Inside, she might have been a nervous fucking wreck for all I knew.
But from my perspective, she was a pro.
There’d been a little tension when we first walked into the shop — especially when Nero had seen me step into his space. But I didn’t give a shit about him or whatever had transpired between us the night before. Now that I had my chance to fight for Mary, I was willing to put everything on the line — including my pride.
On our way over, she’d explained to me how much that upset her — the way I acted toward Nero at the bar. In her eyes, it wasn’t me standing up to a creep for her. It was her career in jeopardy, her reputation on the line.
That, I understood.
So, I’d walked right over to him and apologized, shaking his hand and explaining that I was out of line. It didn’t matter that I still wanted to ram my fist right into his fucking nose, or that I still felt like the position he put Mary in was fucked. This place, and therefore these people, were important to her. So I’d respect him and keep my mouth shut.
For now, at least.
Any time I looked over to where Nero had his own client, I caught him watching us. I was sure Mary would see it only as a tattoo artist watching his apprentice and making sure she didn’t fuck up.
I knew better.
The needle vibrating my chest again made me grit my teeth. “You talk,” I managed. “Distract me.”
“What do you want me to talk about?” she asked calmly, smiling a bit as she wiped the mixture of ink and blood away from my skin. When she smiled like that, so effortlessly, it tugged on a string tied to the deepest part of my gut.
How did I not know it was her?
The thought had played on repeat in my mind all night and all day, too. I racked my brain mercilessly, rummaging through it in my desperate attempt to remember that day, to remember her. But I couldn’t — not more than I had last night, anyway.
It was so cruel, how her life had plummeted that day because of me, and I hadn’t even noticed. And my life had shifted, too, but it was because I lost her. I lost her by my own fucking hand.
Thinking of how my team had treated her after, how I had been so broken I hadn’t even noticed…
And even if I did back then, I didn’t care. I couldn’t care about anything or anyone other than the girl online who’d left me like a ghost in the night.
It was all so gut-wrenching, it made it hard to think straight.
Inhaling a breath back to the present, I tried to look down at what Mary was carving into me, but she covered it with her hand.
“No peeking!”
I chuckled, letting my head fall back against the chair again. “Your username,” I said. “Octostigma. What the hell does it mean?”
Her smile bloomed. “In ancient Greek, stigma is the word for tattoo.”
“No shit?”
She nodded. “Kind of fitting, considering the overall view of tattoos over the centuries.” She dipped the tip of her needle into a cap filled with black ink, which she’d explained to me was a way of reloading the ink, before she started again.
“And the octo part?”
“I just think octopus are cool as shit.”
I smiled. “Explains why you draw so many of them.”
“Well, they expel ink, so obviously that attracted me to them,” she explained. “Dreams of being a tattoo artist and all. But they’re also super fucking intelligent. And two thirds of their neurons are in their fucking arms — and they are arms by the way, not tentacles.”
I held my hand up in mock surrender. “I’ll never make the mistake again.”
Her eyes twinkled a bit as she smiled and continued working, and I had to admit, listening to her talk was helping me not to focus so much on the pain.
“They have three hearts, which I thought was pretty rad. But I think the connection I really made was with the fact that with three organs pumping blood into them, and eight arms that essentially all have a mind of their own — they must feel pulled in so many different directions, you know? Like they’re made up of too much to be confined into one little being.”
She paused, wiping my skin, her eyes floating up to mine.
“I could relate to that, feeling like eight people at once, especially at that time in my life.”
“And so, you were Octostigma.”
She smiled in confirmation, sitting back in her chair and cracking her neck. “Want to take a little break?”
“Nah, I’m good. Keep on with the torture.”
Mary rolled her eyes, but then dipped the needle again before resuming her position over me.
I let my gaze drag over every centimeter of her face, noting how she had a line between her brows from concentrating. Everything else was smooth, though, and serene.
Again, I searched and searched, waiting for some sort of recognition to hit me, for my stupid brain to piece the girl tattooing me now with the one who bared her soul to me when I was a dumb teenager. I waited for it to hit me, for me to suddenly see that young girl’s face, how her hair was styled, what notebook she held, the drawing, any of it.
But I couldn’t place her.
I couldn’t remember anything specific about that day, about that moment that had seemed so insignificant to me, but had meant everything to Mary.
Well, that was a lie.
I remembered that day, but not for the same reason. My life shifted later that evening, when I logged on and Mary immediately blocked me, when I called her and she didn’t answer, when all of my texts went unanswered.
I never noticed how my friends reacted to the girl who showed me her notebook because I was too busy obsessing over the girl who wiped me out her life for seemingly no reason.
The reality of it all made me want a time machine so badly I’d kill for one.
“Stop looking at me like that,” Mary said, bringing me back to the present.
“Like I’d devour you if you said the word?”
The gun paused over my skin, and she went white before her eyes shot to mine. “What?”
“That’s what you said to me,” I reminded her. “When you were drunk off your ass during the preseason game.”
“No,” she said, pulling away and covering her mouth with one hand. Her eyes doubled in size. “No, please tell me you’re kidding.”
“Nope,” I said with a victorious smile. “To be fair, your assessment was spot on.” I let my eyes trail a blaze over her skin, from where her own sternum tattoo met the swells of her breasts down to where her hips made a delicious heart shape from her waist.
When I slid my gaze back up, her face was flushed, but she dipped the needle in ink and took position again. The pain had ebbed a bit, almost like my body had adjusted to the invasion.
“Well, that embarrassing tidbit aside, I meant the way you were looking at me just now.” She peeked up at me only a second before her eyes were back on where she was working. “Like I remind you of everything you regret.”
I swallowed down the urge to tell her that was partly true.
“So, back to the devouring look, then?” I asked, arching a brow.
She smiled and shook her head, focusing on the tattoo and not saying another word.
It took five hours total for Mary to leave her mark, and when she finished, she wiped away the excess ink and blood with a proud smile on her lips. She looked a little tired, but in the way only an artist could be after completing another masterpiece, like she left a little bit of her soul in me.