Chapter 8
Ranger
Three days.
I’ve managed to stay away from her for three whole days. That’s gotta be a record for someone staying away from a girl like her, right? So here I am, in the shop early because I just need to see her. I need to make sure she’s okay. That she’s, you know, breathing because I haven’t seen her. It’s what her brother would want, right?
But that feeling in my gut, the one that tells me to be nice to her, shrivels up and disappears when I get to the top of the stairs and I hear her voice through the phone.
“I love you, J. Miss you.”
I hear a man’s deep voice respond, and I want to rage. Three days after I fucked her against a wall and she’s telling another man that she loves him? What the fuck? Who does that?
Elle. Obviously.
I have to get out of here. Now. Before I do something stupid like break down the fucking door and demand she tell me who the hell she’s talking to. Turning, I stomp back down the stairs and into the shop. I know I need to calm down, but I don’t know how.
I look up at the sound of a cough. Barbie’s standing there, her arms crossed, staring at me. But she doesn’t have the ‘you alright, boss?’ look on her face. No, this is the ‘what the fuck did you do to my girl?’ face.
“I don’t know what just happened, and I don’t really care. I’m calling to cancel your appointment and you need to get out of here,” she tells me with absolutely no room for argument in her voice.
“I don’t know who you think you’re talking to—”
“I’m talking to my boss and one of my best friends. And I’m letting you keep your mouth shut, but I won’t let you put your love of ink on the line because some pussy has you all up in your head,” she cuts me off.
“I’m fine,” I try.
“Bullshit.”
“I said I’m fine. Drop it.”
“If you’re fine, I have some oceanfront property in Oklahoma to sell you.”
“Really? Not Arizona?” I smirk, feeling my heart returning to normal. This is us, the banter, the giving each other shit. “Never been to Oklahoma. Are the beaches good?”
“What the hell is going on between you two?” Barbie asks, sitting in my chair, crossing her hands over her stomach. The look she’s giving me now is one of concern and worry.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing’s going on or you don’t wanna talk about it?”
I clean my area as gently as I can, partially in the hopes Barbie doesn’t kick me out of my own shop today. I also avoid looking her in the eyes. Woman can read me better than just about anyone other than Joker.
“Well, at least you don’t look like you want to kill someone now.”
She slides off the chair and leaves my booth, returning to the front of the shop. Alone with my thoughts, I use the calming technique I learned from the mandated shrink the Army made me see after the accident when I kept having panic attacks. Deep breathing, empty mind, finger tapping to pull my focus. I try all of it, and I’m still only marginally back to myself when my client shows up.
And I’ll have you know that her dagger looked fucking fantastic when I finished. No unnecessary blood to be found.
After a sleepless night, I”m back in the shop wondering who Elle”s ”I love you, J” mystery man is. Driving myself crazy with it, actually. When I hear a motor outside that is definitely bigger than a car and not as sexy as a bike, I walk to the back door of the shop and look out the window to see an oversized work van. The driver’s side door opens and a man, who I can grudgingly admit is good looking, slides out from behind the wheel. I open the door to the shop when I see Elle bounding down the back stairs of the studio and jump right into the arms of this six foot Adonis with dark hair and skin.
“Oh, my God! I’m so glad you’re here!” Elle exclaims, jumping up and down on her toes when he puts her down.
“I did tell you I’d be here,” he replies.
“I didn’t think you’d be here so quickly!”
“You really think I called to find out what you wanted without having half of it already packed up?”
“Why are you so good to me?” she asks, throwing her arms around his waist and clinging to him.
“Because you’re beautiful and talented. And you keep me around to stroke your ego.”
They both laugh at that and I want to punch something.
“Well, since my ego is the only thing you’ll stroke of mine…” She rolls her eyes.
Wait, does that mean he isn’t stroking her…whatever she gets stroked? I’m so confused. I feel Barbie come up behind me, but I don’t pay her any mind as I make my way between the pair.
“What the fuck is this?” I ask.
The man looks me up and down, from my head to my toes and back again, arching his brow when I figure he’s right around my crotch.
“Oh, my God, Jorge, just ignore him. He’s an asshole.”
She’s not wrong, but who the fuck is she to call me an asshole? I’m the only one who can say I’m an asshole.
“Oh, is this one of your straights, baby girl?”
Does that mean he’s…? Oh, hmm, well, maybe I don’t want to punch his face in. At least not as much as I did a few minutes ago.
“Jorge meet Ranger,” Elle gives a half assed attempted to introduce me.
“Jonathan Cross.” And, yes, I stick my hand out to him. “I’m the owner of the tattoo parlor and the studio that Ella is renting.”
“So you’re the one who—” Elle jumps up and climbs him like a tree, cutting off his words by covering his mouth with her hand.
She told somebody? Fuck, does that mean everybody knows?
Flustered, Elle turns to me. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
Barbie, who’s been quiet during our exchange, squeals Jorge’s name and rushes into his waiting arms. What is it with this man getting all the love from the women?
