Chapter 7
seven
brENNA
I glance at the coffee-shop window and give my reflection the once-over.
My dreads are bound up with the silver, skull clips.
The wing on my eyeliner is sharp enough to cut glass.
Between the lack of sleep and heartache, my cheekbones are prominent enough that I don’t need any contour, but I’ve highlighted them anyway.
My matte purple lipstick screams badass, as does my spiked dog-collar, my leather trench coat, open over a sheer, lace halter, and my oxblood leather pants.
Am I way over the top for a morning coffee with my friend?
You bet. But no one is going to see past the shiny surface to the pile of quivering, raw meat I am inside.
From here on, all anyone gets is shiny Brenna.
Except that Ruby knows me too fucking well and by the time we’ve gotten our coffees and muffins, my eyes are burning and I’m wiping my nose with my freshly-manicured fingers because of her perceptive questions.
“And he just let you walk away?” Ruby asks, pushing a wave of deep magenta hair over her shoulder.
Ruby’s not her real name. It’s what we called her at Mother Kay’s because of her mane of frizzy, red hair and that stupid song by Kaiser Chiefs.
She grew into it, taming the frizz and turning it this arresting shade of purple-red that she’s worn like a fucking boss for the last decade.
Nothing hurts this girl. She turns her imperfections into strengths and wears them like fucking body armor.
I’ve wanted to be her every day since we met. “He hasn’t called or anything since?”
“No.” I swipe at my nose again before taking a sip of too-hot coffee and sucking on my cheeks to try to relieve the burn.
“Fuck him, then,” she says.
“Right,” I say, with zero conviction.
She tips her head and gives me a soft look with her deep brown eyes.
“You still want to fuck him.”
“Because I’m a fucktard.”
“Because he showed you there’s something more behind door number two,” she says gently, reminding me of when we used to watch old game shows together late at night on the ratty couch in Mother Kay’s common room.
“You’ve had a run of Doms who were just dialing it in with you, girlfriend. And now you’ve found a good one—”
“Potentially a good one,” I snap. “Who left me plugged to run off to Queens and sent me a fucking thumbs-up emoji when I tried to be there for him and left me to drop into the black hole of subdrops and fucking judged me for doing the scene I committed to right in front of him.”
A lady two tables over shoots me a glare and I hunch down into my coffee miserably. “I’m not sure he’s such a good one,” I say quietly and without expletives.
“He ran off to Queens to rescue his drug-addicted daughter. That makes him a fucking paladin.” She ticks her points off on her fingers.
“He sent you a thumbs-up emoji because it was late at night and he was exhausted and because he’s a man and they barely have opposable thumbs, much less know how to text. ”
I salute her with my coffee cup. She’s right about that.
“He left you to drop into the black hole of subdrops, and you should make him fucking grovel for that, but he didn’t know you were dropping, and you didn’t tell him because you have steel-bitch balls.
I love you, B, but you’d have to be in the last stages of kidney failure before you asked anyone for help, so you can’t really lay that one at his door. ”
I roll my eyes. She’s right about that, too, but I don’t have to admit it.
“And was he judging you, or was he having a huge mantrum because you did a scene with another Dom?”
“Felt like he was judging me,” I mutter into my coffee.
“He was jealous, B. C’mon, you know what was going on. Theo all but peed on your leg, putting his arm around you like that. And Mac reacted like—”
“An asshole,” I interject.
“A jealous, alpha male. You walk out in your lingerie, on another Dom’s arm, and what’s he to think? He’s got no way to know you weren’t deep in dick five minutes before.”
The lady two tables over huffs, picks up her bag and her coat, and leaves.
“We’re scaring off the ‘Nillas,” I point out.
“Fuck ‘em,” Ruby says. Which sums up her whole philosophy. I’m going to get that put on a T-shirt for her. “We’re solving important problems here. Did you make it clear when you told Theo you’d give him a rain check that sex was off the table?”
“No,” I groan. “Because it wasn’t then.”
“So, Mac figures you’ve bounced right from him to Theo and given Theo the thing you didn’t give him—”
“He’s the one who said no sex, Rubes.”
“Yeah, do you think that’s what’s on his mind when you stroll out on the arm of a guy you’ve fucked a hundred times?”
“Hey, two dozen. Tops.”
She leans over the table and hisses. “The point is that Theo’s dick has been where his hasn’t, little sis.”
