She’s here. Safe. With me.
And I’ll be fucking damned if I let anything happen to make that change.
“Goddamn it, Ty!” Asher snaps from across the room and I shake my head, walking over to him where he’s fuming. Tough fucking shit,brother,I’m just as pissed off at him. I’m not going to let his stupid snarling take away from what I just got.
I stand closer to him, speaking darkly to get my point across.
“Be a little more patient or I swear to whatever’s below that I will knock your shit out.”
Asher’s eyebrows raise in shock, but he keeps working. We talk to each other like this normally, so it’s not that out of the blue for me to threaten him with a well-timed punch, but it’s the first time in a long fucking time that I’ve meant it.
And he knows it.
“Is she okay?” Asher asks nervously, pulling the machine from his client’s skin to look up at me.
“She’s fine. Worried, but slowly trusting me.”
“Okay.” Asher nods, his blue eyes putting it all together. He actually looks at me, trying to figure out what I’m saying and thinking…then he starts smirking like a motherfucker.
“What?” I snap.
“Your lips weren’t so…bitten when you went back there.”
I shove him on the shoulder, not hard enough to push him off because I’m not a total dick. I know he’d have to resanitize if I hit him the way I want to.
“Shut up.”
“Come on, man. I can see how happy you are. Revel in it a little.” Asher shrugs and gestures with his thumb over his shoulder towards the lobby. “That girl, she wants a mandala on her shoulder with shading and stippling. She has an inspo picture and has signed all the paperwork.”
“Got it,” I say with a nod and turn on my heel to see the girl sitting there.
Fuck my fucking life. Goddamn it. How has my day gone from so good to so bad?
In the blink of a fucking eye.
The girl standing there is one I’ve tattooed before. She came in wanting a single lightning bolt on her chest. Who am I to tell someone that the placement of a tattoo is dumb? Especially when they’re paying me.
Did I fall for some well-timed flirting? Unfortunately, yes.
And now she’s fucking back.
On the best fucking day I’ve had in years.
I grind my teeth and clench my fingers into fists. Time to be as professionally icy as I can possibly be.
“Hello, welcome,” I say monotone, stepping up to the desk that separates the lobby and the tattoo section of the shop. “I hear you have a picture for me?”
This girl, I can’t even remember her name, with bright blonde hair and blue eyes that rival Asher’s in intensity, saunters up to the counter and gives me a sultry smile. I’m sure before Roxie was back in my life I’d have grinned right back, but now… Now I just want to get this chick out of here as soon as fucking possible.
“Oh, hi.” She smiles, the heated tone in her voice tells me she remembersexactlywho I am and what happened that stupid fucking night. “It’s you.”
Giving her a tight-lipped smile, I nod and cross my arms. “It’s me. I do own this shop. So,” I close my eyes for the briefest moment, trying to get my shit together. “I heard you have a photo that you want to get tattooed.”
“Yeah,” she smirks, pulling out her phone. “Here,” she says, holding out her phone while she pulls up the photos app.
And what picture does it open to?
Definitely not a mandala like Asher said.
