4. Wentworth
FOUR
Wentworth
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, 2019
“WHAT DO YOU THINK?” THE BLONDE ASKS BEFORE pulling the neckline of her already low-cut top even lower and shoving her surgically enhanced tits in my face. “Should I get it here?”
It is an insipidly generic butterfly.
Not like the one I did for Ryan a few weeks ago. He asked for a butterfly because Grace likes them. He asked for it for the same reason Con asked for the strand of pearls I wrapped around his arm or the Claddagh I inked into his chest. Because he wanted to keep a piece of her with him forever. He wants to be able to look at himself in the mirror and see her, even when she’s not there.
This bubblebrain wants a butterfly because it symbolizes struggle and rebirth.
Trust me when I tell you, I know the type. The chick in my chair has never struggled. Not once in her entire privileged life.
Forcing myself to give her ample chest more than a brief, cursory look, I give her a practiced, lopsided grin. “I’ll give it to you wherever you want, doll,” I tell her, flirting back on autopilot while her friend giggle on the other side of the counter because it’s what I’m supposed to do. Why she and her friends are really here.
“Anywhere?” The blonde gives me a seductive smile, her hands falling away from her neckline to move lower, toward the hem of her miniskirt. “In that case?—”
Behind the giggling idiot twins, the door to my shop opens, the bell above it letting out a jingle. Fully expecting to see the rest of her entourage piling through the door, I open my mouth to kick the lot of them out, appointment or not. Because the law of celebrity physics dictates that more bystanders equals more cellphones and I’m not looking to end my haven’t graced the cover of a tabloid in years streak over some botoxed bimbo with a giant rack and a bunch of her nosy friends.
It's not the rest of Blondie’s entourage.
It’s Tess.
Long, dark hair pulled back in the kind of haphazard ponytail she wears for work at the garage. Lip ring. Worn, grease-stained jeans, topped with her usual thin, ribbed undershirt. The tattoo sleeve I’ve been working on since we were dating on full display. At least Declan’s managed to convince her to start wearing bras on a regular basis—something I never quite seemed to manage.
She’s standing in the middle of my shop, small, callused hands dug into the back pocket of her jeans, while she casually studies one of the poster sized drawings I have hanging on the wall. Casual or not, Tess doesn’t just drop by. Not anymore. If she’s here, she’s here for a reason.
Shit.
“Consult’s over,” I tell the chick in the chair while I unceremoniously snap off my gloves. “I’ll have my assistant text you your appointment date.” I don’t have an assistant. I have a separate cell phone that I use to schedule clients, but if girls like this one knew that, I’d never get any peace.
“Over?” The Blonde blinks up at me like she doesn’t understand. “I just got here.”
“I know what you want and I know where you want it,” I tell her while I walk my gloves to the trash. “That’s all I need for now.”
“But—” She shoots a look at her friend who seems just as shocked as she is. “I came here all the way from LA,” she says like it’s supposed to mean something to me. When that doesn’t work, she pulls out the big guns. “Do you know who I am?”
The question sets off a distant bell. A memory that clenches my gut. Turns it sour.
Do you know who I am?
Before I can open my mouth and tell her I don’t give a fuck who she is, Tess swoops in and saves me.
In her own, Tess way.
“You’re that kiddie star, who turned into a popstar and tries to prove how grown up she is by dressing like a porn star,” she says while boosting herself up to sit on one of my glass display cases. Swiveling around to face the shocked starlet currently having an apocalyptic fit in my tattoo chair, Tess gives her a sweet smile. “Don’t waste your time, bestie—he’s never been into blondes. They remind him of his sister, no matter how skanky they are.”
The blonde looks at me like she expects me to say something. Defend her honor or some shit. When all I do is fold my arms across my chest and give her a you asked for it shrug, she huffs herself out of the chair, scrambling to her feet while she screeches at Tess.
“ How dare you .” Finally on her feet, the blonde wobbles toward Tess on her fifteen-hundred-dollar stilettos while jabbing a red lacquered nail at her face. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
Hopping off the display case, Tess meets her halfway, giving her a sweet smile that almost certainly means imminent violence. “I think I’m the chick who’s gonna put your plastic surgeon’s kids through college—” Reaching into the back pocket of her jeans, she pulls out a crescent wrench.
Oh shit.
Blondie’s got six inches—ten if you count the heels—on her and about twenty-five pounds but she’s a hell of a lot smarter than she looks because when she sees the wrench, she stops, mid-screech, while her friend on the other side of the counter gasp like Tess just pulled a gun.
“Like I said—” Dropping my arms away from my chest, I move toward the blonde to press a hand into the small of her back, guiding her toward the door when what I really want to do is pick her up and dump her ass on the sidewalk. “Consult is over. I’ll have my assistant text you your appointment time—but fair warning, I’m booked out for the next eight months.”
