Chapter 11Tantrum-y baby man whore
ELEVEN
Tantrum-y baby man whore
Ivy
Jeremy waits awkwardly in the reception area, browsing designs in laminated sheets as I clean the station.
Trace isn’t wrong. This is my job.
But I knew that, and so did he. Which means we both know I had every intention of cleaning up before I left. It’s the fact that he felt the need to remind me. Callously, too.
We were making such good progress.
I really thought we were moving forward.
This regression of his, lashing out, being an asshole and shutting down? It’s got jealousy written all over it. Trace may not be aware but I’m smart and receptive.
Jealousy means he wants me to give him my focus, and not give it to Jeremy.
He likes me.
He may even want me.
It’s not hard to believe. We’re a perfect fit. We share passions and interests, but we vary in complementary ways, too. At different places in our lives, we offer different perspectives to one another and when he’s ready to stop being a tantrum-y baby man whore, he can benefit from all the wonderful ways we’d be together.
Because we would be good together, I have zero doubt.
I know what I saw online. I know he’s fucked as many women as he possibly could.
I’m more worried about him testing negative for sexually transmitted diseases than if I stack up to the other women he’s been with. I don’t do that to myself—I don’t play that mental game.
I know who I am on the inside, and how I treat people. I know I am worthy of a good man, so I don’t compare myself to anyone but prior versions of me. I strive to be better than the me I was yesterday and the me I was a week ago, but I don’t get in the comparison ring with other women.
Swiping through the last of the disinfectant spray on the chair, I toss the cleaning rag in the trash. After tying it off and adding it to the can out back, I wash my hands in the restroom, grab my purse and head out.
Or try to head out. I skid to a halt in the hall at what I see.
Four women in the shop, two conversing with Jeremy, one on her phone in the reception chair (which makes my skin crawl) and the other? In front of Trace, her fingers hooked on the belt loops of his jeans, her face tipped up, lips in a pout.
She’s…
“ Please? ” she begs.
Yep. She’s begging Trace.
As if he’s suddenly aware of my presence, he turns, his dark eyes poking me. “Have a nice time with Jeremy,” he says, just low enough that I know Jeremy didn’t hear. I could barely hear over the way this hooker is breathing all over him.
I can’t muster a passive-aggressive smile despite the fact that I really fucking want to. Instead, I slink past them, not letting go of his gaze until I’m past.
I hook my arm through Jeremy’s, the contact doing nothing to my veins, nothing to my spine. No electricity, no spark, but that’s fine. I didn’t agree to a meal with him because I thought it was a date. I agreed because I genuinely want to catch up with him. He’s nice. We used to be friends not too many years ago and we lost touch.
Truthfully, I’ve been obsessed with Trace’s work and my evolving art, and I shut off the world around me, except my sisters. I lost touch with so many, which is a feat in a small town.
Still, the lack of spark only reminds me how fiery Trace makes me feel. Though I don’t want to, my eyes slide over to him and a crushing boulder of disappointment sinks my stomach.
His thumb is on her chin and he’s slowly commanding her to lower to her knees. “Get on your knees and suck my dick,” he rasps, causing my eyes to nearly pop from my head. Did he really just tell her to get down and suck his dick?
But her hands… they’re on his belt, and her knees… they’re on the ground. Obediently she works his pants, causing a wave of nausea to crash into the back of my nose and soar up my throat. I swallow it down as his eyes come to mine for just a split second.
A painful second.
“Let’s go,” I murmur to Jeremy, turning to push out of the shop and into Bluebell’s perfect evening.
Except, it’s wasted on me. The mid-seventies weather, the sherbet sunset, the soft crowing of birds going home, leaves dancing together in the day’s final wind— it’s perfect.
And completely wasted because all I can feel is jealousy, anger and… hurt.
His dick is probably in her mouth right now.
“C’mon,” I say, jerking Jeremy across the street, almost dragging him by the arm. I just want to get in Goode’s and have the barrier of the street and another set of doors between us.
We choose a booth at the diner—I mean, I guess we do.
I don’t know.
My mind is spinning, and all I can see is his thumb on her chin and her hands on his belt, the clatter of buckle on button making nausea sear my tongue.
“You know, he just did that to piss me off,” I say, shaking my head as I stab a straw into the glass of ice water Lucy brought us. I didn’t even hear her if she said hello.
This is so not fair to Jeremy.
“I’m sorry,” I sigh, finally giving him the attention he deserves. “It’s?—”
“Complicated?” he offers, his chestnut eyes soft as he sinks back into the vinyl, draping one arm over the booth.
“I guess,” I reply, just now realizing that Trace and I are actually very complicated. “I can’t stand him most of the time. And tonight, you know, he invited those girls to the studio just because you asked me out.”
Jeremy’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes and it’s then I realize that maybe he hoped this was something more than friends catching up. “He was trying to make you jealous?” he asks, then nods. “Yeah, so, you two have feelings for each other, then?”
I lick my lips. “Nothing confirmed.”
Jeremy leans forward, collecting the menu in his hands as he smiles softly at me. “The last person I got pissed at as much as you’re pissed at Trace?” He glances down, his eyes moving along the printed options as he says, “I actually liked her a lot.” He looks up at me. “Loved her, even. We dated for three years.”
