Chapter 20
20
NOVA
Beckett appears with a frown, his eyes immediately finding me at the top of the stairs. “Hey,” he says, after an awkward stretch of silence. He holds up my spare key. “I let myself in.”
“I can see that.”
I haven’t seen Beckett since our argument at our parents’ house. It feels like a lifetime ago. It’s probably the longest we’ve ever gone without talking to each other, including the time I told him he couldn’t propagate garlic for shit and he didn’t talk to me for an entire week.
He shifts on his feet and tugs his hat off his head, bending the bill beneath his palms.
“Is it okay that I’m here?” he asks.
My shoulders relax. “Of course it’s all right that you’re here.” I make my way down the stairs. I wish he had shown up twenty minutes later and didn’t know about my spare key, but there’s not much I can do about that now. “Come on. I’ll make us some tea and we can talk.”
Beckett awkwardly follows me down the short hallway. We’re usually comfortable in the quiet, but this is a different sort. His hurt was—and is—unbearable to me. I haven’t reached out because I don’t know what to say. And now I’m just as clueless as to where to start.
“I thought you were going to let me stand out there on the porch,” he says quietly, peeking up at me. “When you didn’t answer. And then I got worried that maybe you were having a migraine. I’m sorry I just…burst in here like that.”
“No,” I sigh. “Don’t apologize. I get it and I—I don’t want to avoid you anymore, Beck.”
He nods and adjusts his hat again, blowing out a heavy sigh. “Good. Because I hate avoiding you.” Half of his mouth lifts up in a hesitant smile. “Don’t tell your sisters, but you’re my favorite.”
“Obviously I’m your favorite. But I think—” Nervousness twinges in my belly, that touch of imposter syndrome that sits heavy on my shoulders making itself known. The idea that I can’t make a single misstep without disappointing someone else. Him, in particular. “I think that’s the problem, actually.”
“What is?” Beckett asks, all traces of humor gone. He’s alert, concerned, looking for the thing he can fix and make better. But I’m the one that needs to fix it this time.
“Your unwavering faith in me,” I say quietly.
Hurt brackets his mouth, a punch right in the middle of my chest.
“What do you mean?” he asks.
I nod toward one of the chairs at my kitchen table and busy myself with two mugs, pulling out the tea I know he likes. I consider it, then reach for the small bottle of whiskey. I need the liquid courage. I’ve never been great at sharing how I feel, especially with Beckett. The person I admire most in the entire world. I fill the kettle, set the bags in the mugs, and try to find my words. I try to find the root of this messy, uncomfortable pressure that sits heavy on my heart.
“Do you know why I wanted to open my shop here? In Inglewild?”
Beckett toys with the saltshaker in the middle of my table. “You said it was because you wanted to be closer to home.”
I turn my cup in my hands, my palms pressed tight to the sides. “That’s true. I do like being closer to you guys. I like seeing you more than every other weekend. But more than that, I think I wanted to—I wanted to do something that made you proud.”
Beckett frowns at me. “I’m always proud of you.”
“I know you are. I know. But I’m—” I stare hard at the tabletop and try to untangle the knot in the middle of my chest. I don’t know how to explain it. “You’ve been taking care of me my entire life, Beck. That’s who you are. You’re a caretaker.” He grumbles and I roll my eyes. “You are,” I insist. “And you—I think you see the best version of the person I am. Or you see the person I could be. You never think I’m going to fail, and I think—I think sometimes that makes me feel like I can’t. I don’t want to disappoint you.”
Even the idea of Beckett thinking less of me has tears pushing at the backs of my eyes. My throat feels too thick, my heart too heavy. Somewhere in the back of my mind, logically, I know that Beckett wouldn’t be disappointed in me over a tattoo studio. That I could never have another client again and he’d be just as proud. But that’s the point, isn’t it? I want to earn it. I want to deserve it.
“Is that why you haven’t shown me the studio yet?” he asks.
I nod. “I want it to be perfect before you see it. I don’t want you to see it and regret the time and trust you’ve invested in me. I want it to live up to your expectations.”
He gapes at me across the table. “What?”
And that’s it, I think. That’s the thing I’ve been terrified of this entire time. It’s why I’ve been pushing myself so hard to be good at all of this. To do it by myself and succeed. Because Beckett has been quietly standing behind me this entire time, never asking for a thing in return. If he can do it all by himself, I should be able to, too.
