24. lucas
TWENTY-FOUR
lucas
Looked like I was about to get my wish.
As we pulled in front of the resort Charlee managed, a lakeside property well-known on the lake, I nearly laughed aloud. Since we’d had an exceptional morning—our bathroom make out session enough to convince me I was the biggest fucking idiot on the planet if I thought simply not having sex with Charlee would safeguard me from my growing feelings for her—I used every ounce of discipline I possessed not to react.
Charlee, seeing her father stroll up to the door at the very moment we pulled up? Slightly different reaction. When she looked at me with a death glare that clearly said, “This is your fault,” which obviously it was anything but, she expelled a breath and waited.
Didn’t take long.
He’d seen her the second we pulled up. Abandoning his door-holding efforts, her father made a beeline to us. Charlee simultaneously jumped out of the truck but held the door open for him to speak to us both.
“Morning, Dad,” she said too cheerfully.
“Good morning,” he said more formally.
If I had met the father first, Charlee and I would probably not have dated. The nicest word I could think of to describe him would be “snob.” He'd inherited Lakeside Properties. Never knew anything but wealth and influence. For some people, that didn’t seem to affect them. Charlee, for instance. She was as down-to-earth as anyone I knew.
“You remember Lucas Warner?”
I didn’t have it in me to give a warm smile to the guy who essentially told his daughter I wasn’t good enough for her.
“I remember,” her father said. “Welcome back, Lucas. Heard you were in town.”
I bet.
The guy didn’t miss a beat. “Back to stay?”
As connected as he was to local business interests, there was no doubt he knew the answer to that question. I’d leased the building that held my shop and apartment, got a permit to operate a tattoo parlor, and he fucking knew that.
“I am. Setting up shop downtown. A tattoo parlor,” I said for shits and giggles.
Not surprisingly, he didn’t flinch. Looked back to Charlee as if he wanted to ask her right then and there what the hell she was doing getting out of my truck. But he refrained. For now.
“We have a meeting to get to,” Charlee said to no one in particular. “Talk to you later, Lucas?”
“Sure thing.”
“Good to see you,” her father said, not meaning a word.
No matter. I knew who he was and what I stood for, and approval from the likes of Charlee’s father was the last thing I needed.
Charlee smiled at me and slammed the truck door shut. So, no kiss, but I supposed dropping her off here was enough of a signal to her father that we were together.
I watched the two of them enter the front doors of Taughannock Falls and disappear. I had a bunch of errands to run to get ready for this afternoon, and by the time my first client walked through the door, I not only had a fully functional shop but even an administrative staff consisting of one person. When Gian DeLuca walked through the door, Alex greeted him with a smile and brought him back to my chair.
“Off to class. See you tomorrow,” she said to me. “Nice to meet you,” she added to Gian.
Yeah, she was going to work out perfectly.
I stood and stuck out my hand to shake Gian’s. “All ready for your first ink?” I asked him.
“Why do I feel like you’re laughing inside?”
I fetched the design I’d come up with based on what Gian had sent me.
“Because you said you’d be one and done.” I turned on the iPad. “It’s rare that happens.”
“We’ll see.”
If I were a betting man, this was one I’d take. A second tattoo was as close to a sure bet as it got. “In the meantime, what do you think?”
Gian had wanted a Sicilian Medusa, actually called the Trinacria, on his shoulder as a tie to his heritage and nod to his summer in Sicily where he met Mazzie.
“Holy shit, Lucas. That’s incredible.”
I did like this one. “You’ll notice the features on Athena in the middle. It’s subtle.” I handed the iPad to Gian, who lifted it closer to his face. When he looked up, the man’s jaw was nearly on the floor.
“Are you shitting me?”
“Too much?”
“Hell no.”
It wasn’t obvious at first glance, but this particular Medusa had some very subtle nods to Mazzie’s facial features.
“She’s gonna go crazy for this.”
I looked toward the door. “I thought she was coming with you? To ‘calm her nerves’ about getting one herself.”
“She’s on the phone with a supplier but will be out shortly. Honestly, this is great, Lucas. I’m ready to rock and roll.”
“Let’s do it.”
I got him prepped, set the tattoo and, by the time we started, I was feeling more and more confident that I’d made the right choice. I loved seeing these designs come to life. Vowing to make this shop work no matter what, I asked Gian about the bar. He said it was going well. We chatted about business ownership in a small town, and Gian offered some marketing advice about attracting both locals and tourists alike and working partnerships with other locally owned businesses.
Eventually, as I worked, he circled back to my time in the military.
“Love what you did with the place. A nice nod to your time in the Army.”
