Before I could answer, her eyes shifted to somewhere behind her phone and she lit up with a smile. “Gotta go,” she said as she stood, shaking her head. “He’s got two carts full. Two carts, Mary.”
“Good luck with that.”
“And good luck with your skin,” she said with a little squeal. “Take pictures!”
Julep blew me a kiss through the screen before the call ended, and I smirked, tucking my phone into my back pocket before making my way inside the shop.
My stomach was a little uneasy from the lie I so easily gave one of my only friends, but it twisted even more at the thought of telling her the truth. I wasn’t sure if it was because I felt pathetic for still holding a grudge all these years later, or because it would hurt to relive the pain out loud. It was enough to see him day in and day out and know that, even with me living in his house, he didn’t recognize me. But to speak the words into the universe, to admit to someone what happened?
It made me sick to even consider.
For a second, I let myself wonder what would happen if I told him, if I waited for him to give me some smart-ass remark about what a great, humble guy he was and then threw his cruelty right back in his face. Would he wave it off with a laugh? Call me sensitive and a weirdo for even remembering it? Would he call me out for not telling him? Call me a creep?
Would he be sorry?
I laughed out loud at that thought because I knew with full certainty that he didn’t even remember what he’d done to me, it had been that insignificant in his life.
I had been that insignificant.
With another drop of my stomach, I swallowed, shaking the thoughts away just as the front door opened, our little shop bell ringing.
Nero caught my gaze with a smile. “Bet that’s your skin.”
And for the rest of the night, excitement and nerves were the only thing I felt, Leo completely out of my mind.
I woke the next morning at an ungodly hour.
Okay, it was nine — but after having my first skin and being at the shop until after two, it was an ungodly hour for me.
Still, I was somehow unusually awake as I threw the covers off, the energy from last night still buzzing through me. The client had been an absolute sweetheart. Not only did she hug me when we met as if we’d been friends since middle school and she hadn’t seen me in years, but she’d quite literally jumped for joy when I showed her my amendments to her design. And suddenly, I wasn’t just doing a tattoo that had been done a hundred times on a hundred different people.
I was leaving a piece of me, of my art, on someone else.
It was her first tattoo, but she handled it like a champ, and she was encouraging me the entire time rather than me having to do much comforting her. In the end, she cried not from pain, but from how much she loved the little piece on her forearm, and I saw the way Nero crooked a smile at me when the girl wrapped me in another fierce hug.
I’d done it.
I’d tattooed my first client and I couldn’t have asked for it to go better than it had.
When I ambled into my en-suite bathroom, I chuckled a little at my reflection. My hair was a matted mess, eyes dark from where I hadn’t been successful in taking all my makeup off last night. Still, I looked happy in my chaotic, sleep-deprived state, and I gave myself nothing more but a quick sweep of a hairbrush through my locks and a cold splash of water to the face before I was ready to venture downstairs for some coffee.
I had my hand on the door handle when I paused, glancing down at my bare legs. I was in a pair of boy shorts that hiked themselves up my ass without me trying — mostly because my ass was so big, it ate every piece of underwear I wore, regardless of size. You couldn’t even see my panties, really, under the oversized Cold War Kids t-shirt I wore.
I glanced over my shoulder at the dresser, debating sweatpants.
And then, I remembered what Julep said last night.
If I were at our house across the street, I wouldn’t think twice about walking out like this. And the guys all insisted on how they wanted me to feel at home, to not walk on eggshells.
With a shrug, I opened the door and headed downstairs with a fuck it attitude. It was too hot for sweatpants, anyway.
I skipped down the stairs, humming happily to myself as I rounded the bottom of them. I smiled at the sight of the guys all piled on the couch, Braden and Kyle playing a game of Madden while Leo ate a gigantic bowl of cereal and watched.
They were all focused on the screen as I sang, “Good morning.”
I leaned a hip against the back of the recliner chair, folding my arms and watching as they lined up for the next play.
“Morning,” Braden said without taking his eyes off the game.
“Coffee’s still hot,” Kyle added, but he did take his eyes off the screen.
And then, the controller went limp in his hands.
Braden celebrated a victorious play with Kyle distracted, but then he followed his roommate’s gaze, and I flushed when their eyes landed on my legs. Braden’s eyebrows shot up. Kyle crooked an appreciative smile.
Leo, on the other hand, looked like he was two seconds away from committing homicide.
His jaw was set, brows a hard line over his warm eyes as he took in the sight of me. He didn’t stare too long before his glare was on his roommates, and he smacked the back of Kyle’s head.
“Ow!” Kyle yelped, making a fist and laying it into Leo’s bicep in retaliation. “Fucker.”
“Pay attention to the game,” he said.
Kyle made a face. “You’re not even playing.”
“Neither are you.”
Braden looked to Leo, who was glaring at me again, before he gave me a curious smile over his shoulder. Then, the next play started, and I continued on to the kitchen, pretending like nothing was out of the ordinary.
I reached into the cabinet above the coffee pot, pulling out an NBU mug and filling it to the top.
“Goddamn, I didn’t realize she had so many tattoos,” Kyle said from the living room, low enough he probably thought I couldn’t hear him over the TV.
“Did you see that one on her inner thigh?” Braden whispered back. “That shit had to hurt.”
“That girl is nasty,” Kyle said, but he said it in a way that made me feel strangely… honored? Like nasty was a good thing.
Was it?
I didn’t have time to contemplate more before the clattering of dishes in the sink made me jump. I whipped around, finding Leo angrily rinsing his cereal bowl and spoon before all but throwing them in the dishwasher and slamming it shut.
“Jesus,” I said, a hand to my chest as I caught my breath. “Scared me.”
I smiled with that, wrapping my hands around my fresh mug of coffee. I typically liked a sweet creamer in mine, but I didn’t have the spare cash for such luxuries at the moment. My heart squeezed with the memory of having coffee with my dad in the mornings when I visited home, how he always had the best creamer even though he drank his black.
He did it for me.
“What did the dishwasher do to make you so mad?” I teased as I leaned against the counter.
A muscle in Leo’s jaw popped as he turned to face me, and this time, he let his eyes wash all the way over me, from where I knew my nipple piercings were visible under my t-shirt to where the hem of it dropped off and left my legs in full view.