I grab my beer and step outside for some fresh air, Grace groaning at my feet. A second later, Scotty appears by my side again.
“You know what I was just thinking about?” he asks me.
I glance down at him. Fuck, I hate when he doesn’t just come out and say what he wants to say. “What’s that?”
“You never invite any of the artists from Blade over to your place. You know, all these years, I’ve never seen Billie.”
I tighten my jaw, feeling defensive. Scotty’s always been willing to poke in my business, though. It’s why I love him, and it’s why I hate him sometimes, too.
“What’s your point?” I ask, but not harshly.
Scotty helped teach me how to hold a needle, for fuck’s sake. He can push my buttons all day if he wants.
“My point,” he says, “is that your father ran the shop that way.”
He lets the silence sit in the air for a minute, Grace breathing heavily and all the rough voices laughing in the garage.
Then Scotty’s hand lands on my arm. “You started shutting down the day Mack left,” he tells me, “and sometimes, I think you finished when you fired Jeremiah.”
I turn to face him directly, my jaw set tight and my brow furrowed. It’s been a few years since I had to fire my nephew, but thinking about it and how much of a disappointment he turned out to be, it still makes the hair on the back of my neck rise. That decision closed the door with my family, but honestly, we’d lost each other years before that.
Scotty holds his hands up. “Half the fuckers in your garage right now are brick walls,” he says. “I get it. And hell, I know your family isn’t easy. But with Red going,” he pauses and clasps my shoulder, reaching up to do it, “it would be a shame if Boy Wonder just turned into his crusty old dad, don’t you think?”
I frown, then lovingly push his hand away. “You got a big mouth, you know that?”
He laughs. “Yeah, I never heard.” He shoves me, and I shove him back. “You going to let me take your money at poker?”
“Yeah,” I answer roughly, then swig my beer. “I’ll be in in a minute.”
Scotty nods and walks back to the garage, and I take a deep breath of the warm night air. I bristle a little at anyone poking his nose in my business, but it’s hard to dismiss Scotty.
He’s right. That was the kind of shop my father ran. I remember it like it was yesterday. He scared the shit out of everyone, and pretty much only his favorite clients and artists felt comfortable in the place. It was like you had to prove yourself to him to earn his ink, show that you were tough enough and mean enough to sport it.
I hated that. And I hated it when my nephew tried to pull the same shit. Years ago, when my father was dying, he’d made me promise to give my nephew a home in the shop. But the kid was just as ignorant and hateful as my dad had ever been, and when he’d turned on one of my favorite artists, Stone, he’d forced me to fire him and break my word.
Scotty’s advice comes back to me. I started shutting down when Mack left and finished closing the door when I fired Jeremiah.
I shake my head, then swallow the last of my beer. Maybe I have shut down, but the weird thing is, the last week, I feel like I’m opening up again.
My thoughts fly back to Drew. Lust stirs inside of me, and I let myself feel the strength of it for just a minute, heating my veins. When I catch myself, though, and remember that I’m thinking about Mack’s kid, I force those feelings away.
I haven’t felt a desire like that in years, but I can’t want Mack’s kid. I just can’t.
So after one last glance up to the night sky, I put that all aside and trudge inside to beat Scotty’s ass at poker.
CHAPTERSIX
DREW
“What about him?”Piper asks. She turns her phone to me, which is displaying the picture of a redheaded guy about my age, sporting a nice smile and standing by a bonfire.
I wrinkle my nose. “Pass.”
She groans. We’re at the store where she works, an old shop that’s overstocked with used books. Piper wears a collared, short-sleeved white shirt with a loose tie and drums her manicured nails on the cover of a hardback fantasy novel, perched behind the counter.
“Why can’t I find anyone for you?”
I glance around. The shop is empty, so I pull the stool I’m sitting on a little closer to the counter that’s between me and my old friend. “I’m still only fifty percent confident that I’ll go through with this anyway,” I confess.
