Chapter 36 – “Love Like Ghosts” - Lord Huron
VICE
“LOVE LIKE GHOSTS” - LORD HURON
“Just make sure you keep this over it for the next few days. If it begins to peel on its own, or if your skin gets irritated, it’s okay to take it off, just avoid getting the tattoo wet.”
I listen to August finish up his final appointment of the day from where I rest on the leather bench he keeps at the front of the shop as a waiting area.
The woman had a huge upper thigh piece completed, and while it’s gorgeous, I’ll never be completely rational at the sight of his hands on someone else.
It might make me crazy, but I don’t care.
I decided I didn’t want to go home and be without him tonight.
I checked my email when I finished my shift at the coffee shop and realized I had a response from one of the agents I queried a couple of weeks ago.
My manuscript isn’t even finished yet, but Penelope’s sister-in-law is apparently a hotshot literary lawyer and offered to float my name around to a few of her contacts after she’d read my backlist herself.
The email I received today was from my top choice agent, and I’m too fucking scared to open it, so instead of going home, I stayed at the boardwalk.
I took a walk down the pier with my brothers, spent much of the afternoon in Heathen’s helping them re-organize their display shelves, and then meandered down to Boardwalk Tattoo.
August was in the middle of the session when I came in, but after I said a quick hello and went to leave again, he asked his client if his “girlfriend” could stay.
Something about it was so hot. The way his hands were on another woman’s skin, his focus solely on the art, all while making it abundantly clear that he belonged to me.
I’ve been wet ever since.
“Bye, Elena,” his client, Ivy, calls as she reaches the door. “It was nice meeting you!”
“You too.”
Once the glass door closes behind her, August locks it up and turns off the main lights.
The space becomes illuminated only by the neon signs that hang strategically throughout the shop.
He stands above me, smiling down as I lean back on the bench.
Extending his hand to me, he nods toward the back of the room. “Come sit with me while I close up.”
I place my hand in his, letting him pull me into a standing position before he plants his lips on mine—hard and needful, like he’s been waiting all day for it. He walks me over to the bench he was just working on before he wipes it down with a cleaning solution and motions for me to take a seat.
“Have I ever told you that I think it’s beautiful in here?
The way you decorated, the lights, the art.
” My eyes track the entirety of the shop before landing on the largest of the neon signs he has hung up.
On the main wall, above the majority of the workbenches, lit in fluorescent purple, it reads: You are the artist and the art.
There are hand-drawn chalk creations all across the same wall—some from August and his staff, others from clients who come in and want to leave a drawing or a message.
It’s a chaotic mural of beautiful mess and, like everything else in this building, inherently Augustus Hayes.
He pauses from where he pushes a large broom across the floor, grinning at me. “Thanks.”
“Don’t get offended by this, but why the name?” I ask. “It doesn’t seem to match the uniqueness of the business itself.”
August sighs, leaning his broom against the wall before closing the space between us.
He places his hands on the bench between my legs, leaning into me until our faces align.
“I had another name in mind before I opened, but by the time I did, it didn’t feel right anymore.
At that point…” His emerald eyes go distant behind his glasses before he shakes it off, drawing his attention back to me.
“I wasn’t feeling very creative. Tattoo shop on the boardwalk. Boardwalk Tattoo. Made sense.”
“What was the other name?” I ask, sliding my hand up his chest and neck before bracketing his jaw and running my thumb over his cheek.
He leans into my touch, his eyes falling closed. “Violet Muse.”
“August…” My stomach drops. “You were going to name it after…”
“Us.” He nods.
I don’t know how to respond, so I bring his mouth to mine, feathering my lips against his and hoping he can taste the desolation it brings me. He kisses me back, groaning as I slide my tongue against his, opening him up to me.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper as his teeth clatter against my bottom lip, our joining painful and messy and beautiful and soft all at once.
His hands grip my hips, forcing me to the edge of the bench and flushing our bodies together.
I moan as his hard length presses against me.
“Don’t be,” he murmurs into my mouth before dragging it along my jaw and down my collarbone.
“Everything happened the way it did so we could end up here, Elena,” he says into my skin, kissing every place his mouth can reach.
“We were meant to be together back then. We’re meant to be together now. ”
“If you were to name it after us now, what would it be called?”
He suddenly pulls back, gazing down at me with fervent eyes. “Ultraviolet.”
Time seems to suspend itself, like this moment is of some grander significance that a higher power wants us to be aware of. I’m only capable of answering by surging forward, grasping his neck, and hauling his mouth to mine, kissing him with everything in me.
He moans as I writhe against his body, whispering, “And I’m going to do exactly that. Rename this place just as soon as you open your bookstore right next door.”
“I didn’t tell you about the bookstore yet,” I say, panting.
“Doesn’t matter. You’re going through with it, Elena, and we’re going to be beside each other in the end. Just like it was always meant to be.” He pulls back and begins untucking his shirt from his trousers. “Now, I want you to lie back on that bench and take off your pants for me.”
I nod rapidly, swiftly undoing the button on my jeans, but before I can begin sliding them off my hips, a resounding “What the fuck?” echoes throughout the dimly lit room.
August and I both pause, breath catching. My eyes mirror his as they go wide at the realization that someone else is in the room with us.
He spins at the same time I sit up, peeking around his shoulder.
My heart leaps into my throat when I find Everett standing at the corner of the main room and the hallway that leads to the back door.
Though shadowed in darkness, I can just make out the deep set of his brows and the frown on his mouth as he crosses his tattooed arms over his chest.
“Everett, what the hell?” I ask. “Why are you standing in the shadows like a fucking creep? Have you never heard of privacy?”
“The back door is unlocked.” He steps toward us, waving his hand at the front of the shop.
“And there are about a billion windows that look out onto a public fucking boardwalk where anyone walking by can look inside and see what you’re doing.
Considering you two live together, I’d think if you’d like to have a private conversation, you’d do so in your own goddamn house. ”
August audibly swallows as he steps beside me, and I make quick work of rebuttoning my jeans. “Well, what do you want?”
My twin’s eyes dart rapidly between August and me. “You two were together before? Before Zach died? Is that what I’m gathering?”
Fuck. My breathing hits a rapid pace as my heart thrashes against my chest, and my stomach flips with a sick feeling that must fall somewhere between guilt and shame.
“How much did you hear?” August asks.
Disappointment, betrayal, and genuine hurt all seem to war within my brother’s eyes as his gaze flashes to August beside me. “Enough.”
“There is a lot to unpack,” I admit softly. “Now probably isn’t the time, but…” I glance at August, and he nods shallowly. “We’ll tell you whatever you need to hear.”
“You’re right,” Everett’s voice is cold as stone. “Now isn’t the fucking time—because Darby’s water broke. She’s in labor.”