Chapter 10 #2
Vice joins us, because apparently my suffering has become group entertainment. “What’s the dare?”
Magic smiles like the devil’s dumber cousin. “He gets something for Lady.”
“No names,” I say.
Magic points at me. “He already thought about it.”
“Didn’t.”
“Liar.”
Vice studies me. “Small. Something she would not hate.”
“Tall order,” I mutter. “She hates a lot right now.”
“Mostly you,” Magic says.
“Not helpful.”
“She hates roses,” Alpha says from behind us.
Everyone looks at him.
He doesn’t glance away from Amour. “Don’t get a rose.”
“Look at him participating,” Magic says. “Love makes nerds brave.”
Alpha’s eyes cut. “Say love again and I will make your banking history public.”
“Too late,” I say, showing him the skulls and roses already inked on my arm.
Magic points at Vice. “He said tattoo.”
Vice runs this tattoo shop, but he ain’t currently sober enough to ink a straight line, so he drags in one of the shop artists from the back, a quiet woman named Ren who has seen too much of this club to be impressed. She looks at me, looks at Magic, looks at the bottle in my hand.
“No ribs,” she says. “No hands. No throat. He’s drunk.”
“I’m emotionally enhanced,” I say.
“You’re tequila with hair.”
We settle on the inside of my left forearm, above the wrist. Small. Black linework.
A crescent moon over a broken road.
Five tiny beat marks under it.
Two close together. Three spaced after.
Lady’s road.
Lady’s night.
Lady surviving because she turned fear into directions and music into a map.
Ren lifts a brow when I tell her.
“That’s actually romantic,” she says.
“Don’t sound surprised.”
“You look like romance means felony.”
“I’m a criminal. It usually does.”
The needle starts buzzing.
Pain cuts through the alcohol enough to clear my head for a minute. I watch the ink go in and think of Lady’s fingers against my cut, Lady’s mouth saying you cannot have me yet, Lady going cold because the whole world found a way into her bedroom.
Magic leans over my shoulder. “Aww. Our murder GPS got feelings.”
“I will stab you with this needle.”
Ren doesn’t look up. “No stabbing during the tattoo.”
“After?”
“Tip first.”
I toss cash on the tray with my free hand.
She smiles. “After is your business.”
When it is done, I stare at the tiny moon and broken road under the plastic wrap.
It’s stupid and permanent.
It’s hers even if she never wants it.
That’s probably the stupidest part.
Diablo comes by with Darling tucked under his arm. Disco is on her shoulder, chewing gently on her hair like a tiny white demon stylist.
Darling sees the tattoo.
Her face softens.
Then she punches my uninjured arm.
“Ow.”
“That is for hurting her.”
“God.”
She looks at the tattoo again. “That’s for loving her?”
I swallow.
“Yeah.”
Disco leans forward, black eyes bright. “?Pretty Lady!”
I look at the bird. “She is.”
Diablo watches me for a long second.
“Don’t fuck this up worse,” he says.
“Beautiful engagement speech, Prez.”
Darling elbows him. “He’s trying.”
“Trying ain’t the same as succeeding.”
“Tell your fiancé that mid-sex proposal is the stuff of legend.”
Darling’s cheeks go red.
Diablo smiles slow and filthy.
I point at him. “Don’t look too proud. I heard the bird was there.”
Disco screams, “?Pendejo!”
The party rolls on.
I don’t remember everything after that.
I remember more tequila.
I remember Vice putting a bottle of water in my hand and me calling him my least favorite mother hen.
I remember Amour standing outside the back door with Alpha, her face tilted toward his while the whole club roared behind them. I remember him touching her wrist like she might vanish, and her letting him for exactly three seconds before stepping back.
I remember thinking, poor bastard.
Then remembering I have no room to talk.
At some point, I stumble toward my room because the floor starts making choices I don’t agree with. Vice Ink has bedrooms in the old rectory wing, half clubhouse, half barracks, all a setting for our bad choices. Mine is at the end of the hall, because I like exits and hate people.
A blonde club girl trails me halfway.