I chew the inside of my cheek a moment, processing his insinuation. He isn’t wrong. If Trace can stop acting like a total clown, we could have something. A future. And that’s what I want.
“You’re right,” I finally smile. “I like him.” I don’t add the ‘a lot’ at the risk of sounding twelve. “That's why he gets under my skin. Like, really gets under there like a… hot parasite or something. Because…” I sigh, glancing through the large window, across the street, to an ill-lit Ink Time. “I really fucking like him.”
Jeremy sips his water. “Tell me about it.”
Lucy takes our orders, and I talk to Jeremy. He listens, then he listens as we eat, and I never stop talking. And all that talking about Trace has me… worked up.
Emotionally charged, yes.
But, like…. Worked up .
I pay the tab when Lucy brings it, and Jeremy and I part ways outside of Goode’s. Standing in the street, I stare at the gold ornate framing on the door of the tattoo shop, the place that has become my everything in the last few months. Nerves coil in my belly.
There’s movement inside, but I can’t make out what kind. Worried that Trace will get drunk and do something stupid—like leave the shop unlocked—I cross the street and walk inside.
What I see is… “What the fuck are you doing?” I hiss, my nostrils flaring as the door slams shut behind me, bumping my ass, sending me a pace forward. The blonde behind the reception counter jolts forward, lifting her hands from the register. The girl next to her, whose hair is black like mine, I recognize from being the girl who likely sucked Trace.
Realizing they were about to fucking rob Ink Time, I bend down and grab my knife from my boot. Thank God I didn't change into slippers tonight—I don’t carry my knife in my slippers because that doesn’t make sense.
“Where are the others?” I question, a thrill rushing through my cheeks as they both stand taller, holding their hands up. I push the knife at them through the air. “Where are they?”
The blonde looks at the blade then up at me. “In the… little tattoo bed thingy,” she says, her eyes going back to the blade.
I glance over, finding Trace completely fucking naked but for his jeans bunched up around one ankle, his shirt on the floor, socks and boots, too. I look back at the thieves. “Is he okay?”
The girl with the dark hair nods. “He passed out.”
I hate that the words that come to me first are these, but I say them before I get a chance to think. “He’s a heavy drinker, it’s only been two hours. How has he passed out already?”
Then I see it. On the floor, next to his shirt and boots.
An empty whiskey bottle.
My eyes widen as I prod toward them, my knife the only thing keeping them quiet. “He drank the whole thing?”
Just then, the other two girls come stumbling from the bathroom down the hall, laughing as they both comment on how quiet it suddenly is.
“Did you get the money?” one of them asks right before she spots me. Stopping in her tracks, she grabs the other girl by her wrist, stopping her too. Pulling my phone from my back pocket, I dial the Bluebell police, using 911.
I proceed to tell the operator that four women were attempting to rob my employer and that I have them at knife point. They tell me, on speakerphone, that two officers are en route.
“If you try to bolt or make a move for me, I’ll fucking stab you.” I look at each one of them. “How many women do you meet with a knife in their boot?” I drag my tongue over my top teeth. “Not many.”
I’ve never stabbed anyone. But I like knowing that if I need to, I could.
While waiting for the police to arrive, I force the girl with the dark hair to grab a medical sheet from the cupboard, and drape it over Trace’s naked body.
She crouches next to him, tucking it under his bare ass. I don’t want the police to see him like this, but I don’t trust these little robbers enough to cover him myself. I think they’d bolt.
“Why is he naked?” I finally ask, scared to know the answer. I don’t want him to have gotten head from this woman, but I really don’t want to know that he had sex with her. Or any of them.
She shrugs. “Don’t know. He just started freaking out and taking his clothes off, then he just… passed out.”
The relief that hits me is indescribable.
Except, knowing he slammed a bottle of whiskey and called girls over pisses me off. A lot.
Attempting to calm myself, I breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth, letting my attention veer to my work station in the corner of the studio. On my desk, the chastity cage sits, next to my open sketch pad. Normally I’d have taken it with me because I’d been working on that design so much lately. But Jeremy asked me out, so I left work at work for once. The piece is important, though.
My first solo, and I really want it to be as close to perfect as possible.
The cage seems to glitter beneath the muted studio lights, and even though a light tap comes at the front door, a great idea hits me.
An idea I have to shelve for a few minutes at least.
I turn to see Dash Foster and his partner, Keanu Reeve .
Seriously.
And the wild part? They’re both kind of… Bill and Ted, if you know what I mean.
“What do we have here, Ivy?” Dash asks, walking a circle around the women who are now huddled together nervously in reception.
“I came back to make sure Trace locked up and these two,” I say, waving my knife at the culprits, “were getting into the till.” I point said knife at the camera in the corner. “It’s all recorded.”
“Fuck,” one of the women mutters.
Twenty minutes later, the women are at the Bluebell police station, and Dash is finishing up with me. He scribbles something in his notepad for what feels like eternity before finally clicking his pen shut and slipping it into his breast pocket.
“Does he need medical?” he asks, eyebrow raised.
I look over at Trace snoring beneath the blue sheet. I smile at Dash. “He's fine. Thanks.”
Dash leaves and I snap on a pair of gloves, ready to give Trace the discipline he is so clearly fucking begging for.