“I wouldn’t have any of this if it wasn’t for you. And I don’t—I don’t know how I can ever possibly repay you for it.” I take a deep breath through my nose and swallow hard. My voice is trembling. My hands too. I squeeze them around my empty mug. “If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be opening my own place. I probably wouldn’t be tattooing at all, and I—I never—” I have to stop again, and I force myself to look at him this time. To be brave. “You’ve always believed in me the most, Beck. You’ve blindly supported every whim, every idea, every project I’ve ever had. You don’t think I can do anything wrong, and I think that’s turned into me thinking I don’t have the space to do anything wrong.”
Beckett watches me, his face falling. “I’ve been putting pressure on you?” he asks. “Nova, this whole time…” He rubs his hand over his jaw. “This whole time, I’ve been hurting you?”
“No, that’s not on you,” I say quickly. Those are my own thoughts. My own insecurities that he inadvertently amplified. That’s something I need to work through on my own. I just—“I don’t want to disappoint you. I don’t want you to see the studio and think I’ve squandered the chance you gave me. You’ve always worked so hard, and I’ve hardly worked at all, and it isn’t fair that I’ve gotten the things I want when—”
“That’s enough,” Beckett says, his voice sharp at the edges. My words stutter to a stop, and I press my lips together to keep anything else from falling out. He looks serious and confused, the little line between his eyebrows that’s a perfect match for mine appearing in earnest.
The other side of my coin.
My big brother.
“That’s enough of that,” he says again, voice gentling.
“Okay,” I rasp, horrified when my lower lip begins to tremble. I stare hard at the wood grain beneath my mug and tell myself I’m not going to fucking cry.
The kettle begins to whistle on the stove. I stand, grateful for the chance to piece myself back together. I don’t know what I expected from Beckett, but I didn’t expect him to shut down the conversation.
I lift the kettle and pour the tea, steam curling around my wrists.
“How can you say that?”
I don’t respond and he doesn’t move to fill the space with an explanation. I shake my head, and I hear him shift in his chair.
“Hardly worked at all,” he repeats quietly. “Nova. You’ve been working your ass off for years to establish yourself. I might have been—I might have been the first person to sit in your chair, but that was a favor to me. Not you.”
“How do you figure?”
I turn with two mugs of tea in my hand and set them between us. Beckett pushes out of his chair, circling the table until he can collapse in the seat closest to me. He grabs my hand with his, the ink on his wrist a pair to the ink on mine. “I like all of this ink you gave me. It’s always felt—” He sighs, staring hard at me. “You know I’m shit at telling you how I feel, but I’m going to try, okay?” I nod. “I volunteered to be your first client because I wanted to have your work first. The tattoos…they always felt like something special for just the two of us. I like that we’re the only ones in our family that look like this. I like that I can say I have the first ever Nova Porter design.” He swallows. “The things you have are because of you. Not me. I’m not the one who is filling your appointment books. I’m not the one busting my ass to launch a tattoo studio. All I did was believe in you. You were the one who was brave enough to try.”
My fingers flex in his hand. “I know, but—”
“No buts,” he says. “It’s as simple as that. You’ve earned this. You’ve done it.”
I sniffle. “It doesn’t always feel like that though. Sometimes it feels like if I mess this part up, everything is going to disappear. It feels like maybe I won’t get another chance.”
“And how are you going to mess it up, huh? You gonna run out of ink? Your vines not gonna drop the way you want them to?”
I garble out a laugh. Beckett’s face softens into something it only seems to do occasionally, that big heart of his right on his sleeve. He squeezes my fingers again.
“Some of that is my fault, yeah? I haven’t listened the way you need and I’m sorry about that. I’m going to do better, but I need you to do better too. I know you’ve got no problems yelling at me, Nova Ray Porter. I need you to start talking louder.”
“I will,” I tell him. “I promise.”
“Good.” He leans back in his chair, still keeping my hand in his. “And don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t give a fuck about the tattoo studio. The studio doesn’t matter.”
“What?”
“It’s not about what color you paint the walls or those giant mirrors you have in the front—”
“You’ve seen my mirrors?”
“—or how your vines look or any of that other shit, okay? It’s about you, Nova. And whether or not you’re happy with what you’re doing. The rest of it is just extra.” His face twists as he thinks about it. “The…fertilizer on top of the soil. You’ve got good soil. Good dirt.”
“I’ve got…good dirt?”
He nods.
