It’s a fucking lie.
An outright fabrication.
Because the thought of Adam going public with my name—my father’s name—is eating me from the inside.
“I know, but it’s your privacy,” she says. “I know how much you value that.”
I press my palms into the counter, my back to her.
I hate thinking about this.
What’s even more is I hate thatshe’sworried about it.
“Avie said they’d take care of it,” I tell her, referring to our manager. “He’s never let me down. And if he somehow slips through the cracks, I know Heartless will pick it up.”
I don’t believe myself.
The cider begins to simmer as a tense lull surrounds us, and I’m thankful for the distraction.
“What’s the tattoo on your elbow?” she asks as I pour our cider into mugs.
I have to look to remember. “The broken glass or the flower?” I ask.
“Oh, that’s broken glass,” she realizes.
I set our cups down and bend my elbow to point to the scars buried beneath the ink. “I think you were already at college when this happened,” I say.
“Wait—is that when you fell through the window?” she asks.
For some twisted reason, I almost smile at the fact that she remembered, and I pull up my shirt to show her the rest. There’s a scar from a three-inch gash down my side from a shard of glass that nearly ended my life.
“Oh my god,” she says upon seeing it.
Never mind the way she’s staring at the rest of me.
I let my shirt fall before those eyes end all of my willpower. My gaze snags on the tattoo she has on her neck, and I jerk my chin toward it. “What’s that one?”
“Oh—Ah… a little hard to show you.” She hops off the stool and comes around the counter, pulling the hoodie back so I can see down into her shirt. It’s a full rendering of a raven with its wings up, including the iridescent feathers and detail that would have taken hours of work.
“That’s fucking gorgeous,” I say.
“Ravens have a special place in my heart,” she says as she heads toward the couch, drink in hand. “That was my first big one. I think I spent more time in the tattoo chair when I was twenty-three than I have any other year,” she says, sitting on the couch and curling her legs beneath her.
“Why’s that?” I ask, sitting on the opposite end.
“Had some extra cash with my bartending job on the weekends,” she replies. “And the euphoria of that pain was better than the sex I was having—or anything in my life, for that matter.”
“I feel that… Was it that asshole from the bar?”
She nods reluctantly.
“He never deserved you,” I say. “I remember the time you brought him home for Thanksgiving. I thought your dad would murder him when he tried to downplay your promotion. Reed and I planned out some elaborate scheme to get rid of him that night, but you kicked him out before we could execute.”
An expression shifts in her gaze as though the mention of that holiday is too much, like the memory suddenly rushing through her has her on the verge of shutting down.
She takes another sip of her warm cider and looks over the rim at me. “What about you?” she asks. “When did you get most of yours?”
“Ah…” I look down at my arms, my exposed knees. “This last year,” I admit.
