“So you just showed up expecting…?”
He flinches. “I know. I know I don’t deserve…” He stops, runs a hand through his short hair. “Can we talk? Please. Five minutes. And if you want me to leave after that, I will.”
Every instinct screams at me to say no. To protect the fragile scab that’s formed over my heart. But there’s a rawness, a desperation in his eyes that cuts through my defenses.
“Fine,” I say. “Five minutes.”
I lead him to the kitten room. It’s empty right now—the bonded pair he adopted were the last occupants, and the room is unusually quiet.
I close the door and turn to face him. “Talk.”
He takes a breath. Then another. His hands are shaking.
“I’ve spent my whole life being too much,” he says quietly. “Too loud. Too intense. Too needy. Every foster home I got sent to, I’d hear some version of the same thing—I was too difficult to care for.”
My breath catches.
“I was four the first time a family sent me back,” he continues, voice wavering. “Four years old, and already too much to handle. By the time I was seven, I tried to be better, but something would happen, and I would lash out. I tried, Daisy!” His voice is harsh and emotional, and his pain fills the room. “I tried, and they kept sending me away.”
Tears prick my eyes. I want to reach for him, but I stay still because he needs to finish.
“And then there was Grandma Rose.” A ghost of a smile crosses his face. “She was my last placement. I was fifteen, angry at the whole world, convinced no one would ever want me. And she looked at me and said…” His voice is strangled. “She said I was just right. That I didn’t need to pretend to be anyone that I wasn’t. That all the things everyone else couldn’t handle were the things she loved most. When others made fun of me for being good at art, she encouraged me. Art became my outlet for all my feelings, and through her support, I was able to finish high school and get in fewer fights.”
A tear slides down my cheek as I listen to Knight.
“Even after I aged out, we kept in contact. When she died, I didn’t know how to exist anymore, and I knew I was close to getting in real trouble. So I shut myself off and focused on being the best damn tattoo artist I could be. At King Ink, I have an outlet for art, and I don’t have to shrink who I am. Waylon doesn’t care about our backgrounds as long as we do good work and don’t cause problems. He lives up on King Mountain, so we don’t see him too much, but when one of his guys wants a tattoo, they come here.”
He pauses for a long moment before continuing. “I figured if I could hide my emotions and not let anyone in, no one could decide I was too much and leave me.” He meets my eyes, and his are wet. “And then you walked into King Ink, wanting my Purrfect Kitten art on your body, and it made me think that someone else understood. And it terrified me.”
“Knight—”
“I pushed you away because I figured you’d eventually feel the same way. That you’d get tired of how… big my emotions can be, how much my temper can flare when I’m frustrated. It was easier to leave first.” His voice drops to a whisper. “But I was wrong. Leaving didn’t protect me. It just made me lose the only person who ever made me feel like there wasn’t something wrong with me.”
The tears are falling freely now, both of us crying in this empty room where we first found each other.
“You want to know something?” My voice comes out uneven. “My whole life, I’ve been the opposite. I’ve never been enough. Not smart enough, not pretty enough, not interesting enough.Once, after I got a B+ on my history test, my father had looked at it, looked at me, and said, ‘Why wasn’t it an A?’ He walked away before I could answer. I was twelve. I cried in my room all night, and the next morning I apologized to him.”
Knight takes a step closer. “Daisy… You had nothing to apologize for. You were a kid.”
“It was always like that. This tattoo was the first thing I ever did that people had told me was ‘bad’,” I continue. “The first time I chose something becauseIwanted it, not because it would make someone else happy or was what I’m supposed to do. And then I met you, and you made me feel like maybe I didn’t have to try harder to earn love. Like maybe I was okay just as I am.” I swipe at my tears. “And then you pushed me away, and I thought… of course. Of course, I wasn’t enough to make you want to stay.”
“No.” He closes the distance between us, hands coming up to cup my face. His thumbs brush away my tears. “No. You are more than enough. You are everything to me.”
“You’re not too much,” I whisper. “I like you exactly as you are.”
Knight pulls me into a massive bear hug, and I bury my face in his chest and breathe in the warm, musky smell of him. His heart pounds against my cheek as I hug him back.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs into my hair. “I’m so sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong. I was so scared, and all I could think was that I had to run away.”
“Don’t run away again.” I pull back enough to look at him. “I’m not going to abandon you.”
“I promise.” He presses his forehead to mine. “I love you, Daisy. I never thought I’d say those words to anyone, but I swear on my life I love you.”
“I love you, too.” I rise on my toes and kiss him—soft at first, then deeper, pouring everything I feel into it. His hands slide into my hair, and he kisses me back like I’m the air he needs to breathe.
When we finally stop kissing, we’re both smiling through our tears.
“Take me home,” I say.
