Chapter Five
Thoughts I Can’t Fight
Maverick
I can’t get the image out of my head.
The car seat. Wedged in the back of Zora’s little sedan, pink fabric faded from use, a crayon stuffed in the cupholder.
One look at it and my chest locked up tight enough to make breathing hard.
I tell myself it isn’t any of my fucking business.
I tell myself maybe she babysits for a friend, maybe she has a niece or a nephew I don’t know about.
I tell myself a hundred different lies in the span of seconds.
But the truth digs in like barbed wire. Zora has a kid.
I don’t know whose, I don’t know when, I don’t know a damn thing. And it’s none of my business, I remind myself again as I set up my station, pulling on gloves and laying out fresh needles like the ritual can scrape her out of my head.
But my mind keeps circling back. A kid means someone had been there for her when I wasn’t. Someone steady. Someone she trusts enough to build a life and raise a child with. The thought makes me grind my teeth until my jaw aches.
The buzz of the shop snaps me out of it.
Skye is zipping around with her phone again, narrating her own life like she has an audience twenty-four-seven.
Luke is mouthing off about some client who ghosted him, Alistair grunting something that shuts him up quickly, and Laine is talking in a low tone to a nervous walk-in.
And Zora is here, of course. Camera strapped across her body like armor, snapping photos of Luke’s setup, her laugh low when he flexes for the lens. She doesn’t look my way, not once. But I feel her there anyway, tugging at the edge of my vision, like gravity I can’t escape.
“Yo, Hall,” Luke calls over. “I’ve got a client for you. Says she wants something dark, so obviously you’re the guy.”
I shoot him a look but stand anyway, wiping my hands on my jeans.
The woman waiting in my booth is middle-aged, with soft lines around her eyes, grief clinging to her shoulders like an old coat.
She clutches a photo in her hand, a scruffy golden retriever with its tongue hanging out, eyes full of devotion.
“This was Buddy,” she said softly, her voice shaking. “He was with me for thirteen years. I want something to remember him by.”
Her words crack something in me.
I nod once, no bullshit. “Have you got anything in mind?”
“I’m not an artist but...” She holds up a sketch she’d scribbled, paw prints with his name inside a heart.
I study it for a second, then pulled out my own pad. “If you don’t mind, I think we can do better.”
Her eyes widen but she nods, leaning in as I draw.
Not the cartoon heart she brought me, but a portrait, Buddy’s face in stark black and gray, every strand of fur detailed, eyes captured with the kind of realism that made them glisten.
I layer shadows around him, subtle wings curling behind his head, almost hidden in the negative space. Not gaudy. Not cliché. Just honest.
When I slide the sketch across the counter, her hand flies to her mouth. Tears pool in her eyes. “That’s ... that’s him.”
“Good,” I say roughly, fighting to hold back my own emotions. “Let’s put him back on your skin, then.”
The needle’s buzz drowns everything else out. My hands are steady, movements sure, every line precise. I work the shading slowly, building Buddy’s fur one strand at a time, the contrast sharp and deep until the image all but breathes on her forearm.
But while I work, my mind betrays me. Zora with a kid.
I picture her sitting at a kitchen table, helping with homework. Tucking little shoes by the door. Laughing at some toddler’s nonsense joke. The image twists something in me, raw and sharp.
Who is he? The father. Some safe, boring asshole? Someone who gave her the life I couldn’t? My chest burns.
Or... The thought I don’t want claws its way up. What if the kid’s mine?
I shove it down hard, focusing on the machine in my hand, on the ink sinking into skin. I would have known if I had a kid. Surely, Zora would have let me know.
When the tattoo is finished, the woman stares at her arm, tears sliding silently down her cheeks. “It’s perfect,” she whispers. “He looks alive again.”
I peel off my gloves, my throat tight. “He was family. He deserves to be remembered.”
She hugs me tightly before she leaves, surprising the hell out of me. And for just a second, I let myself feel the weight of love, of loss, of loyalty that didn’t fade even when the body was gone.
The second she leaves, Luke pops his head into my area. “Damn, Hall. I didn’t know you had a soft side.”
“Shut up,” I mutter, cleaning my station.
Skye bounces in right after, phone already raised. “That tattoo is going viral, guaranteed. It’s heartbreaking but beautiful. People eat that shit up.”
I grunt, not in the mood.
Her gaze flicks between me and Zora, who is across the shop photographing Alistair’s delicate line work. A slow grin spreads across her face. “You and Zora, huh?”
I freeze.
“There’s a vibe,” she singsongs.
“There’s nothing,” I snap. Too sharp, too fast.
She lifts her hands in surrender, her smirk never fading. “Okay, okay. Just saying. Chemistry doesn’t lie.”
Alistair’s shadow falls across the doorway before she can push further. He doesn’t say anything, just looks at me. Heavy. Measured. Like a warning.
I drop my gaze to the counter. “Got work to do.”
When they finally leave me alone, I sit there in the quiet hum of the shop, staring at my ink-stained gloves.
Zora has a kid. If that kid is mine, which is a big fucking if, I’ve already missed years I can never get back. First steps. First words. First everything. Gone. The thought hollows me out, leaving me raw. And for the first time in years, I felt something close to fear.
There’s also the possibility that the kid isn’t mine which guts me in equal measure. The thought of her loving someone enough to have a child with them, hurts me, even though I know I have no right to feel that way.
Not of losing her. I’d already done that. But of finding out I’d left more behind than just the woman I couldn’t forget.