Chapter Ten – Angela
Chapter Ten
Angela
I stalked back to my car in the parking lot.
Something about being near Gray had pulled my wolf to the surface, and she was as pissed as I was—with me, for Rabbit’s sake?
Or against me, for leaving Gray? She was such a separate thing from me, I never felt like I could control her, and I had no idea.
I sank into my beat up Honda four door and tried to push her down inside.
Her being so close frightened me, which was why I kept a small bottle of colloidal silver and an eyedropper inside my glove box.
I opened it up, stirred around inside for it, didn’t find it, tossed everything out, becoming frantic—it had to be here somewhere—I started looking underneath the passenger side seat, and then my own, and missed an officer walking up to me till he tapped on the driver side window.
“Ma’am, is everything okay?”
I startled, guilty only of looking guilty, like I was searching for drugs or a gun, and rolled down my old-fashioned window with the crank.
“What do you want?” my wolf growled at the man. And then, as if startled at the sound of her own voice, she left me. His eyes narrowed and I did the only thing I could think of to disarm him—I cried.
They were genuine tears. How naive had I been to think I’d fallen off Gray’s radar? And now he knew that Rabbit was his son. Moving might have saved us that—and all the decisions I did or didn’t make for the past seven years washed over me, wracking sobs from my chest.
“I’m sorry,” he said, making an indeterminate gesture of apology between us before walking back the other way.
I kept crying until I couldn’t anymore, rolled up my window, and drove home.
This morning I’d managed to dodge my mother’s pointed stares as I got Rabbit out the door—I knew I wouldn’t be so lucky when I got back, and I was right, her scooter was stationed in the entry way, all the better to catch me when I returned.
“Everything okay?” she asked, taking in my haggard look.
“Yeah.” I pulled off the sweat shirt—my mother had already seen, and disapproved of, all my tattoos.
I had to pull myself together, flat iron my hair, and get some eyeliner on.
If it were only me tattooing, freelancing like I used to, I wouldn’t care, but as a boss I had to project a certain amount of authority.
Especially today—after the shop being vandalized last night—my people needed me to be strong.
My mother’s expression continued to be quizzical. “So—late night?”
I sighed. I hadn’t told her about Dark Ink’s window, I didn’t want her to worry, I’d made her worry enough already in her life. “Yeah.”
“Good late? Or bad late?” She looked me up and down.
“Good late. Kind of,” I said, dodging around her to jog upstairs and turn the flat iron on.
“What’s that mean?” she shouted up.
“It means I’m busy, mom,” I shouted back, pulling on dark jeans and a red scoop-neck tee.
I washed my face and smeared streaks of concealer under my tired eyes, I was going to need it today.
When I walked back down stairs looking pulled together her scooter hadn’t budged an inch, and now her arms were crossed.
“I just want to know when we’re going to meet him is all.”
“I don’t know,” I said, truthfully. “It hasn’t been the right time.
” And it might never be the right time. I’d watched Mark drop fifty thousand dollars on a poker game the prior night—no matter how good we were at fucking one another, he was entirely out of my league.
Not to mention the fact that he didn’t know anything about Gray… .
“It’s just that I can see you talking yourself out of this one.”
“Mom,” I complained.
“No, you do this, Angie—you find a nice guy, decide he’s too nice for you, and then dump him.
” Her words hurt like she was repeatedly running her scooter into my shin.
“If I could afford to send you to some kind of counseling, I would.” She revved her scooter closer and reached up to pat my cheek softly.
“You’re a good girl, Angela. You deserve some happiness. ”
I did. I knew I did—but—I forced a smile for her sake. “Thanks, Mom,” I said, and leaned down to kiss her forehead. “I have to get to work,” I said and whirled for the door.
“Stay out of the prisons and the pool halls!” she shouted after me, like she always did.
Good thing she didn’t know I’d already been to prison once today.
I drove to Dark Ink and fought the urge to thumb through my phone for window shops at every red light.
I knew Mattie would have the parlor cleaned by now—hopefully it wasn’t completely freezing with just taped tarp where the window’d been—how expensive would just a plain window be?
We could paint the “Dark Ink” and “24/7” on it ourselves, later, everyone I employed was an artist, including me.
But every minute the shop was too cold to work in—or looked too trashy—was more walk-in clientele we’d miss.
It didn’t matter so much for me and the other established artists, but the new kids needed cash from flash to stay alive.
I pulled up in back, hopped out of my car, and ran around, remembering to change to a more boss-like stroll just in time to see a completely new window where the old one had been.
Our name was even bigger on this one—as was the claim that we were Vegas’s only “All-Nite Tattoo”, in tasteful silver cursive below.
I walked up to the window and stared at it, afraid to touch what must be very fresh paint. Inside Mattie saw me, and started waving.
As if in a dream, I walked over and through the door. Two artists had active guns, one was doing a consult, and I heard the muffled yelp of someone being pierced in back.
“Nice work, boss!” Mattie shouted, the second I was through. He pulled his hand out of its glove and brought it up to his lips for a wolf whistle. The other artists looked up, saw me, and whooped or shouted.
Mattie said something to his client, then dismounted the chair he sat on, and started patting the pockets on his leather vest as he came over. “They installed it this morning, and left this for you,” he said, handing me an envelope.
I took it from him, feeling the blood drain from my face. Another letter. I didn’t dare open it on the parlor floor.
“That’s, uh, good thing, right?”
I ran a hand through my hair. “Yeah. Of course.” Unless it’d been bought with Pack blood-money as some sort of perverse apology or way for Gray to make me think I owe him.
I folded the letter and put it in my back pocket and scanned our current clients.
None of them looked rough enough to run with the Pack, but a lot could change in seven years.
So I kept my chin high and walked over to my station—I’d been in such a rush yesterday, I hadn’t put my inks back, and I needed to do some sketches.
One of my regulars wanted a tiger on her right shoulder, and it was just about the only blank skin that she had left, it needed to flow with all the other the work she had.
Jack’s station was on the way to mine. He’d left out a half-drawn picture of the rising sun.
It was beautifully rendered, you could almost feel the sunlight radiating off the page, gentle smears of pink and orange.
I knew on the right skin, pale enough, he wouldn’t even do any outlining, he’d make it look like watercolors.
Jack had some devotees due to word of mouth—Vegas was a 24/7 town, and night-shift workers didn’t want to wake up early on their off days for tats—but not a lot of them, not after 3 AM.
I’d offered him more lucrative daytime slots—more lucrative for us both, since I kept a slice—but he’d always rebuffed me in his devil-may-care way.
I traced a corner of the sun he’d drawn with one finger. I had pale enough skin. And I had space, right over my hip. I imagined Jack touching me with gloved hands, felt things best left quiet stir and—my eyes caught sight of a used condom in his trashcan.
Because of course there was.
I brought a hand up to rub my temple. If he was shooting porn here, I would kill him.
I made my way to my station and gave up on worrying if the Pack could see me, opening the letter as I sat down. It was a crisp sheet of official cream stationary, carefully folded. I unfolded it slowly, and for the first time in weeks got something good in the mail:
Can’t wait to see you tonight.
M