“Nah,” Jax replied easily, wrapping his arm around the waist of the woman next to him. “Haisley’s all the woman I need.”
His hand lowered, and Haisley jumped forward, squealing at whatever he’d done to her. “Stop it, you caveman.” She narrowed her eyes at him and murmured, “I told you I wanted to make a good impression, and you’re ruining it with your goddamn antics.”
“What do you want me to do when your ass is right there?” He raised a brow, waiting for her answer, but all she did was huff out a breath as she turned to face me and Asher. Her cheeks were red from embarrassment, but her expression told us she was used to the way Jax acted.
“Hi.” She held her hand out to me and bit down on her bottom lip. “You must be Elodie.”
“I am.” I placed my hand in hers and shook it. Jax had told me he had a girlfriend, but the way he was staring at her with his chest puffed out and concern in his eyes told me this one was different. I’d seen him with plenty of women at the strip club, but he’d never once had that look in his eyes.
“I’m Asher,” Asher greeted, moving his hand from my waist toward her still outstretched one. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“You too.” She dipped her head and took a step back, so she was side by side with Jax. “I’ve heard a lot about the both of you.”
“You been shit-talkin’ me, Jax?” Asher asked, and I burrowed back into the safety of his chest.
“You know it.” He raised his bottle of beer and fake cheered the air. “I got loads of stories yet to tell.”
“Oh really?” Asher chuckled causing his chest to move. “You told her about the time we were on leave and road-tripped it to Florida, then?”
“Now, now, there’s no need to get nasty.” Jax’s eyes widened, a clear warning for Asher to stop, but I knew he wouldn’t. Once Asher got to talking about what he and Jax had done over the years they’d known each other, it was impossible to shut him up.
“What? I didn’t even say anything.”
“Come on, Hais, lemme introduce you to Brody and Lola.” He pulled Haisley to the side as he gave Asher a death stare. “Dick.”
“Love you, too,” Asher replied, laughing so loudly several people turned around. “Thank fuck for that. I thought he was never going to leave.”
I spun around in Asher’s arms. “That was you trying to get him to leave?” I asked, incredulous.
“Yep.” He pulled me flush to his chest. “And now I can do this.” He placed a soft kiss to my lips, causing my stomach to dip. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For looking out for me.” He pressed his forehead against mine. “For knowing what the best thing to do was when I clearly didn’t.”
“You’re welcome.” I paused, staring directly into his eyes. “Don’t leave me out of things again though, Asher. We’re in this together, okay?”
He nodded, his boyish grin making me melt as he whispered, “Okay.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
ASHER
“You sure about this?” I asked as I pulled up outside the tattoo shop. “I can get my kit and we can do it at home.” I kept the engine running, fully expecting her to take up my offer now that we were here.
“Nope.” Elodie unclipped her belt and opened the passenger door. “I want you to do this here.” Her shoulders were pulled back, her face not hiding a single thing, but I couldn’t help wondering if she was putting a front on. Was she doing this because she felt like she had to? “I can’t be afraid to come here anymore.” She pushed out of the car and dipped her head down to meet my gaze. “It’s time, Asher.”
I had to take her word for it, so I turned the engine off and got out of my truck. I’d planned to spend the entire Sunday in bed with her pressed against me, but Elodie had her mind set when she’d woken up a couple of hours ago. She wanted a tattoo but done in the shop like a regular paying client. My instincts told me to talk her out of it as soon as she’d vocalized what she wanted to do. She hadn’t been in the building since that night, and not knowing how she would react had me on edge. What if she walked inside and it all came flooding back to her? What if she broke down and I couldn’t pick up all of the pieces?
But I knew all she needed was me to be there. She needed my silent support and my arms to catch her if she fell. So, I was determined not to fail. I’d be there every step of the way, no matter how much I wanted to scoop her up in my arms and keep her safe from the rest of the world.
Elodie kept her gaze right in front of her as I pushed the key into the lock of the main door. The alarm system beeped, and I ushered her inside and then entered the code into the concealed box under the front counter.
“You blocked it off?” Elodie asked, her voice a mere whisper.
I knew what she was talking about without having to look up. “I…yeah.” I stood to my full height, not sure if I should go to her or let her process it on her own? “I didn’t want to look at it all day, so Mav blocked it off and created a new entrance for…upstairs.”
“Oh.” Her throat bobbed as she swallowed, and I couldn’t take it any longer. I had to make sure she knew I was here for her. She had to know she wasn’t alone. “I hadn’t realized.” She glanced up at me as I halted in front of her. “What’s upstairs now?”