“Thanks,” I said, continuing to work on the lines.
“The snake,” Gian said, nodding to a picture on the wall. “What’s that one about?”
“Had a run-in overseas with a four-foot red spitting cobra. Apparently, the thing shoots poison in the eyes of its prey. I chased and hunted him around like an idiot. Only found that out afterward.”
“After?”
“I caught him and killed him.”
“Oh shit. Maybe it’s good you didn’t know ahead of time.”
“Either way, that little guy fucked around and found out. Made for an interesting night, that’s for sure.”
We talked about Italy for a bit, me having been stationed there and Gian having lived in Sicily for the summer last year, where he met Mazzie.
“I had zero interest in a girlfriend,” he said. “But there she was. Took exactly one date to realize there was something special about her.”
“It’s nuts the way you two met. In Italy. Living in two opposite parts of the country back here.”
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Speaking of—”
Oh no. Here it came.
“There are rumors floating around about you and a particular ex-girlfriend of yours?”
“Rumors, huh?”
“You must have forgotten how it works here in Kitchi Falls. I might be new around here, but one small town isn’t much different than the next. Bridgeport wasn’t much better.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I heard there are still some rumblings about Grunt Ink too."
Gian winced, clearly not having heard of that.
I didn’t want to dwell. “Anyway, I’m glad things worked out with you and Mazzie. I couldn’t ask for a better neighbor.”
“Nice deflection.”
“Thanks.”
“Which means it’s true.”
I laughed. “We are. . . exploring things.”
“Interesting. Sounds like the two of you have some history?”
“You could say that.” I wiped Gian’s new ink. Looking good. I decided to just lay it all out there. “We had a good thing going. But her dad never liked me. When you’re the town’s resident rich guy, having a potential son-in-law like me doesn’t go over too well.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Is what it is. He pressured Charlee into breaking up with me. Which she did.”
Gian looked up at me. “You’re bitter about that?”
“Yeah. At least I was.”
“Was?”
“I’m trying to let go of it. But it’s not as simple as that. Her father is the most controlling man on the face of the earth. And Charlee works for him, despite the fact that she wanted nothing to do with the hospitality industry. Says a lot, I think. And I have no desire to step back into those shark-infested waters.”
“Her father being the shark?”
“Exactly.”
Gian was quiet for a second. “She was young when you left. Maybe give her a chance. From what I heard, Charlee’s had a thing for you for a long time.”
My hand almost stilled, but it couldn’t. Steady. . .
“Where did you hear that?”
“Mmm, can’t reveal my sources.”
I laughed. “I guess it doesn’t matter in this town. There are a limited number of possibilities.”
“The fact is, you don’t need rumors to confirm it.”
“No,” I admitted. “I don’t.” And then, a confession. “Charlee insisted she didn’t care what her father thought of us. I may have called her bluff.”
“Oh no.” Gian didn’t flinch as I began to shade. “What did you do?”
I had closer friends than Gian, including Nate, who I could text anytime. But I wasn’t accustomed to talking to my friends about women beyond the usual banter about strippers or one-night stands. Charlee was a whole new level, and I found Gian easy to talk to.
“I suggested we pretend to date. Push her father’s buttons. Test the waters, so to speak.”
“Hold up.”
I pulled the tattoo machine back.
“You’re fucking with me, right? Because no woman in her right mind would agree to that, least of all Charlee Donovan. From what I know of her, she’s a pit bull. Like her father.”
By all accounts, she was. Just not with me. “She agreed,” I said, not mentioning the asinine “no sex” part of my plan.
“Oh wow. Well, there you go. Pretty much a no-brainer then.”
“A no-brainer? You mean, how she feels about me?”
“Let me just say this. I was as dumb as a bag of rocks after Mazzie and I were together. After a few dates, we exchanged numbers. But it took me a hot second to realize I never should have let her go back to Arizona. Thankfully, by the time I figured out how I felt, it wasn’t too late.”
“Hmmm.” I thought about that. “Too late” with Charlee would mean her finding someone who didn’t demand she “pretend” to date and effectively play fast and loose with her family members.
I needed to talk to her.
“Thanks,” I said to Gian for sharing. “Looking good. Do you need anything?”
“I’m all set.”
The rest of the time, as we talked, my mind kept wandering back to Charlee. To Gian saying she’d liked me this entire time. Her asking my dad about me. Dad saying she loved me. Since I’d come back, Charlee had been nothing but open and honest, and in response, I pushed her away and acted like as much of a dickhead as I accused her father of being.
We needed to talk.
As soon as Gian’s tattoo was done, I would message her about going out tonight.