I turn at my door. “No.”
She pouts. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“You were going to say something that ends with me hating myself and Lady hating me more.”
“Glitter girl’s not here.”
“Why do y’all call her that?”
She raises her shoulder. “Cherry said it first.”
I shut the door in her face.
Then lock it.
Or I think I do.
Alcohol is a lying little bitch.
My bed catches me hard. Boots stay on. Jeans stay on. The room spins once, then twice, then decides to leave me alone.
I dream of Lady.
Not sweet.
Nothing about that woman belongs in sweet.
She is in my bed wearing nothing but her black cuffs and that dangerous smile, bruises gone, eyes bright, hair falling around her shoulders like dark silk. She climbs over me like she owns me, palms on my chest, thighs bracketing my hips.
“Still mine, gringo?” she whispers.
I try to touch her.
She catches my wrists and pins them above my head.
In the dream, I laugh because of course she does. “Bossy.”
“You like me bossy while I’m riding you.”
My whole body burns.
She moves over me, slow and cruel, taking what she wants, giving only enough to make me beg. Her mouth drags over my jaw. Her nails bite my chest. The moon tattoo on my arm glows black under her fingers.
“You can want me,” she says.
“I do.”
“You can bleed for me.”
“I will.”
“You can love me.”
“I do.”
Her mouth brushes mine.
“But you cannot lie to me again.”
I wake up reaching for her. Morning cuts through the blinds like a punishment.
My hand hits skin.
For one half-second, drunk and stupid and half lost in the dream, I think she came back.
Then the smell hits me.
Wrong perfume.
Wrong hair.
Wrong woman.
My eyes snap open.
Cherry is in my bed.
Naked.
Her red hair spills over one shoulder, and her phone is lifted high, angled down at us. My jeans are open. Her hand is where it has no right to be. Her bare thigh is thrown over mine like a staged confession.
Cold horror burns the alcohol out of me in a single breath.
I jerk away so hard I hit the floor.
“What the fuck?”
Cherry flinches, but the phone stays up.
Click.
Another photo.
I shove to my feet, grabbing my jeans closed with one hand. My stomach turns so violently I nearly puke.
She ain’t supposed to be here.
She ain’t supposed to be in Vice Ink.
She ain’t supposed to be in my room.
She ain’t supposed to be touching me while I’m unconscious.
“Get out,” I say.
My voice doesn’t sound drunk anymore.
It sounds dead.
Cherry sits up, clutching the sheet to her chest like modesty matters after whatever the hell this is. Her eyes are red but dry. That scares me more than tears.
“You were dreaming about her,” she says.
I stare at her.
She smiles, and it is broken in a way that has finally stopped asking to be saved.
“You said Lady.”
My hand curls.
“How did you get in here?”
She looks toward the door. “Your club parties hard.”
“You were in a safe house.”
“I left.”
“Bullshit.”
Her smile twitches. “Carmen has better locks than your brothers.”
Carmen.
Always polished. Always one step back from the hand holding the match.
I take one step toward the bed. Cherry lifts the phone.
“Don’t.”
I stop.
She turns the screen toward me.
The photos are already open.
Me passed out. Her half on top of me. My jeans open enough to damn me in a city that wants to believe the worst. Her mouth near my jaw. My new tattoo visible. A perfect angle. A perfect lie.
My chest goes hollow.
Lady.
Cherry’s thumb hovers.
Then she taps.
Send.
The sound the phone makes is tiny.
It should not feel like a gunshot.
“Who did you send that to?” I ask.
Cherry slips from the bed, keeping the sheet around her as she grabs her dress from the chair.
“Not Miami,” she says. “Yet.”
“Who?”
She steps into the dress with shaking legs. “Insurance.”
I move before I think.
She lifts the phone again. “Take one more step and every gossip gets them with a timestamp and a caption about how fast you got over her.”
I stop.
Every part of me wants to roar.
I don’t.
Because this is how they win. Rage makes men predictable. Carmen knows that. Cherry knows that now because someone taught her where to press.
“What do you want?” I ask.
Her eyes shine.