Sneak Peek of Book 2
WAITING FOR YOU
Sloane
"It's going to hurt," the woman blurted before she'd even settled into the chair.
I dragged my stool closer and set up in front of her bare arm. "Who told you that?"
"Everyone."
"Has everyone been to a tattoo parlor?"
She wrinkled her nose. "Everyone who hasn't."
I laughed. Her shoulders loosened a fraction, and her white-knuckled grip eased to a firm hold. She was in her early twenties at most, with wide eyes, her mouth pulled tight as a bowstring while she tried to look unbothered.
She'd come in alone. I'd clocked that the second she walked in, since most first-timers brought a human shield.
I pressed the purple stencil to the inside of her forearm and held it against her skin.
"You want to know the honest version or the kind version?" I asked, raising a brow.
"Honest."
"It'll sting. The inner arm isn't the worst spot, but it's no walk in the park either." I peeled the paper back to check the transfer. The word again stuck to her skin, framed by an infinity symbol that looped around it like a promise. "You'll live, though."
She stared down at the purple ink. "What if I can't handle it?"
"Just say the word and I'll stop." I snapped on my black nitrile gloves. "But if you think it's going to hurt more than you can take, you don't have to go through with it. Nobody's holding you hostage here."
The woman tipped her chin up. "I want it," she declared. "I just have to get my head right. No pain, no gain."
"Good mindset." I stepped on the coil machine pedal, bringing it to life.
She gave a curt nod, set her jaw, and locked her eyes on the ceiling tiles.
The needle bit into her skin. But instead of pulling away, she leaned into the sting, biting her lip and breathing out in a slow hiss through her nose. She never asked me to stop.
So, I zeroed in on the linework and recalled when she'd booked the appointment. She'd told me what the design meant: beginning again.
I knew that logic down to the bone.
Everything around me was the result of a grueling rebuild.
I'd spent years pruning the dead weight that tied me to the ghost of who I used to be.
It started with cutting off a father who tried to draft my identity before I could hold a pen.
And it ended with walking away from a relationship I'd entered knowing what it would cost me.
I'd chosen that love with my eyes wide open. And the woman trembling in my chair was doing the same thing, sitting square in her discomfort and refusing to give up on what she wanted.
My father had made his contempt for that relationship clear, broadcasting his disapproval early and often. He didn't bother with outright cruelty. He used the insidious brand of love that masquerades as concern.
He doesn't have the right foundation. You deserve stability. I only want the best for you, he'd said.
He'd hand down those verdicts with a set jaw and eyes that had already closed the subject, never once stopping to ask how I saw it.
But I stayed anyway.
I loved that man long past the point where logic gave up, surviving two years of my father's biting commentary, then one frozen stretch of dead silence after I finally quit answering his interrogations.
When the relationship ended, it tore a jagged wound in me that kept finding new ways to bleed for years.
The love had been as real as the needle buzzing in my hand. It had shaped me into a truer version of myself than I'd ever managed before.
And the heartbreak was the price of admission.
Drawing in a deep breath, I eased the machine off her skin and wiped the fresh ink clean.
"You're doing great," I said.
"Yeah?"
I hummed, shading the loop. "A lot of people want to negotiate the second the needle hits."
She let out a shaky laugh. "Does that ever work?"
"On the artwork? Never." I kept my hand steady, taking my time with a curve. "But I get the instinct. It's terrifying to sit in something painful and just let it wash over you."
"Did you ever try to negotiate?" she asked.
I cocked a brow. "With tattoos? Or in life?"
"Either."
"Yep," I replied, a bitter smile tugging at my lips. "But the things I fought hardest to dodge were the very things that needed to happen. You can stall what's coming, but you can't skip it."
She didn't respond.
I closed the outer loop of the infinity sign, checked the symmetry, and ran one final pass before turning off the machine.
"All done," I announced.
She straightened up and craned her neck to inspect her forearm.
"It's so… beautiful," she breathed, wide-eyed.
I bandaged the fresh piece and walked her through the aftercare gospel: keep it clean, don't pick at the scabs, stay out of the sun and the pool for two weeks. She listened carefully, cradling her arm a little away from her body, already serious about protecting the art.
"Did you do the one on your wrist yourself?" she asked, nodding toward me.
I glanced down at my left wrist. A thin black ring circled it, a closed loop I'd inked years ago, where the beginning and the end met at the same point.
