Maddox
BEFORE
“How can someone so insanely skilled have such absolute shit taste in art?”
Jamie holds up the vampire queen painting I got for a dollar at a yard sale, inspecting it like it might hiss at him. Ian leans over his shoulder and recoils.
“Burn it,” Ian says, shaking his head. “Please.”
“Why does she look wet?” Jamie grimaces. “And angry.”
“She’s ethereal,” I say. “And powerful.”
“She’s damp.” He grimaces. “And mad about it.”
Jamie keeps roasting my gorgeous painting, but it’s fine. Anna loves it. Anna always loves the weird shit I find. Yard sales are full of amazing shit. She always comes along with me and finds the best things.
Which is why Anna is my number one best friend.
My second-best friend twists his face like he’s smelling something rancid. “Can I finish your neck today? I have some time later.” The shop is nearly done and I’m itching to tattoo. We’ve all busted our asses these last few months.
“Sure.” He sets my vampire goddess down. “It’s gonna hurt, right? The outline sucked.”
“Immensely. Even more now that you insulted my queen.”
Ian drops into my chair with his sketchbook in hand. I know he wants to help, but he hurt his back last time we were moving things, and I have him strictly on light work.
He flips his book open and starts to draw. He’s a little pissed at me now, but it’s okay. We got into a tiny argument this morning. It’s fine, we’re fine. Ian’s brain just doesn’t let him let go. He thinks of every possible thing that will go wrong.
I rest my arm on Jamie’s shoulder, watching Ian pretend to ignore me. He can try all he wants but I am not ignorable. He should know this by now. “Look at my sexy little stormcloud.” Ian’s greenish eyes lift with murder bright in them.
Getting this shop ready has been a fucking nightmare.
I tried to do everything myself at first until my friends staged an intervention and started to help.
Jamie and his little brother Xavi, with their sister Luci, have helped this summer.
Hunter even came up for a bit but had to go back home to get ready for hockey camp.
Ian and Anna have been here day in and day out with me.
It’s hard to accept help, but I hate to admit I needed it.
“Jamie, when you’re done burning that monstrosity, I have a stack upstairs you can have at. Take them all.”
“You guys don’t understand real art.”
“Baby, when your flavor of art is shit, no one wants to taste it.” He smiles, proud of himself.
I walk to him and brace my hands on the arms of the chair, staring at this little asshole. “Stop being mad at me.”
“Stop brushing all my fears away.” He glares back at me. “I’m being realistic.”
“You’re being a buzzkill.” I snap a kiss onto his forehead. “I already have clients lined up. I’m done tattooing out of my bedroom.”
“We had good times in that bedroom.” Jamie sighs.
My second-best friend is an asshole. “We absolutely did not.”
Ian and I moved upstairs a couple of months ago, and somehow he’s still in love with me. Even if I leave my towels on the bathroom floor or forget to wash all my dishes right away. “Hey, Ian.” He looks up from his sketchbook. “I love you, baby.”
“Barf.” Jamie shakes his head.
He digs through more of the pieces I plan to hang on the wall.
We open next month and we’re nearly there.
Everyone says I have bad taste in art, but I like weird things.
I like imagining what the artist is carrying while they paint.
It feels important. How did that vampiress end up here with me?
What happened to it before? Who painted it and why?
Why does she look angry? What led the painter to make her this way? I love the mystery.
The bell on the front door rattles violently as Luci launches herself inside, her black hair spilling down her back.
“Holy fucking shit.” She spins, taking it all in. “You guys have done so much in a week.” Luci’s girlfriend joined them last weekend and that’s where all her attention has been.
Luci tucks herself against Jamie’s body, hugging him around the waist. “No more shithole, huh?” He beams down at her.
“Shithole adjacent,” Ian murmurs from his chair.
I glare at my man then look at Luci. “I’m going to finish Jamie’s tattoo today. Want to watch him cry?” I grin at her.
Jamie flips me off. “Uh, not today, but . . .” She smiles wide. “There’s a party tonight at Gilbert Lake, and since it’s my birthday I say we go and pretend they’re throwing the party for me.” She does this horrible little dance, shaking her ass. “Come on, guys, it’ll be fun.”
“And watch you get blackout drunk?” I say. “Tempting, but no.”
Luci pouts and her brown eyes widen, her brows upturned in the perfect begging face. That may work on Jamie, but it’s not doing shit for me. “Please,” she whines. “Please, Maddy, please! Porfa. Porfa, Maddy. Please please please—”
Or maybe it will.
“Okay, okay, holy shit. Enough. Fine, we’ll go.” I look back at Ian. “You want to go, babe?”