“I rented it out to an art major from the local college.” He hadn’t asked any questions about the apartment, and I’d had the old carpet ripped up and a new one installed, so the evidence of what had happened up there wasn’t visible. Not to anyone else anyway. But to Elodie, it would always be there—a memory trapped between the walls.
“Maybe this wasn’t a good idea,” Elodie murmured, taking a step back. “I should have—”
“No.” I grasped her hand and held it just tight enough to stop her from moving away. “You’ve got this, sweetheart. The tattoo you want won’t take more than twenty minutes.” Her gaze slid to the blocked-off area and her muscles locked in place. I hadn’t been sure when she’d first told me what she wanted to do, but now that we were here and I’d witnessed her determination all the way up to this point, I couldn’t let her walk back out. If she did, she’d build it up even more in her head and it would be even harder for her to overcome. “You can do this.”
She inhaled a breath, held it for several seconds, then nodded. “You’re right. I can do this.”
“Hell yeah, you can.” I planted a kiss on the top of her head. “Let me get my station set up.” I’d never worked so fast in my entire life to get everything prepared, but within minutes I was ready and back at the counter where she hadn’t moved from. She’d already shown me what she wanted inked on her skin—a small outline of a lotus peeking behind a dotwork moon. The moon symbolized protection, and the lotus new beginnings. It was perfect for her, and small enough so she could hide it if she wanted to.
“Ready?” I asked, holding my hand out to her. She placed her palm in mine, and I led her over to my station. “I’m gonna freehand it, okay?”
“Okay.” She pulled off her tennis shoe and sock, exposing the inside of her ankle. I cleaned the area with alcohol solution, then grabbed a couple different colored Sharpie pens. It only took a couple of minutes to get the basic outline down.
“Will it hurt?” she asked, grimacing as I turned my machine on and made sure my needle was in the right place.
“A little.” I poured some black ink into a small cup, dipped my needle in it, then swirled it in the beaker of water, preparing the needle. “It’s like a sharp scratch. Shading hurts the most because the skin is worked over and over again to get the right effect, but this is all outline.” I widened my legs on the stool to roll closer to her, dipped the needle into the black ink, and haloed the skin I was tattooing with my thumb and finger. “Don’t jerk away or make any sudden movements, okay?”
“Okay,” she breathed out, and I pressed the needle against her skin. I followed the first petal of the lotus, then glanced up to see how she was doing, but other than her eyes being closed, s
he gave no indication on how she felt.
“Going in again,” I warned her as I dipped the needle a second time. This time I didn’t stop at one petal, but I continued over to another one. She groaned as I went over the bony part where her ankle met her foot. “You good?”
“Yeah, just…that bit hurt.”
“Only be a couple more minutes,” I murmured, dipping the needle into the ink again. I didn’t like to tattoo these kinds of images because I preferred more realistic art, but when it came to Elodie and the meaning behind them, I would have covered her entire body if she’d asked me to. It took strength to go through what she did and start to come out on the other side. She was an inspiration to more people than she’d ever realize.
I got engrossed in the tattoo, making sure the dotwork on the moon was just right and wouldn’t drop out of her skin. By the time I was finished, she was relaxed back in the chair, her gaze focused on me. “You know you’re superhot when you’re tattooing, right?”
“Only superhot?” I asked, turning my machine off and spraying her skin to get rid of the errant ink left behind.
“Fine.” She chuckled and slid forward on the chair as I wrapped the tattoo in clear wrap. “Super, superhot.”
“That’s a more accurate view.” I smirked, wanting nothing more than to pounce on her there and now, but I couldn’t. She’d sat there for longer than I thought she realized, and I was afraid doing anything else would push her over the edge.
Her stomach rumbled right next to my ear as I packed my kit away, and I paused. “Hungry?”
“Starving.” She grasped her stomach. “For waffles.”
“Waffles specifically?”
“Yep.” She grabbed her tennis shoe and sock, then slid them both on. “I haven’t had waffles for breakfast since I was a kid.” She groaned. “Oh, man, I can already taste them in my mouth.”
I laughed as I stood. “Then we must feed you waffles.” I used the stiffest tone I could. “What the lady wants, the lady gets.”
“A milkshake too, then?”
“Milkshake with breakfast?” I fake gagged. “That’s—”
“Genius,” she interrupted, flashing a smile over her shoulder as she skipped toward the door. “Strawberry with whipped cream on top.” She licked her lips. “I need it, Asher. Need it.”
“Well then, guess we’re going to get waffles and…milkshakes.”
