Chapter 14
The minute the door closes, my fingers touch my lips.
Like I could maybe still feel her kiss if I press my fingers to them fast enough.
I feel like everything’s aligned, and I can finally breathe again.
She’s here. Safe. With me.
And I’ll be fucking damned if I let anything happen to make that change.
“Goddamn it, Ty!” Asher snaps from across the room and I shake my head, walking over to him where he’s fuming. Tough fucking shit, brother, I’m just as pissed off at him. I’m not going to let his stupid snarling take away from what I just got.
I stand closer to him, speaking darkly to get my point across.
“Be a little more patient or I swear to whatever’s below that I will knock your shit out.”
Asher’s eyebrows raise in shock, but he keeps working. We talk to each other like this normally, so it’s not that out of the blue for me to threaten him with a well-timed punch, but it’s the first time in a long fucking time that I’ve meant it.
And he knows it.
“Is she okay?” Asher asks nervously, pulling the machine from his client’s skin to look up at me.
“She’s fine. Worried, but slowly trusting me.”
“Okay.” Asher nods, his blue eyes putting it all together. He actually looks at me, trying to figure out what I’m saying and thinking…then he starts smirking like a motherfucker.
“What?” I snap.
“Your lips weren’t so…bitten when you went back there.”
I shove him on the shoulder, not hard enough to push him off because I’m not a total dick. I know he’d have to resanitize if I hit him the way I want to.
“Shut up.”
“Come on, man. I can see how happy you are. Revel in it a little.” Asher shrugs and gestures with his thumb over his shoulder towards the lobby. “That girl, she wants a mandala on her shoulder with shading and stippling. She has an inspo picture and has signed all the paperwork.”
“Got it,” I say with a nod and turn on my heel to see the girl sitting there.
Fuck my fucking life. Goddamn it. How has my day gone from so good to so bad?
In the blink of a fucking eye.
The girl standing there is one I’ve tattooed before. She came in wanting a single lightning bolt on her chest. Who am I to tell someone that the placement of a tattoo is dumb? Especially when they’re paying me.
Did I fall for some well-timed flirting? Unfortunately, yes.
And now she’s fucking back.
On the best fucking day I’ve had in years.
I grind my teeth and clench my fingers into fists. Time to be as professionally icy as I can possibly be.
“Hello, welcome,” I say monotone, stepping up to the desk that separates the lobby and the tattoo section of the shop. “I hear you have a picture for me?”
This girl, I can’t even remember her name, with bright blonde hair and blue eyes that rival Asher’s in intensity, saunters up to the counter and gives me a sultry smile.
I’m sure before Roxie was back in my life I’d have grinned right back, but now…
Now I just want to get this chick out of here as soon as fucking possible.
“Oh, hi.” She smiles, the heated tone in her voice tells me she remembers exactly who I am and what happened that stupid fucking night. “It’s you.”
Giving her a tight-lipped smile, I nod and cross my arms. “It’s me. I do own this shop. So,” I close my eyes for the briefest moment, trying to get my shit together. “I heard you have a photo that you want to get tattooed.”
“Yeah,” she smirks, pulling out her phone. “Here,” she says, holding out her phone while she pulls up the photos app.
And what picture does it open to?
Definitely not a mandala like Asher said.
No, it opens up to a fucking full-frontal nude picture where her tits and vagina are on display. What the fuck?
I immediately, without a moment’s hesitation, avert my eyes and look to the ceiling.
It’s going to be a long fucking afternoon.
“Oops!” she squeals as if she didn’t know exactly what happened.
Clenching my jaw, I’m already at maximum capacity for this bullshit.
“Sorry, Ty. Here.” She swipes–for a long fucking time I might add–and finally finds one that she can show me.
It’s a simple design, just a bubbled design at the edges with a repeated pattern going inward.
Thank fuck she wants black and white because I don’t have the patience or the time to do full shading and color.
“Alright, for this exact design, it’s going to run you $250. If you want more personalization or color work, we’re talking at least $350.”
Her facial expression falls just for a moment because she knows I’m not playing the game she started.
“What’s your base price?”
“Any tattoo I do starts at $80. That covers the needles, the time, etc..” A little warning bell goes off in the back of my head at her question.
“Alright. I want this exact tattoo on my shoulder. You can press up as close as you need to.” She winks and my expression does not change.
I stonewall this bitch until uncertainty creeps into her overly-flirty gaze.