“ Eight months ?” Still sputtering, the blonde snatches her designer bag off the counter on her way past it while her minion trails behind us in terrified silence. At least they stopped giggling. “You mean I have to come back ?”
“If you want me to do your tattoo—” Stopping in front of the door, I shove it open and push her through it as gently as I can. “Yes.”
Suddenly brave again without Tess’s wrench in her face, the blonde starlet wheels around to glare at me with a haughty hair flip. “And what if the day your assistant picks doesn’t work for me?”
“Then you can get someone else to do your tattoo.” Stepping to the side, I shoo her friend onto the sidewalk. “I really don’t give a shit.” I give her a who the fuck cares shrug before slamming the door in her face and locking it for good measure.
“Lexi was right about you,” she screeches at me, voice muffled by four inches of hardwood. “You really are an asshole!”
Lexi Chase.
The gift that keeps on giving.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter it before turning away from the door to stare down a waiting Tess.
“What?” She gives me a shrug while re-pocketing her weapon of choice. “I was helping.”
“Helping?” I say it on a laugh because I can’t help it. I can’t stay mad at Tess. Not for long—never could. “Your helping isn’t actually helping—you know that, right? I’ll be lucky if she doesn’t call TMZ with a tearful recount of how she was terrorized in my shop by a psychotic, wrench-wielding pixie.”
“She was annoying,” Tess says on a dismissive shrug. When I don’t agree with her right away, she gives me a disgusted scoff. “Please tell me you didn’t actually want to fuck her.”
There’s no jealousy in her tone. No anger. Even when we were together, there wasn’t any of either where other women were concerned. We were exclusive out of convenience and mutual respect—not because either of us actually thought we had a future together, no matter what we might’ve pretended. I knew from day one that she belonged to Declan, even when she refused to admit it, and that eventually she’d find her way back to him. It's why we worked so well together. Because I knew no matter what, she’d never fall for me. Couldn’t fall for me because she’d already fallen and women like Tess never fall twice.
“I’m not even going to dignify that with an answer,” I tell her, giving the outside light that illuminates my shop door a flip. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m playing messenger boy,” she tells me while she skirts the counter that separates my tattoo space from the waiting area. “Con says you’ve been ignoring his texts about the wedding.”
The wedding.
Hearing her say it, my guts are instantly tied in knots.
“I’ve been busy.” I say evasively while I watch her wander around the room, moving from drawing to drawing. They’ve been here for years, she’s seen them a thousand times, just like everyone else. When people ask who the woman in the drawings is, I lie. Tell them it’s her. That the drawings are of Tess.
Tess never asks because she knows the truth.
That whoever the woman I keep compulsively drawing is, she’s not her.
“He says you need to get fitted for your tux,” she tells me, stopping in front of the drawing of a woman standing on the front steps of a large, two-story log cabin, facial features obscured by her hair, blowing in an invisible breeze. “Hen’s mom is about to have a stroke.”
“Good.”
My reply earns me a snort. “You know Lydia—she’s going to ride Henley into the ground until?—”
Yeah, I know Lydia. She and Astrid are a part of the same Manhattan lunch and shopping crowd. “Look—you can tell Con I don’t need a fitting. I have my own tux that I’m sure will pass Lydia’s inspection.”
When Conner asked me to be a groomsman in his wedding, I should’ve said no.
Hell no.
But because I’m a fucking idiot and because I didn’t know how to say sorry, even though I know that Henley is the love of your life and that you thought you’d lost her forever, I can’t stand up for you while you pull off the miracle of a lifetime by actually marrying her without sounding like a complete dickhead.
Or without telling him the truth.
The real reason I don’t want to be within a hundred miles of his wedding.
Because she’s going to be there.
“Are you having a stroke right now?”
Shit.
I give Tess the kind of look that would make a grown man shit his pants. It’s a wasted effort—Tess has never been afraid of me. It’s the other reason I went out with her in the first place.
Because she reminded me of her.
“Nope,” I tell her, crossing the shop to leave her in the waiting area while I work my way behind the counter. “I’m just trying to figure out why you’re really here.”
Hands still dug into the back pocket of her jeans, Tess spins around to face me on the heels of her boots, heaving out a long, put-upon sigh. “You know, things would be a helluva lot easier if you were hot and dumb.”
“You still think I’m hot?” I give her a lopsided grin because that’s what I do. I flirt. I flirt shamelessly with everyone because it’s expected, but I flirt with Tess because I like to watch Declan spin off into orbit. It’s not nearly as fun when he isn’t watching. “Better not let your boyfriend hear you say that.”