“Who are you?” I ask him. I swear, I’m not trying to sound like a dick, but, well, yeah, I sound exactly like a dick.
“I’m every woman’s favorite gay, Jorge.” He gives me a megawatt smile and shakes my outstretched hand.
I shake it and feel my lips almost tip into a smile at his introduction. “Well, okay then. Nice to meet you, I guess?”
He laughs. “I’m here to bring her her art shit.”
“Hey!” Elle yells from the back of the van. “My art ain’t shit!”
“I never said your art was shit!” he yells back. “I said I was bringing your art shit! Two different things, baby girl.”
“Whatever.” I can feel her roll her eyes even if I can’t see them. “Are you gonna help me move it upstairs or not?”
“How many stairs?” Jorge asks, looking like he’s really thinking about saying no.
“No more than twenty.” She smiles and rapidly blinks her eyes at him. Good thing he’s gay, I’d have already caved and started walking the stairs.
“Fuck,” he groans. “I really hate you for making me your pack-mule. You know that right?”
“Nah, you love me.”
“Not always,” he laughs.
I think I might get along with this guy, especially now that I know he’s not stroking her. But when he opens the doors to the back of the moving truck and I get an eye full of all the art shit, I know I’m going to be roped into helping. Why couldn’t she plan this better? Where is her big muscled brother to help carry all her crap up the fucking stairs? Jorge looks at me as the realization sinks in, and he gives me a knowing head nod.
“Yes, we are suckers for a pretty girl.”
“Let’s just get this over with,” I tell him.
We’re making the last trip up the stairs, having sent Elle to the shop so she and Barbie could order us food, when Jorge finally looks at me.
“I don’t know what the two of you have going on—”
“Why does everybody insist that we have something going on?” I interrupt by asking out loud, but not directly to him. My thoughts are just loud today.
Jorge puts a hand on his hip and gives me that look. You know the one—the you’re a fucking dumbass look.
“Honey, anyone looking at the two of you can see there’s something going on. I just don’t know what. Are you enemies to lovers? Friends with benefits?”
“This isn’t a fucking romance book, and we aren’t friends.”
“Nice. Enemies to lovers, then.”
“We aren’t enemies.” Are we?
“Then what are you?”
“If I knew that, I’d be a fucking millionaire.”
“No, you’d just be fucking a millionaire. Which you already did.”
I do finally laugh at that because he’s right. I did bang a millionaire against the wall in this room.
“She didn’t tell me specifics. But I am going to tell you she’s a fragile heart. I know you hear the stereotypes about artists being flighty, or, you know, sensitive, and she is those things when it comes to her art. But as a person, she’s fragile. Just don’t hurt her. Please.”
I look at him and realize he’s being her friend and doing what a true friend should do. My respect for him grows. Yeah, I like this guy. He’s good people.
“I don’t want to hurt anybody. And I don’t want to be hurt.”
“Then you understand me.”
I nod my head. “I understand you. I also understand that I gave up women four years ago when I caught my wife fucking my brother. I will never put myself in that position again.”
He smiles like he just heard the funniest joke. “Oh man, this is going to be so much fun to watch.”
“What’s going to be fun to watch?”
“The two of you.”
“There is no ‘two of us’,” I remind him. “She is her, I am me. The only thing we have going is a transactional relationship where she pays me for the privilege to use all this shit,” I wave my hand over everything we carried up the stairs, “in this room.” I know my voice is rising, and I’m in defense mode. He might be her friend, but he does not get to be privy to my life or thoughts or feelings.
“Don’t,” he warns. “Do not minimize anything that you might have. I’m telling you I will personally rip your balls from your body if she ever sheds a tear and your name is attached to it. And I don’t give a flying fuck if that name is Jonathan or Cross, or fucking Ranger, or whatever fucking name you want to go by that day. I. Will. Hurt. You.”
I nod my head in acknowledgement, but don’t say anything in response. There really isn’t anything to say, is there?
“One more question, and then I’ll leave you to your broody, moody self. What’s the security like in this place?”
I perk up at his question. “Why? Is there something going on I should know about?”
“No,” he answers. Quickly. Too quickly. “There’s just a lot of money in this room right now and I honestly don’t want to do the fucking paperwork if something happens to it.”
I let his answer and lie slide, already knowing there’s something going on, and tell him about the security system while making my own plans to add to it. If there’s something to worry about with Elle, I want her safety to be the least of those worries.
We make our way down the stairs that lead into the shop, and when I get a glimpse of her, I’m reminded of the first time I saw her when she was talking to the girls. She’s having a moment of stillness now and she might be the most beautiful creature I’ve ever laid eyes on. Her pain drapes her body like a cloak, her eyes windows to her soul. I recognize that look. It’s the same one that stares back at me from the mirror every morning. I know she’s been betrayed. I know she’s been hurt. And as much as I don’t want to know, I feel like I need to know what happened to her. The more I learn about her, the more I’m drawn to her. And that’s a very dangerous road, isn’t it?