Chapter 15 Hazel
Hazel
The sun had just set by the time I made it out of the shop, waving at Nash and Brian before I closed the door behind me. I’d wrapped up my client’s collarbone piece a little earlier than expected, giving me enough time to pick up some takeout from my favorite Indian restaurant before they closed.
I’d told Skylar about my surprise visit from Milton after he left yesterday. She’d tried to steal my phone from me to text Milton a big fat yes because, apparently, I was insane for not accepting his offer on the spot.
But I hadn’t made up my mind yet. I couldn’t even feel whether I was leaning more in one direction or the other. Nope. Forever cursed by indecisiveness and overthinking, I was smack dab right in the damn middle.
Genesis had been out of town for work and missed all the details in real time, but she had gotten the vague gist of the story through text and made me promise to call as soon as I left today.
My face was glued to my phone screen as I waited for her to answer my FaceTime while I walked outside.
The image of Genesis was rattled by her excitement the moment she answered. “I knew the universe was going to right itself after SO many years with the wrong man, but I was not expecting it to work this fast!”
I giggled, setting my phone on the ledge of the building, below a good light source. “I know. It’s crazy. Small world, isn’t it?”
“Why are you acting like this is no big deal? First, he rescued your boobie onstage at his rock show!” She stepped back from the phone to give this moment the energy she thought it deserved.
I saw her fiancé, Cam, walk through the frame in his pajamas and open the fridge without questioning her exuberant display.
She continued her list. “This man just happened to pull up next to our car out of a million on the road that same freaking night, invited you on the back of his bike for a ride, and slipped you some tongue during a rainstorm!”
All I could do was stare and blink slowly at her rendition of events.
She glanced up at the ceiling in thought, as if she still couldn’t grasp the idea of it all. “And then he somehow managed to come into your shop of all places, looking to get tattooed, and invited you to live at his damn house! That’s insane, Hazel!”
“I think I see some smoke coming out of your head,” I teased, laughing when she pursed her lips at me.
She had a point though. The circumstances of running into this man this many times were bizarre.
Cam gave me a wave as he walked by with some cheese. Genesis smacked his butt before he could make a clean getaway and then shook a stern finger at me.
“This kind of shit doesn’t happen to normal people, okay?
Normal people try their luck at a local bar, throw their bait into the polluted ocean of dating apps, or hope their friends have hot, sophisticated acquaintances to hook them up with.
And while they wait, they’re daydreaming of shit like this happening to them instead.
Don’t let this opportunity slip through your hands! ”
“What do you mean? What opportunity? I’m tattooing him tomorrow. That’s what he came in for.” I lifted my shoulders before digging for my keys in my purse.
“Go out with him! See if this could be something! DO it for the plot!”
I remembered the time I had told my grandma about Devan when I first met him, and she’d said something similar.
There wasn’t anything special about the way he and I had crossed paths, just that we shared the same art class in high school.
He wasn’t an artist; I was. So, he asked for my help with some painting techniques.
It was simpler times, but we were only seniors in high school.
He was the cocky varsity pitcher on our baseball team with a killer smile, and I was the artsy girl with straight A’s and paint in her hair.
Everyone loved Devan, and when I was with him, he made sure everyone loved me too. He had this way of making you feel like the most important person in the world. Until, one day, he made it his purpose to prove every way I wasn’t.
Grandma Lou hadn’t known what she was pushing me toward back then. Neither had I. There weren’t any warning signs. No red flags telling me that, one day, I’d lose myself to the man I couldn’t ever see my life without.
The first few years had been good, exciting highs and lows, but our love had been strong enough to withstand it all.
Those memories were sometimes what hurt the most, going through this whole divorce process, because it made my head spin, wondering when it’d shifted, how I’d failed, and if we could’ve done anything to stop it.
“You okay over there?” Genesis asked.
Lifting my mouth back into a smile, I gave her a reassuring nod.
Her hands smacked the countertop in front of her phone. “Well then, come on! Give me all the details! Word for word!”
