I won’t let God take you away, I promise him in my mind.I’ll punch Him in the head if He tries.
Chapter 1
JULIA
“There you are.” I let out a sigh as I approach my husband’s station in his studio. “I’ve been calling you.”
Tripp sits on a tattooing chair with his ankle crossed over his leg, carefully guiding the needle of his machine over the small patch of previously-empty skin left on his calf, one of very few spaces on his body not marked with ink.
My eyes scan over the tray next to him; the ink caps, the ink itself, the sterile equipment, and all that I can see is a stack of dollar signs laid out and going to waste.
“There was another no call, no show,” he explains. “I figured I’d take the slot.”
“Tripp…” I sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose. “That’s the third one this week alone. Maybe it’s time to seriously think about—”
“I’m not selling the shop.”
Taking a step closer, I reach for one of the tchotchkes on his desk, likely a gift from a client, and I turn it over in my hand. “If we take out another loan, we’ll have to put a lien on the house.”
His gaze snaps to me as he wipes a paper towel across his skin, pulling blood and excess ink along with it. “Why not the salon, then?”
“Because the salon is actually—” I stop myself, combing my hands through my hair in frustration. “The shop is hemorrhaging money, Lovey. I’ve tried to wait out the ‘rough patch,’ but it’s not just a rough patch anymore. Even with cutting half of your artists, we’resinking.”
Reaching for the tray next to him, he picks up a squeeze bottle filled with green soap and he sprays it over the area of skin now adorned with a small cherub. Its wings are like that of a gargoyle and its eyes a pure, haunting white. It’s beautiful and disturbing, like all of his work is.
He puts as much passion and care into the tattoos he puts onto his own body as the ones that he gives to his clients; but talent and good customer service just aren’t enough anymore.
I heave a sigh of both frustration and disappointment as I step away from his station, resigned to going home by myself for yet another night. I don’t even remember the last time that we slept in the same bed.
“Jules, wait,” Tripp calls out, and despite myself, I do. Without wrapping his newest tattoo, he walks toward me and wraps his arms around my shoulders, pulling me into his chest to breathe in the subtle musk of his cologne. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to fight with you.”
All we do anymore is fight, I think to myself.
I snake my arms around his middle to squeeze him tightly as I close my eyes, letting myself soak in the warmth of his body and remember the way that it felt to have him dote on me.
I don’t want to fight with him, either. I miss him all of the time. The way that it used to be between us. His fingers in my hair, his lips on mine often enough to annoy everyone around us, his hand always tangled in mine.
My rock. My husband. My entireuniverse.
I pull away from him and his hand cups my face, his thumb trailing over my cheekbone as he leans down to press a quick, soft kiss to my lips.
Brushing my fingers through his soft, nearly-white hair, I tell him, “We need to tone and trim you this weekend.”
“Pencil me in,” he tells me with a smile. The black gem at the top of his vertical labret piercing shines with the movement of his lips before he presses them to my forehead, and for a moment, I forget how irritated we are with each other. “I’ll see you at home.”
Home.
Formerly our sanctuary, now a place that I don’t think either of us look forward to going at the end of each day. Nearly two years of distance, months of fighting – if not over trivial things, over money, as if we’re living inside of some Hollywood movie cliché – has taken its toll on us.
The hardest part of this whole thing is that, after we fight, the only thing that I want to do is vent to my best friend about it. I can’t do that, though, because I’m married to him.
“I’m home!” I sing as I push open the front door to our townhome.
As I swing my purse off of my shoulder and drop it onto the kitchen table, our small hairless cat jumps up onto the surface and nuzzles his face against my arm.
“Hi, Drumstick. How’s my goodest boy?”
He doesn’t respond to me, of course, but his presence makes me feel at least a little bit less lonely. Scooping him into my arms, I carry him up the stairs and into our bedroom, setting him onto the bed to hang out while I change into a set of pajamas.