"I did."
"Does it mean rebirth too?"
"It means I finished a chapter," I said, chuckling, "and started writing the next one."
She held my eyes a long moment, then tugged her sleeve down and headed to the front counter to pay. She thanked Reyna at the register twice before turning toward the doorway. But she paused and glanced back over her shoulder.
"No matter how much the next step hurts…" I trailed off, holding her gaze, "do it. You'll come out beautiful on the other side."
Flashing a tight smile, she gave me a firm nod and stepped out into the crisp afternoon.
I pulled my black sketchbook from under the counter, dropped back onto my stool, and flipped to a clean page.
From memory, I sketched her tattoo. Recreating a finished piece that way was the real test of whether the art carried its own weight or only worked on that one canvas.
This one begged to be put on paper.
I'd felt its meaning and lived it.
I built my whole life on that philosophy: choosing to start over and cutting away whatever had to go. This studio was my proof, with my name stretched across the glass, and my life savings bleeding into the lease.
I had no safety net from anyone who'd later wave the investment around as a favor I owed.
I'd put myself back together into someone I could recognize in the mirror, piece by piece, layer by layer, each pass cleaning up the mistakes of the last. From the ergonomic stool I sat on, the ink staining my cuticles, to the client roster booked solid for three weeks, my father's name lived nowhere in this place.
My thoughts were snapped back to the present when my phone rattled against the glass counter. I checked the caller ID, and my pen went still on the page.
Mr. Ty.
I didn't pick up. I let it ring until the vibration died against the glass.
A few seconds later, it started up again and died. I added another fine line to the paper, listening to the delivery truck rumbling past, shaking the front window so hard it shuddered in the frame. It did that every time a big rig rolled by.
I should really get someone in to check the weather stripping.
The bell by the front door chimed, and I lifted my head only to find a man filling the entrance. He was tall, with Asian features, and dressed in a tailored midnight-blue suit. He wore thin-framed clear glasses.
I watched him sweep his gaze across the studio, taking in the plush waiting chairs, my clean ink station, and the framed flash art on the exposed brick. Until his eyes found me.
"You were watching it ring," he said.
It wasn't a question.
I averted my gaze and stared back at my sketchbook. "You should be thrilled I haven't blocked the number."
He hummed and walked deeper into my shop, dragging a guest stool off the wall. He planted it across from me and sat with his knees wide, his hands loose on his thighs.
I kept my pen moving.
"Sloane… You're my daughter," he said.
"Mmm."
"Why do you insist on making things so difficult?"
I carved another clean curve into the edge of my sketch. "I am your daughter. Why do you insist on making things so difficult for me?"
He clicked his tongue. "Are you well?"
"I'm fine."
He let the silence drag, trying to fill the room with his authority. "I have a pressing matter to discuss, Sloane. I need your full attention."
I snapped the sketchbook shut, set down my pen, and folded my hands over the leather cover, raising one unimpressed eyebrow.
"Dear sir," I deadpanned. "What could you possibly want from me now?"
His posture stiffened. "I need you to come back home."
"If our relationship only works when I bend the knee and come to your castle, you'll be waiting a lifetime." I waved one open palm at him, handing him the floor.
"I'm already sitting right here, so we're talking now." He paused and flattened his hands on his thighs, his chin dipping a fraction. "I'm sick, Sloane."
I froze, meeting his eyes.
"A tumor." His voice didn't waver. "It isn't malignant. Not yet. But the specialists agree on the potential. They want to watch it aggressively. I'm scheduled to start a new, experimental treatment, and they can't promise it'll work. The prognosis keeps shifting."
"Go home and brew some herbal remedies," I advised, clenching my fists.
He clicked. "Don't do that."
"I have a degree in graphic design. If you want deep medical commentary, go see a doctor."
"I'll smack you."
"Wouldn't be a first."
He swallowed. The muscle in his jaw shifted and locked. "Don't you care about me at all?"
"Did you care about Grandma?" I fired back. "When she was dying in that hospital bed?"
A crease formed between his brows, and he dropped his gaze to the counter.
Months ago, my grandmother got critically ill. She was my father's mother, the one person in that suffocating bloodline who treated me as a person, and I'd flown home because she needed someone in her corner. But my father had only wired money as if it could stand in for his presence.