Catching a strange image when I rolled my eyes, I did a double take at the view of my car in the darkness. Brian’s and Nash’s vehicles were parked on either side, shielding some of my line of vision, but the windshield almost looked shattered from here.
“What are you looking at?” Genesis asked.
I squinted my eyes to try to see better.
“Hold on,” I told her.
Every hair on the back of my neck stood on end as I walked out into the parking lot.
Bent metal and broken glass became more focused as my eyes adjusted.
My pulse jumped as I glanced around the mostly empty lot, making sure it was indeed my car that looked like it’d just rolled down a fucking cliff.
What the hell?
The doors were dented in, the side mirrors hanging, the windshield shattered from multiple points of contact, and the back tires were slashed.
The darkness outside the shop, where I’d never felt unsafe, suddenly became eerie and foreign, and I ran back to the lit sidewalk, where Genesis was waiting.
“There you are. You had me worried for a sec—” She stopped, taking in my face. “What is it? What happened?”
“My car! It’s—” I paused, fisting my hair at my scalp.
I glanced behind me into the shadows, panic constricting my throat.
“What?”
“Someone … hit it!”
She frowned. “Like, they backed into you?”
“No! They hit it, like, all over!” Tears welled in my eyes as I tried to explain the unexplainable. “The windows are broken! Every one of them shattered! There are dents everywhere! I don’t … how could … why would someone do that?”
Genesis shook her head and waved her hands frantically, making me look at her. “Is Brian still there?”
I nodded, lip quivering.
“Go back inside right now, lock the door, and have him call the police, okay? Go!”
Her wide-eyed urgency rattled me loose from my frozen state. I booked it back into the tattoo shop. Nash saw the state of me and yelled for Brian, who came running up from the back. My chest heaved, each breath getting shorter and shorter.
Brian rushed to my side, and I handed him my phone, letting Genesis fill them in with the little information she had. Nash called the cops and replaced Brian’s spot at my side, guiding me to the couch while Brian ran out into the parking lot.
Everything was a blur after that.
Brian snapped pictures of the damage and checked security footage, but my car was just out of frame. The police arrived and took down the report after inspecting the scene and asking me questions.
Of course, the glaring question we all were asking was, Who the hell would do such a thing?
Devan’s name came out of everyone’s mouth but my own. He was the most obvious answer, yes, but I just couldn’t fathom the idea of him planning such a malicious attack. What would be the purpose? He hadn’t wanted the divorce, but was that enough motive to destroy every inch of my car?
The police wrote down my ex’s name, given that he was the only suspect, and told us they’d be back in the area tomorrow morning to see if there were any witnesses.
With it being such a high-traffic area during the day, they suggested that it’d happened when it got darker out, but that hadn’t been long before I stepped outside.
What if they had been lurking around, watching my reaction in real time?
Another wave of fear shivered up my spine. Going back out there was terrifying, but I knew the longer I waited, the worse it would get.
“Come on. I’m taking you home.” Brian held out his hand, helping me stand.
I swore this man was a mind reader.
“What about Penelope?” I asked.
“She’s at a friend’s tonight. So, that means I have plenty of time to stop and get some greasy fast food on the way.”
My stomach rumbled at the mention of food. The Indian place had long been closed by now, but something crispy and fried sounded better after the night I had been having.
“There’s some life back in those eyes!” he exclaimed. “What’ll it be? My treat.”
Distracting me with food was a sure way to get me back into the scary parking lot, but as much as I tried to avoid looking at it, I still caught one last glimpse of my car before climbing into Brian’s passenger seat, sending my heart racing once more.
Fear hangovers had to be a thing because my head was pounding like I’d tossed back seven shots of tequila the night prior.
A bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Skylar noticed me stir on the couch and arrived at my side with bacon, orange juice, and a worried brow.
“You’re a saint,” I told her, letting the salty goodness hit my tongue.
She waited until I finished my first strip of bacon and a sip of juice before letting out a long breath.
“You know you can stay here as long as you want.”
I stared up at her, waiting, knowing this was a preface to something more.
“I just think, with how scary last night was and having Devan randomly show up at your work, maybe you should give Milton’s offer more consideration, you know?”