“Objectively, yes—of course I still think you’re hot. I’m taken, not blind...” she says with a matter-of-fact shrug. “But Dec knows I’m not looking to ride anyone’s dick but his.” She gives me one of those deceptively sweet smiles. “Besides, we both know it never would’ve worked between us.”
“Yeah?” Crossing my arms over my chest I give her a smirk. “Why’s that?”
She pulls her hands out of her pockets and holds them out, gesturing around the waiting room full of framed drawings of a faceless woman before letting them fall. “Because you were just as taken as I was.”
It’s the truth.
Hell, I was thinking the exact same thing no more than five minutes ago but that doesn’t matter. The moment she points out the painfully obvious, I feel my chest tighten. My stomach drop into my boots. I don’t try to deny it because I can’t. Not with her. She may not know who the woman I can’t stop drawing is, but she knows what she is.
She is to me what Declan was to Tess. The reason I’m stuck. The reason I can never move on. Having it thrown in my face makes me more than a little angry. “What do you want, Tess?”
“I want to throw Hen’s Bachelorette party.” The smile on her face, turns into a wince. “Here. Tonight.”
No.
Hell no.
“I’m busy.” Looking away from her, I pick up a spray bottle of disinfectant and drop into a squat so I can clean my tattoo chair. “I don’t have time?—”
“You had time for Con’s bachelor party,” she reminds me, her tone telling me she’s not going to give up until I give in.
Scrubbing the chair in front of me like my life depends on it, I shake my head. “Tess?—”
“ Went .”
Letting my hands drop away from the chair on a sigh, I slowly stand, trying to get myself together before I turn around, forcing myself to look at Tess and not the shop waiting room full of memories behind her.
“Didn’t you already have Henley’s bachelorette party?” I can see them behind her—framed drawings lining the walls of my shop. Over a dozen of them. All of the same person.
My wife.
The woman in the drawing—that’s who she is.
She’s my wife.
That’s what I told Ryan last week when he and the rest of them were here for Con’s bachelor party. I’m not sure why I told him other than the fact that I’d been a complete dick to him and I felt guilty about it.
As soon as I said it, I regretted it.
“That wasn’t a bachelorette party,” Tess tells me irritably. “We planned Cari’s baby shower while she fell asleep on the couch and I got sick.” She gives me an exasperated sigh because I’m being entirely too difficult for her liking. “Look, I?—”
“Alright…” It’s out of my mouth before I can stop it. “Fine. When?”
Now Tess scowls up at me. “Like I said…” She says it carefully like she thinks I really might be having a stroke. “Tonight.”
“It’s Friday,” I remind her, scrambling because tonight is too soon. Fuck— next year is too soon. “You have a shift at the bar. We all have a shift at the bar, remember?” I started working security at Gilroy’s last year because Con said he needed my help. Because as usual, his dickhead brother has his head up his ass.
In hindsight, I should’ve said no to him about that too.
“Patrick is closing the bar,” she informs me with a shrug. “Does eight work for you? I know Hen—she’s going to want to go home after work and do a complete wardrobe change before we?—”
“Since when?” I ask, talking over her. When she just stares at me like she has no idea what I’m asking her, I sigh. “ Since when is Patrick closing the bar ?” I work every Friday night without fail. We all do. It’s our busiest night, even with the usual influx of college kids gone home for the summer.
“Since about thirty seconds ago when I decided he is.” Tess gives me a shrug, absolutely confident in the fact that when she asks Patrick to close his bar on its busiest night of the week, he will. No questions asked. “So… eight o’clock?”
Shit.
“Who?” Swiping a rough hand over my face while fighting the urge to look over her shoulder at the row of framed drawings behind her. It’s a stupid question.
I know who.
“Me and Henley. Grace and Cari—if she can stay awake that long.” Tess rolls her eyes. “Maeve, Henley’s sister, and Ryan’s nurse, Kait.”
Kait.
When she says her name, it’s like someone zapped me in the balls with a cattle prod.
Kaitlyn isn’t just a guest at Con and Henley’s wedding.
She’s in the wedding.
Same as me.
“Okay.” Before she can ask about my cognitive function again, I give Tess a terse nod. “ If Patrick agrees to close the bar.”
“He’ll agree.” Tess gives me a sweet smile. “Since it’s a bachelorette party, would you mind working with your shirt off?”
I laugh in spite of myself and the fact that I’m seriously considering faking my own death and fleeing the country before she comes back. “Get out.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” Clapping her hands like a kid on Christmas day, Tess bounces in her boots while giving me a shit-eating grin. “See you tonight,” she tells me before letting herself out the way she came in, leaving me wondering why the hell I said yes and with little hope of getting myself out of it.