Ruby and I aren’t related, but she’s called me her little sister ever since the first day we met at Mother Kay’s. It brings a tear to my eye and today is no different. I blot it with the coffee shop’s napkin.
“So, you’re saying, what? I fucked up?”
She reaches across the table and catches my hand in hers, curling her black French-tipped fingers around mine.
“I’m saying you’re my blue Kali and any man who wants you should get on his knees and beg for your attention.
But since this one’s gotten it, make him grovel for the sucky aftercare, and consider that you might have overreacted a little. ”
Mac called me his goddess. That’s usually a name reserved for Dommes, and it was so cool that he flipped it around and made me feel like one during our scene.
“A little?” I sniffle.
Ruby pinches the air between her fingers. “Don’t forget the groveling.”
Groveling is more Ruby’s thing than mine, since she’s a pro-Domme, but I nod.
“Do I call him?”
“Men and apologies and phones?” She shakes her head. “Whatever you decide to do, do it in person.”
She’s right. I’ve never, ever had a good make-up conversation with a guy over the phone.
I squeeze the fingers she still has wrapped around mine. “Thank you, Red Sonja.”
We didn’t have expensive video games or Blu-ray at Mother Kay’s.
We had old board games, a set of Dungeons and Dragons books, and stacks of VCR tapes.
Ruby loved the old Red Sonja movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger and named her D&D character after her.
I played a girl berserker I named John, just to piss everyone off.
“You’re welcome, baby sis. Now that we’ve solved all of your problems, you have to listen to mine.”
I laugh, because Ruby’s taken a huge weight off my shoulders, and because Ruby’s problems are usually of the “I have too many men begging to lick my boots” variety. “Okay, tell me all your problems, Mistress R.”
With a grin and a wink, she launches in and I listen, and laugh, because Ruby’s fucking funny when she gets going.
But this time, maybe for the first time ever, I realize that behind all the bootlicking, and testicle-crushing, and too many men begging for her attention, my big sis might want a man who calls her goddess because he actually thinks she is, and who brings her a beer afterwards, and holds her all night even if she doesn’t get much sleep.
When I tell her this, she grins wryly at me. “Well, if your Mac has a sissy brother or two, send them to me. I’m still building my harem.”
I laugh harder because she’s probably not joking. “Even if they’re twenty years older?”
“Girlfriend, all cocks look the same in the dark.”
Because she’s right, I chuckle.
Even though I’m in substantially the same position I was in when I went into Spill the Beans: overdressed, overtired, and without any resolution between me and Mac, I’m happier when I make my way into my shop.
I bring a paper tray full of coffees and distribute them to Nicky, Jules, the piercer who rents a chair at the shop, and Spike, our high school apprentice, who has made one of his rare appearances.
Once I get Spike going decorating the shop for Halloween, Nicky gives me with the news that the bullshit reviews have been taken off Google.
Between that and watching Spike hanging little ghost lights in the front window, my mood lifts even more.
Emily must have told Logan, who fixed it without even asking me about it, in the high-handed way that Doms do.
I’ve never felt more grateful for the high-handedness of Doms as I am this morning.
My mood lifts even higher when Nicky shows me the appointment calendar.
We’ve got solid bookings all the way to the weekend.
I’ve got two first-time tattoos tomorrow which are probably my favorites.
There’s nothing like a blank canvas to work on and the amazement in a first-timer’s eyes when they see the finished piece glowing at them in the mirror is better than every birthday and Christmas rolled into one.
I take a walk-in who wants a redesign of a faded heart with his mother’s name.
The design we work up together—of his mother’s favorite peace lilies with her name, her kids’ names, and his two children’s’ names—really fires me up.
I love doing memorials, and I sink into it for two happy hours, working drop shadows and highlighting into the lettering so the piece really pops.
The guy’s so happy with it that he hugs me when he sees it in the mirror.
I’m still grinning after I ring him up and wave him out the door with the aftercare card in his hand.
Nicky, leaning against the counter and watching the guy go, says, “Let’s print something on the back of the aftercare cards asking people to leave us a Google review.”
I snap my fingers and cock my first finger and thumb at him like a gun. “Good thinking, firecracker. You call the printer while I wipe down my station.”
“Don’t call me firecracker,” Nicky grumbles, but he pulls out the tablet from under the counter to find the printer’s information.