“Give me five minutes to set up, draw it out and get my station sanitized.” I hit the counter once and walk over to get to work. I turn my back on her and don’t even acknowledge the look on her face. It’s not going to happen. No matter what she tries.
Asher walks over while I’m wiping down my station, staring at me until I’m forced to look up at him.
“What?” I grumble.
“Do you know her or something?”
“Or something.”
“Oh shit.” His face pales and there’s not an inch of teasing in his tone.
“Yeah, shit.” I keep working, not willing to stop and have this drawn out conversation about what I did when I was drunk and horny.
“She said she wanted you to tattoo her, that she’d wait. I didn’t even think…”
“Goddamn it. Fuck,” I swear in Spanish as my hand goes to my forehead, rubbing right above my eyebrows where I know a headache is going to start forming.
“Do you want me to take her?”
“That’s nice of you, man, but I know you’re completely packed today. Based on the picture, it shouldn’t take me too long.”
“Just get it started, get it done, and get her out of here.”
“Right.” I hold up my fist and he bumps it. “Food should be here,” I start to say and Harriet walks in with the bag of food I ordered. “Now.”
“Harriet!” Asher exclaims excitedly, turning to greet her and take the bag.
“My god, I don’t see you for two weeks and suddenly you’re losing weight.
Asher Lee, you know better. Ty Hernandez, have you not fed yourself?
” Harriet’s the sweetest soul I’ve ever known.
She took us under her wing when we first opened the shop and has made it her life’s mission to keep us fed and happy.
She’s a saint. Especially because anyone else would’ve taken a look at the two of us, young teenagers on our own, trying and sacrificing everything in order to make a better life for ourselves, our tattoos, piercings, all the quintessential things that make the older generation scoff, and turned on us.
But no, she saw two kids trying their fucking best and offered us any help she could.
“We do our best, Harriet, you know that.” Asher dives into the order, pulling out containers looking for his.
“You heathen, go put it in the back. And give Roxie whatever she wants from there.”
“Roxie?” Harriet asks, picking up the name I dropped like a bloodhound looking for its prey. “Roxanne? Your…”
I may have also gotten too drunk one time and stumbled into Harriet’s diner to pay for food, blurted my entire bleeding heart to her in the kitchen. She never got mad at me for underaged drinking, she just held me and let me get it all out.
A smile crosses my face–a small one–and I nod.
“Yeah, mine.”
Harriet’s eyes widen and she smiles brightly, like I just told her the best news she’s ever heard. She claps her hands a couple times and pulls the bag from Asher’s hand.
“I’ll take it to her,” she says quickly, but I step in front of her.
“Harriet,” I say, tilting my head to the side, nervous now. Not that Harriet would say something wrong, but that I don’t know how Roxie will take someone coming back there that isn’t Asher or I. Not when she’s so worried about being seen and found by Mickey.
“I’ll take it,” Asher says quickly, pulling the bag from Harriet’s hand. He makes a bee-line for the room while tossing me a ‘good-fucking-luck’ look.
“That boy, I’m going to have to talk to him,” she grumbles. “What’s wrong, Ty? Why can’t I go meet her?”
I run my hand along the back of my neck, stepping in closer because that chica is still standing far too close to the desk and watching me.
“She’s…been through a lot. Too much. Fuck, just way too much. And I just got her back, I don’t want to rush her. I want her to feel safe with me first, and then introduce her to everyone that she’ll let me.”
Harriet’s expression softens. I can tell that she knows that if I’m saying Roxie’s been through a lot, it’s more than what someone should go through.
“What does she need?” Harriet asks softly.
“She doesn’t have anything. All of her things, they’re all still there.
I’m dressing her in my clothes,” I tell her but my mind screams at me not to get her any of her own.
I want to see her in my clothes and mine alone for the rest of time.
“And I can’t go get her stuff until tomorrow.
Maybe the day after.” I need to get the address and go get her stuff.
But I don’t have any way to get there… Wait.
“Harriet, is your nephew still selling his bike?”
“His sport motorcycle? Yeah, it’s all beat up, but it runs and is as safe as one of those deathtraps can be,” Harriet grumbles, looking at me with a glint in her eye that tells me she knows exactly what I’m going to ask.
“How much?” I smile.
“Do you even know how to drive one of those things?” she asks with a heavy sigh, and I can tell she’s already fed up with my nonsense.
“I’m a quick study.” Especially when it’s out of necessity. “How much?”