14. Lemon #2
“Urgh,” Octy groans, rolling her eyes at her husband before she turns to us, her expression immediately morphing into a smug grin. “I’m so happy for you guys. Att, are you working tomorrow?”
“Yes,” he says with a nod.
“Is your station set up?”
“That’s why we’re here,” he tells her.
“That makes sense. Do you need me to show you where everything is kept?” she asks.
“That’d be great.”
Octy moves to stand up again, but Knight places a careful hand on her shoulder, keeping her in her seat. “You can sit. I’ll show him,” he says, stroking a finger over his wife’s cheek as he starts to walk away.
“I won’t be long,” Atticus says, kissing me quickly before he strides after Knight toward the rear of the studio.
“Wanna sit? Knight will know if I get up,” Octy says, gesturing to the tattoo couch beside her. “I’m hoping he’ll chill out soon, but knowing him, I doubt it,” she says with a soft, fond smile.
“How long have you been married?” I ask.
“Five months, about the same number of weeks I am pregnant,” she says with a giggle.
“Oh,” I say, trying and failing to make myself seem nonchalant.
“It wasn’t a shotgun wedding. It could have been a wedding night baby, I suppose, but honestly, things with Knight and me happened quickly. By the sound of it, about as quick as with you and Att.”
“Yeah,” I admit quietly, not really wanting to have this conversation with a total stranger.
“You should come on the next girls’ night out. We usually go to the Mexican restaurant in town because at least one of the Barnetts is always pregnant, and the guys lose their shit if we even suggest going to a bar without them.”
“Oh, that’s—” I start.
“We all know how it feels to fall for a guy so quickly that it feels wrong. We’ve all been through it and learned how to accept that these alpha guys just go all in.
Honestly, it’s kind of an exclusive club, because I’m betting your normal friends have probably told you that meeting and getting engaged to someone so fast is crazy and that you need to see a therapist or something,” she says, arching an eyebrow at me.
Sucking in a sharp breath, I shrug. “To be honest, I’ve been living here for a couple of years now, but I’ve only recently realized I don’t really know anyone in town,” I admit, feeling utterly pathetic.
“Are you coming here with Att tomorrow? I can introduce you to Betty and Leo, then we’ll get you added to the group chat, and your cell will drive you insane with all the notifications.”
“I’m actually starting a new job working with Tori at her store in the morning.”
“Oh, awesome. Well, Tori will more than likely add you to all the chats tomorrow, but you should still head over here once you’re done for the day anyway,” she says cheerily just as Atticus and Knight appear, both men’s arms laden with boxes.
Placing all of his boxes down onto the tattoo couch at his station, Atticus comes to me, reaching for me the moment he’s close enough. I happily go to him, curling myself into his body, and exhaling once his familiar scent surrounds me.
“I was just telling Lemon that if she comes here after she finishes work tomorrow, I can introduce her to Betty and Leo,” Octy announces.
“I’ll walk round and meet you between clients,” Atticus says. “Then we can walk back here together.”
“Okay,” I easily agree.
“You’ll like Betty. But I don’t know who the fuck Leo is,” he growls.
“She’s our piercer slash receptionist. She’s hilarious,” Octy tells us.
“Etta is working tomorrow too,” Knight says.
“Hell yes. I forgot she was coming in. Att, do you remember Etta from the studio I was working at in Vegas? She did the social media marketing and worked the front desk sometimes too.”
I feel Atticus shaking his head. “No. I heard you were working there, but I never visited.”
“She’s married to Oz. He’s on the same team as Nero. Knight worked with them too, until he quit to become my full-time stalker,” she says, laughing as she turns to look at her husband.
“It’s time to leave,” Knight tells Octy, curling his palm around the back of her neck.
“Okay,” Octy says easily. “I just need to clean my station…” Her words trail off when Knight immediately steps away from her and starts to sanitize her couch and the metal cabinet beside it.
“Well, okay then.” She giggles, turning back to us.
“Seriously though, Lemon, come and meet some of the girls tomorrow. Handling the Barnett legacy without being surrounded by other people who understand it is tough.”
A few minutes later, Knight lifts her out of her seat and into his arms, and after saying goodbye, they both leave.
“Sit. This won’t take me long,” Atticus says, taking my hand and leading me to a comfortable-looking leather chair, identical to the one Octy was sitting in. He waits for me to sit down before he crouches down and opens the metal cabinet.