I’ve got so much to do. We only have another month left until we open for good. I want to get another station, but I have a budget that’s working against me at the moment. I’m actively avoiding the debt I’m in because I know this will work. We will be successful. I refuse to believe anything else.
“Sure,” Ian says and I want to talk to him alone.
We’ve both been a little stressed lately.
I know he believes in me, but Ian is also realistic.
We are two broke guys in our early twenties with no fucking clue how to run a business.
I’ll take care of everything. He won’t have to worry about a thing.
“I’ll call Ali, see if she wants to go.”
“Ugh, no!” Luci whines. “Why?”
“If I go to that party and people she knows are there and I didn’t tell her, she’s going to have my ass.”
“Or you could break up with her. Who said that? Not me.” I blink innocently.
“If it’s a party at the lake, she’s probably going anyway. Would look real fucked up if I showed up there and didn’t tell her.”
Luci sighs. “Madd, tell Jamie to break up with her.”
I throw my hands up. “I’m not touching hetero business.”
“I’m queer.” Jamie rolls his eyes. “You were going to do my tattoo, though,” he says to me.
“Tomorrow. I’ll stab you in the neck tomorrow.”
Jamie rubs his neck, looking at Luci. “If I die, delete my browser history.”
“I don’t want to know what’s in your phone.” She shakes her head. “I’ll let Mom deal with knowing her son’s a pervert.”
Jamie shakes his head. “When are we going?”
Luci shrugs. “Bonfire at dusk. I want to be there before.”
“Let me just finish up here and we can head up.”
“I’m going to go home and shower, then yes, call my girlfriend.” He glares at Luci.
“You don’t even like her,” Luci grumbles.
“I do like her.” We all look at him flatly. Even Ian, which nearly makes me laugh. “Fuck off. All of you.”
“Go shower. We’ll meet you all there in a couple of hours.”
With that they leave the shop and I turn my attention to Ian, still grouchy, in my chair. “Hey.” I brace my hands on the arm rests. “Hey.” I dip my head, forcing his eyes up. “Please stop being mad at me.”
Ian sighs, setting his book down. “I’m not mad, I’m just worried.” I press a kiss between his eyes.
“I know you are. And I know how your perfect brain works. I got you, you know that.”
“It’s not that simple. I’m just stressed. Please don’t dismiss how I feel. Let me feel this. I know you’ll do everything you can to make this place a success. I know if there’s anyone who can do this, it’s you, but please let me just freak out a little. This is scary.”
It’s not that I want to dismiss his feelings.
I don’t. But the thing is, if I don’t tell him everything will be okay, if I don’t tell myself it will be okay, what then?
If I let self-doubt swarm me, I know it’ll find a crack somewhere.
It’ll infest my mind and give my imposter syndrome legs. I can’t do that.
“I know this is scary. I know.” His eyes meet mine.
Damn, I love this boy. I love these green-blue eyes, preferably with a lot less stress in them.
I hate that I stress him out. I don’t want that for him.
I want to take care of him. I will take care of him.
I’ll take on whatever I need to, to make that happen.
“What are we doing, Madd?”
I lean in, pressing a soft kiss on his lips. Lips that still manage to throw me off balance. Soft and warm, sending heat and want down my spine and through my stomach. “Absolute fireflies.”
He breaks the kiss slowly, looking up at me. “That still doesn’t make sense.”
I cup his face, tilting his gaze up to mine.
“We’re going to do this together, Ian. And we will make mistakes.
Tons of them. We’ll be broke for a while.
We’re going to argue, and it will most likely be my fault.
” A smirk slips onto his lips. “This is going to be hard. I know it’s probably going to be the hardest thing we do.
We’re going to have shitty days, maybe even weeks.
Bad shit is going to happen, but I’ll be damned if any of that bad shit happens without me by your side.
I don’t need everything to be okay. I don’t need to make a lot of money at first. I don’t give a fuck if we’re eating canned tuna and ramen for years.
I don’t give a shit about any of it. I just need to know that you’ll be here with me through it all—the bad, the bullshit, the beauty of this—because I know we will get there. ”
“I hate you. So much.” I watch his throat bob as he looks away, shaking his head.
“Hate how cute I am.”
Ian swallows hard, looking back at me. I watch the way his eyes break and soften. “I don’t even know how to love anyone else.”
I kiss him hard, sinking onto his lap. His hands go to my hips. I’m ready to say fuck that stupid party and spend the night in our apartment. “I love you, Ian. Never forget that.”
He sighs heavily, flipping his wrist to look at the infinity tattoo there. “You wouldn’t let me even if I tried.”