picked it up lazily, eyeing the outside. There wasn’t anything special about it. Nothing that set it apart from any other bag I had stolen.
“That’s the one she wanted to keep, right?” he asked. “Why was she so obsessed with it?”
“I don’t know,” I said, giving it a careless toss to the other side of the room where it landed against the TV cabinet. “Rich girls and their fucking priorities.”
“Well, don’t forget about the watches,” he said, voice stern. “You know the rules: get rid of the watches and jewelry first.”
“I’m aware,” I said bluntly.
He shook his head at me. “You must have been really in love with her if she’s got you taking so many risks.”
He was right, but all I did was move away from him in response, fully focused on having Juliette back in front of me.
In the flesh. Not in my head. Not like the other night when I only had fifteen minutes with her.
Fifteen hours wouldn’t even be enough. Two years in prison with just a single letter and no phone calls from her had been hell and I wanted her to know that.
I deserved the chance to look her in the eyes and let her know what she put me through.
“I gotta get to the parlor,” was all I said to him. “Are you in today?”
Bennett shook his head. “No, I’m scoping out the new house, but now after all of this, I’m starting to think we shouldn’t go back there at all.”
My eyes rolled. “You’re taking this too seriously.”
“Well, I don’t wanna go back to prison,” he mumbled.
I snorted. “Neither do I. You go scope out the house. I’m gonna be late if I don’t leave now.”
“Just promise me you’re gonna use your head. That you’re not gonna go out and do something stupid over this girl…”
I stared at him, taking in those words. I couldn’t make that promise.
Not in that moment. And Bennett seemed to realize that as he just shook his head, slapped my shoulder as a goodbye, and left the apartment.
I knew why he was worried, but Juliette wouldn’t rat.
She would have done it by now, but there had been no cops showing up at our doors.
Cigarette in between my lips, I left the apartment, feeling the warm Chicago air hit my skin.
The tattoo parlor would be busy today since summer seemed to bring out more customers.
There wasn’t any real reason for me to be there.
For anyone who asked, me and Bennett and Chase were just three friends who put all our money together to start a business.
The other workers there didn’t have a clue what went on behind the scenes, and they didn’t need to.
They also didn’t know that me and the guys all met each other in prison.
I was there on bullshit charges, and honestly, so were Bennett and Chase.
Bennett had been caught taking other kids’ SAT tests in exchange for cash, and for whatever reason, that landed him a year in prison.
Chase had a history of stealing cars, and trying to get his hands on the wrong one had him hauled to prison too.
I liked to think we were all a lot smarter than our dumb little eighteen year old selves, though.
I was lucky that my apartment was quite literally right above the parlor. No long drives to work or back home. I saw just Chase’s car out the front when I made it downstairs. None of the other artists had showed up yet, but it was still fairly early in the day.
Hidden Ink had mostly been Chase’s idea, and he was smart to do it. There was no way we could have that money coming in without it looking suspicious, so he set out to make sure we could make that cash without anyone batting an eye.
Hidden Ink first opened just over a year ago.
The old building had been renovated to have dark colored bricks out the front, the usual bright green and red neon OPEN sign turned off for now since we had a little while to go until customers started rolling in.
I unlocked the front door, swinging it open and spotting Chase behind the counter.
“Morning,” he mumbled, eyes on the computer screen as he pushed a careless hand through his long dark hair. “Got twelve bookings today.”
“Busy day, huh?” I asked.
“Would be less busy if your ass could actually draw good,” he said, his brown eyes flickering with amusement.
Unlike me and Bennett, Chase actually had the skills to work as a tattoo artist, and he usually popped in two days a week to show said skills off. He was a favorite of our clients and he always kept them coming back.
I snorted. “You want me to draw fuckin’ stick figures on people? No one’s paying for that.”
“Yeah, this place would shut down in a week.” He kept clicking away on the mouse. “What the hell was up with you the other night, by the way?”
I already knew what he was talking about as I moved around behind the desk, seeing a few cardboard boxes all stacked up against the wall. Grabbing one, I found a box cutter and slid it through the tape across the top. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.”
“The new ink is here.” Inside the cardboard box were even more boxes: a good dozen of them, the color a sleek black, all filled with ink. “Robyn really wanted to try this new ink. Said they’re real high quality. She’s gonna be happy.”
“Stop changing the subject.”
“I’m not. She was talking about them all last week.”
“You gonna pull that shit again the next time we go out?” he asked, the sound of him typing away at the computer in the air.
“I told you: I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“There was something about that girl you seemed to like…”
Clearing my throat, I tossed the boxes of ink to the desk, the loud smacking noise making Chase look over at me with raised eyebrows. “I don’t remember a girl.”
“The pretty one with that old fuck husband,” Chase said. “She was real pretty too. Beautiful face. Beautiful fucking body too…”
“Don’t,” I snapped at him, feeling far too much jealousy take over my body at his words.
It was true. Anyone who took one look at Juliette could see how beautiful she was, but fuck, I didn’t need to hear Chase talking about her like that, and I definitely didn’t need to feel some weird possessive darkness taking over me.
Not over her. Not over Juliette. “Don’t do that shit. ”
“You know her, don’t you?” Chase sighed, eyes fused to mine. “Tell me how you know her.”
“We’re not doing this.” I picked up another cardboard box. This one was a lot heavier than the last, so I guessed it was some new equipment one of the artists had been after. Some needles or something. “We don’t need to talk about her or him or that whole fucking night. Just… drop it, okay?”
“You looked like you wanted to kill her husband.”
I wasn’t surprised to hear that. I did want to kill him that night. I still did. When I didn’t say anything back, Chase blew out a long breath of air, head shaking at me before he focused back on the computer.
It was there again. Wave after wave of protectiveness that kept hitting me.
I had felt it all the time when me and Juliette were together, and I had especially felt it the other night when I saw her with—as Chase had put it—her old fuck husband.
Yeah, I wanted to kill him. I wanted to see him dead, and I wanted to be the one responsible for him being dead.
The only thing I should have been feeling for Juliette was raging bitter hatred. That was all she deserved to get from me. That and nothing more. My good side was long gone when it came to her. It wasn’t for her anymore.