I sat up and shook my head.
“You can’t tell me you wouldn’t feel safer at his place, which is probably a lot more secure than my crummy apartment.”
“Am I also supposed to stop tattooing? Because Devan visited me at the shop. The attack on my car happened in the parking lot outside of my work. Which we still don’t know was Devan. It could’ve been some stupid teens who randomly chose my night to fuck up.”
Skylar pursed her lips and crossed her arms at me. It seemed they’d all decided it was Devan, but I wanted proof before I let that be another bitter pill I had to choke down.
“Where I lay my head down at night doesn’t protect me from my everyday norm, and I’m not about to lock myself away in a fortress.”
“You’re right, but a little added security right now could lend a piece of mind. Not just to you, but to all of us.” Her eyes rounded.
“Sure, but—”
“Not to mention, he said he’d pay you. An added digit in your bank account wouldn’t be so bad either.” She wiggled her brows.
I finished another piece of bacon and itched my ankles, staring down Lucifer in the corner of the room as I chewed. What Skylar had said made sense, and the offer was tempting. But it also seemed completely absurd.
“My head hurts too much to think about this right now. I need to take a shower and get ready for work. What time is it anyway?”
“Nine forty.”
“You okay if I steal the bathroom for ten minutes?”
“Sure thing. Do you have a way of getting to work later?”
“I forgot about that part. Shit.”
“I’d take you, but my baker is borrowing my Bronco to deliver all that bread to the wedding event downtown. I can ask when he’ll be back, but I don’t think it will be before noon.”
“That’s okay. I’ll figure something out,” I told her before grabbing a towel from the closet and dipping into the bathroom.
Once my wet hair was brushed and fastened into a towel atop my head, I put on some yoga pants and a sweatshirt, desperate to be comfortable, and texted Brian to see if he could give me a ride to work.
Genesis lived much farther away, and she and Cam were spending the weekend going wine tasting to find what they wanted to serve at their wedding.
Brian’s response came through as I opened the bathroom door, steam pouring out around me.
I looked up to see Skylar shaking her head and waving a finger at me.
“No, no, no.”
“No what?” I asked.
“You are not wearing that to go tattoo a hot rock star. Change.”
My shoulders sagged when I looked down at my outfit and cursed. “But it’s comfortable.”
She looked at me for a moment, debating whether this was something she wanted to argue with me or not. Since I had left Devan, I knew she and Genesis had been tiptoeing a bit around me, making sure I had a soft and supportive place to land among the two of them.
Today was a day she chose to push back for my own good.
“Wear those sunflower jeans and a cropped top. You’ll thank me later.”
“Which cute top?” I asked, glancing at the laundry she had graciously folded for me. “Did I mention you’re a saint?”
“The flowy yellow one that sits off the shoulders or the cropped black one that pushes your boobs up.” She wiggled her brows, trotted over, and smooched my cheek. “And, yes, I know.”
Lucifer rubbed against her leg, wrapping his tail around her, all cute like. Two seconds later, he sauntered over to me and swatted at my bare toes, hissing when I jerked them away from him.
Skylar scooped him up and apologized. My face burned as I watched him lick her cheek over and over again.
“Did you find a ride?” Skylar asked as I zipped myself into my jeans.
I sighed. “Kind of. Brian said he could swing by and pick me up after he drops his daughter off at her violin lessons, but that’s when I need to be at the shop for Milton’s appointment.
It’ll take at least half an hour to make it into town with traffic.
I could pay for a ride, but that’ll cost a fortune. ”
She frowned, setting Lucifer on his cat tower. “Didn’t you get Milton’s number?”
“I mean, he gave me a phone number, but I doubt he gives out his personal information like that,” I answered dismissively. “It’s probably his publicist’s or assistant’s number.”
“Well, he’s down bad, so I doubt it. But I say text the number and ask if he can come in a little later. It’s not that big of a schedule shift, and the man is dying to see you. I’m sure it will be fine.”
She walked back into the kitchen to clean up while I found the number Milton had entered in my phone, hoping Skylar was right.