I can sort of see the metaphor he’s going for. “Okay, but—”
“The support I’ve given you doesn’t come with a price tag. That’s not how this works. I’m your brother and I love you. You don’t have to hit a certain metric for that love to make sense. It’s not going away and you don’t have to earn it. It just…exists. It’s there. I’ve already given it to you.”
“But you’ve given me enough.”
Beckett sighs and squeezes my hand hard enough to hurt. “I really want to put you in a headlock right now,” he murmurs. “Is this why you won’t let anyone help you with a goddamn thing?”
I shake my head, think about it, then nod. It’s important that I do this by myself. I want to prove to myself that everything that’s happened—all of my success and clients and the ability to turn my dream into a job—I want to prove that it won’t disappear in a cloud of smoke. That I’ve taken every opportunity and sacrifice I’ve been given and turned it into something incredible. Nothing else will do.
Beckett grunts. “Well, cut that shit out. Asking for help doesn’t make you less deserving of anything you’ve already achieved on your own.” He leans back in the chair and lets go of my hand, dragging his palm across his jaw. “I wish I could put myself in a headlock. I can’t believe I ever made you feel like you don’t have the room to be anything other than perfect.”
I let that sink in, aching to feel the relief I know those words should bring. Some of the knots loosen, but they’re still tangled up. I blow out a breath and dig my knuckles into my cheek. I’ve got a feeling the uncertainty is going to be a work in progress.
And that’s okay. For the first time in a long time, it feels like maybe it’s okay that I’m a work in progress. Just like my studio. Just like the little plants breaking through the soil and reaching for the sunlight. I’m trying, and maybe trying is enough.
“Maybe…maybe you could come take a look at the studio,” I say slowly. Beckett shifts in his chair. “You can tell me what you think. Honestly.”
“If that’s what you want.”
I nod. I need to rip off the proverbial Band-Aid. I need to stop being so afraid I’m not going to measure up to someone else’s expectations. Because Beckett’s right. The details don’t matter. The light I still haven’t figured out how to hang in the back is not going to make or break my business.
I need to start giving myself more credit.
“Do you want to see the studio?” I ask.
Beckett rolls his eyes, then snatches the bottle of whiskey I brought over with our tea and honey. He tips some into his mug. “Of course I want to see it. I’ve been dying to see it. I know you have mirrors because I’ve been pressing my face up against the glass. Ms. Beatrice called Dane on me twice.”
A laugh rolls out of me. I squeeze his hand one more time and then stand. Beckett stares at me with amused, irritated affection. A look only a sibling can perfect.
“All right, well. Grab your coat.”
“We’re going now?” he asks.
I nod. “Yeah. We’re going now.”
Beckett has been standing at the back wall for sixteen minutes, squinting at the succulents in the vertical garden. It stretches from floor to ceiling, plants spilling out from between reclaimed wooden beams. My own private forest in the back.
I kick my feet back and forth on one of the tattoo chairs, watching him, the mug of tea he insisted we bring with us cupped in my hands.
“Your soil is too dry,” he offers, his back still to me, fingertip tracing the edge of a leaf. “And these will need better sunlight if you want them to do well.”
“The sunlight is fine.”
“Says who?”
“Says Mabel, who installed all of those succulents.”
He grunts and mutters something under his breath, squatting down to take a look at another section closer to the floor. I’m glad he’s being critical. I’m glad he’s taking it seriously. If he walked in and gave me a generic compliment, I’m not sure I would have believed him.
But I’d like it if he moved on from inspecting the plant wall.
“There’s more greenery up here, if you want to take a look.”
“In a second,” he answers. He’s too busy scooping some dirt out of my wall and peering at it in the palm of his hand. I take advantage of his distraction and slip my phone out of my pocket.
NOVA: Did you make it off my roof alive?
His answer comes through immediately.
CHARLIE: Ooh, what’s this? You care about my well-being?
I smile.
NOVA: I care about my flower beds.
NOVA: Also, your legs.
CHARLIE: Well, my legs are fine. Can’t say the same about your flower beds.
A picture appears on my phone of some squished hydrangeas. Then a selfie of Charlie, flower petals in his hair. Bare chest. Dirt on his cheek. Dear god, I hope he didn’t run down the street like that.
I hesitate, then save the picture. Another message appears below the selfie.
CHARLIE: Everything okay with your brother?
I look at Beckett who has finally meandered away from the plant wall. He’s looking at each tattoo station with his hands behind his back, his hat tucked under his arm. That knot in my chest unravels a little bit more, and I feel like I can finally take a breath.
NOVA: Yeah. Everything is good.