After about twenty minutes, she tries again. “Do you miss it? The military?”
“Sometimes.”
“What do you miss?”
“The clarity.”
“Clarity?”
“Knowing exactly what your mission is. Execute it. No politics. No gray areas.”
“The club has plenty of gray areas.”
“Yeah.”
“Does that bother you?”
“Not anymore.”
She wipes excess ink from my skin, examines her work, and goes back to it. “What changed?”
“You.”
She freezes for just a second, then keeps working like I didn’t just admit something I’ve been avoiding saying.
“Me?” Her voice is careful.
“You changed things. Made the gray areas matter less.”
“How?”
“Because now I’m fighting for something that matters.”
She doesn’t respond.
We fall into silence after that. She stops trying to pull conversation out of me, and I stop deflecting. The machine buzzes. Ink flows. Art forms on my skin.
I watch her work and realize I could do this forever. Sit here while she creates, while she loses herself completely in the thing she loves most.
This is who Bonnie really is. An artist. Young, talented, hungry for respect and recognition, and the chance to prove herself in a world that wants to define her by who she belongs to instead of what she can create.
Guilt twists in my gut. I questioned her loyalty. Suspected her of betraying us. Looked at her like she might be the enemy.
But she’s not.
She’s just a young woman who wants to draw, ink, and build something that’s hers. Who dreams of her own shop someday, her name respected in the MC tattoo community, her art speaking for itself.
And I almost destroyed that by doubting her.
The hours pass. She switches between outline and shading, filling in the raven’s wings with gradients of black and gray that make them look three-dimensional.
My chest aches, but I don’t move.
She’s beautiful like this. I would give her every inch of bare skin I have left if it meant seeing her like this more often. Would volunteer for a full-body suit if it kept that look of concentration on her face, that slight smile when she nails a difficult section.
Finally, after what might be three hours or might be five—I lost track—she sits back and turns off her machine.
“Done.”