I watch as he cleans and sanitizes the shelves, then meticulously stacks boxes of things I can’t identify.
Just like he promised, it doesn’t take him long to move all the things that he and Knight brought from the back of the studio into the cabinet, and while he works, I scan the rest of the stations around us.
Unlike Atticus’s bare cabinet, the others have all been personalized with stickers, artwork, and on one, what looks like spray-painted graffiti. “Are you going to decorate like the others have?” I ask.
“No. I don’t need to advertise myself all over the furniture,” he says simply.
Unsure how to respond, I just nod, then glance at the framed artwork on the walls. “Are any of these yours?” I ask, pointing toward the frames.
Pausing, he pushes to his feet and scans the walls.
“That one and that one and those two,” he says, gesturing to two pictures of people that, until he’d pointed them out, I’d thought were photographs, and two others that I immediately stand to take a closer look at.
The pictures are intricate, fine line drawings of two hands reaching for each other, one hand in each frame, the distance between them somehow becoming part of the story the images tell.
“They’re amazing,” I say reverently.
“Not what you were expecting?” he asks softly.
I shake my head. “No, not really.”
I’m so fixated on the pictures that I hadn’t realized he’d moved closer until he chuckles, and the sound ruffles my hair. “I’m all done. Let’s go home and start unpacking.”
After three hours, two suitcases, and six boxes, it’s very apparent that my style and Atticus’s don’t mesh that well together.
“It’s fine,” Atticus says, a little gruffer than he sounded the first ten times he assured me that it was okay that my randomness was exploding all over his ordered luxury.
“Atticus, it’s not. We should just put this stuff back in the boxes.”
“We’re not leaving your things packed in boxes. This is your home, and it should have your things in it.”
“And if my things didn’t come from gift shops and the dollar store, then I’d agree. But my twinkle lights don’t go with your interior designer’s vision.”
“Fuck my designer’s vision,” Atticus growls.
“No, maybe Avery was right, and my extra is just too extra for normal life.”
“Avery wasn’t right about anything,” he hisses angrily.
“Maybe this is just an opportunity to have a clear-out. I can see which of my bits of junk give me the most joy, and then I’ll get rid of the rest.”
Reaching for me, he drags me to him and presses a hard kiss against my lips. “No,” he says when he pulls back. Slipping his cell from his pocket, he taps at the screen, then brings it to his ear. “Hi, Cody, it’s Atticus Hoffman.”
Furrowing my brow, I strain to hear what whoever is on the other end of the call is saying, but it’s too quiet, so I try to piece together the whole conversation just from Atticus’s side.
“I’m doing good, thanks. My fiancée has moved into the loft, and you were right. We need more space.”
He pauses, listening to the person respond.
“Yeah, probably at least one more bedroom, maybe two, an extension to my closet, and then a space she can use as a sewing and design studio.”
Atticus nods, his expression turning pensive.
“And how quickly do you think you can make that happen?”
“Atticus,” I hiss, trying to interrupt him.
“Really? That quickly?”
There’s another pause.
“And that can all be done off site, then just installed?”
He pauses again.
“Can you get me some ballpark prices and a timescale over, and I’ll talk it over with Lemon and Felix, then let you know.”
“Atticus,” I hiss a little louder this time.
“Thanks, Cody, appreciate it.”
Ignoring me, he ends the call before finally turning to look at me again.
“Atticus, what was that?” I question.
“When we designed the loft space, Cody warned me it wasn’t big enough and that we should add more bedrooms. But at the time, I never considered that anyone other than me and Felix would live here.
I love you, Lemon, and that means that I love all of your dollar store trinkets and twinkle lights.
I don’t want you to squeeze yourself into my life.
I want us to build a life together, and if that means we change a few things and add on a few more bedrooms, then that’s an easy decision. ”
“That’s crazy. You only moved in this week. Me moving in isn’t a good enough reason to change the space you literally just had designed. What if it blocks Felix’s light? What if we don’t work out?”
Moving faster than I thought possible, Atticus cups my face, holding me tightly. “Us not working out isn’t an option. This is it for me. You’re it for me. If something isn’t working, we fix it. There’s no walking away for either of us now.”
A part of me wants to be angry, but instead, I melt at his words, sagging in his hold. “What if this is all happening because of some crazy family legacy? What if none of this is real?”