As I lower onto the mattress, he crouches in front of me. His fingers push through my hair to bring it behind my ear, and his lips gently brush my own in a tender kiss. As he pulls the bedding over top of me, my eyelids weigh themselves down, finally defeating me in the battle that I’ve fought against them for the past hour.
I can hear the boys talking about their sleeping arrangements for the night, but my brain is too swirly and my body is too cozy to make out any of their words.
Instead, I drift off to the sound of their voices, barely aware of the body that encompasses mine.
Chapter 31
TRIPP
Slipping into a fresh pair of gloves, I reach for the bottle of disinfectant waiting on my counter and give a generous spray to my table. The smell of alcohol fills the air and burns my nostrils, even though the label very clearly says ‘unscented.’
Across the room, Connor has a client on his table. He bends his knees, dropping in front of them with an ink-tipped toothpick in hand, his focus honed in on the client’s eyebrow. The tip of his tongue pulls his lower lip inward, and my head dips with a laugh and a shake. Catching a glimpse of our other piercer, whose eyes are now on me, I straighten my expression and bring my attention back to my task.
There’s a small part of me that thinks the other guys here know. I don’t know that that part of me cares if they do, but I know it feels protective over what we have; and I don’t trust myself not to hurt someone for trying to fuck it up.
They’remine.
Peeling off my gloves, I reach for the thigh bag sitting on my desk and pull a pack of cigarettes from its pocket, chuckling at the phone sitting on my desk. It’s now full of text messagesfrom my wife, swearing up, down, and sideways that she’s never drinking again.
It’s a lie more to herself than it is to me. She’s only ever passed up two or three of Aislin’s karaoke night invitations; and she always regrets going in the morning.
Tapping the end of the pack against my hand, I slide one of the filters between my lips and light the smoke. As I pull in a lungful of smoke, I can’t not think about the three times that Connor’s tried to talk me into quitting this week. He even printed out a fucking spreadsheet to show me how much money I’d save and how many things I’d be able to do in X amount of years if I quit now.
When the ash finally meets the filter, I throw the cigarette butt at my foot, stomping it beneath my toe before pulling another from the pack and lighting it.
I narrow my eyes at the horizon, tugging at my jewelry with my teeth as something warm jitters down my spine. Not a pleasant warmth, not the kind that wraps itself around me like a blanket. Not the kind that feels like home.
Something…not right.
Somethingcoming.
I’m bumped out of the way as Connor’s client shoulders past me. I grumble a complaint, but return to my task, my leg now bouncing in place.
Tossing the butt to the ground, I stomp it out like the last, shooting one last look down the street that houses the shop and letting out a hum as that warmth crawls down my spine once again.
With my arms moving with the melody, I belt along withA Thousand Miles,probably too loudly. My bike’s engine purrs between my thighs and I lean forward to roll back theaccelerator, weaving between two cars with a wave to the one on my right.
This is the part of the day where Connor and I would be racing each other home; or I guess,I’dbe racing and he’d be telling me to slow down. Not today, though. We closed early, but I hung back for an extra fifteen minutes to close up the shop and keep questions from cropping up from the too-curious sets of eyes that we share space with.
I haven’t told him about the feeling that I can’t seem to shake. Not because I don’t think he would understand, but because he does the same fucking thing all the time, and he’d give me just as much shit for it as I do to him.
In another four songs from my playlist, I pull onto our driveway. Connor’s favorite bike, the lime green one that he rode today, is on the driveway. Mine crawls to a stop next to it before I pull off my helmet and head inside through the front door.
Julia is seated on the couch with a bottle of bubblegum-pink nail polish, her head bobbing to the music quietly playing from her phone’s speaker while she works to spread the color over her fingernails. Connor is next to her, with Drumstick behind him, rubbing his head into my partner’s hair; which means that Koda must be playing out in the yard.
Or finding bugs out there to eat.
Kicking off my Chucks as I toss my phone onto the table, I pull in a breath and I search for that sickening warmth that crept its way into my bones; but it isn’t there. I can’t find it anymore. I’m grateful for that, because it’s not something that I feel often. Not like that, anyway.
The last time I had that feeling, Brody sat me down two hours later with a box of black-and-white cookies and told me that his cancer had come back, and that it was probably going to get scary again.
Before I even have a minute to think about how badly I don’t want to feel that again, my phone buzzes wildly on the coffee table, its movement and ringtone drawing my attention, and the trickle of that feeling that I had before becomes a gale force storm, taking over my senses.
Most people have their moms saved in their phone as ‘Mom,’ ‘Mama,’ or some other variation of the word. My mom is saved in my phone as ‘Abaddon.’
Spinning the ringing device between my forefinger and thumb, I wait until the ringer has nearly finished its song before swiping open the screen to accept the call.
“How’s it goin’, Molly?” I ask, my voice thick with feigned enthusiasm. “Things here? I’m so glad you asked. We’re doing really well. Had a few rain storms, but other than that, can’t complain. You know, we were thinking about taking the—”