“Yes!” She fist-bumped the air, her smile turning into a grin, and my stomach dipped at the sight of her. She didn’t want expensive things and to be lavished with compliments. Elodie was a simple girl at heart. A simple girl who’d wrapped herself so tightly around every single part of me that I wasn’t sure where she ended and where I began. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
ELODIE
I kept my attention on anything but the table to the right. I tried to imagine it was a random person sitting behind it, but I knew it wasn’t. It was evil personified. Evil that I could feel staring me down.
He wanted me to break.
He always had.
But today wasn’t about him. Today, I severed the last grip he held on me. Today was the day I looked him directly in the eye and told him I was done.
“Please place your right hand on the Bible and your left hand in the air,” the man in a police uniform told me. “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”
“I do.”
“Please take a seat.”
I pulled my hand off the Bible, then sat down on the bland gray chair inside the wooden box attached to the bench the judge sat behind. I tried not to focus on all of the gazes directed toward me, but it was harder than I’d realized. The rows were packed with people, most of whom I didn’t recognize, but I knew exactly where Asher and everyone else from the family sat: directly behind the prosecutor’s desk. Only last month we had sat on the opposite side.
“Good morning, Elodie,” the woman from the prosecutor’s office—Mylee—greeted. I’d met her once last week when she’d prepared me for what was going to happen today. She’d been brutally honest with me and told me the hardest part wouldn’t be answering her questions but answering the defense.
“Morning,” I replied, trying to keep my voice even, but it was more difficult than I’d realized.
“I know this is difficult for you.” She halted in front of me and placed her hand on the wooden lip of the stand. “So, if at any time you need to take a break, you just say and we’ll do that, okay?”
“Okay.”
She smiled, the kind of smile that said I had no idea what was about to happen, and she was right. This was completely new to me, and no matter how much I’d researched, nothing compared to the feelings I was having right then. My stomach churned, my hands shook, and my neck ached from trying to look anywhere but at him.
“Let’s start at the beginning of the day in question, shall we?” Mylee took a few steps backward to the desk she was sitting behind and picked up a folder. “You attended your boyfriend’s parents’ house for a gathering, is that correct?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And you stayed there until after it got dark? Do you remember the approximate time?”
I clasped my hands tighter together in my lap. “Around ten p.m.”
Mylee crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the edge of the desk, her eyes focused only on me now. “Can you walk me through what happened when you left their house?”
“I…” I cleared my throat and took a calming breath. “Me and Asher—my boyfriend—drove to the apartment I was renting above his tattoo shop.” I paused, not sure if I needed to continue, but when Mylee simply stared back, I carried on. “We…erm, we pulled around the back of the shop because that was the entrance to the apartment. But Asher got a call from his friend who needed his help, so I went into the apartment before he left.”
“You went inside alone?” Mylee asked.
“Yes.”
“And when you entered the building, was there anyone else inside?”
“Not that I recall.” I frowned, wondering if Knox had already been inside. I hadn’t thought about it, but he had to have been, right? I hadn’t heard anything until the point he walked up the stairs, so did that mean he’d been waiting for me? Part of me had wondered if he’d let his rage consume him, but I was doubting that now. Maybe he’d planned to do what he did. Maybe he thought it would put me under his control again.
“Then what happened?”
I shook my head to try and dispel my thoughts. I had to concentrate on what was happening right now. “I went up to my apartment and…I’m not sure what I did when I got inside.” I rolled my lips and tried to find Asher in the crowd of people attending. I needed him to anchor myself. I needed one simple look from him to know I wasn’t getting lost inside my own head.
“That’s okay,” Mylee said, standing fully. “Tell us what you do remember.”
“I was only inside for a few minutes and then I heard footsteps coming up the stairs.”
“And did you think the footsteps were your boyfriend's?”
“Objection,” a deep voice boomed.
“Sustained,” the judge said from beside me.
“I’ll rephrase,” Mylee countered. “Who did you think was walking up the stairs?”
“Asher,” I answered.
“And who was it?”
I took two breaths, closed my eyes, and whispered, “Knox.” I couldn’t get the image of his face out of my mind. The way his lips had lifted as if he had me exactly where he wanted me: alone and afraid.
“Take your time, Elodie,” Mylee said, her voice closer now. “And tell us what happened next.”
“He…” I opened my eyes back up and kept my gaze fixated on my hands. “He came inside, and I asked what he was doing there.”
“Did he tell you why he was there?”
I nodded and looked up at Mylee. “He said he wanted to check out my new place.”
&nbs
p; “It’s normal for friends to want to do that,” she said to the jury. “But why wasn’t this normal, Elodie?”
“We’d broken up weeks beforehand.”
“And was there a reason you broke up?”
“Objection,” the deep voice said again, making me jump. I heard a snigger, the same snigger that had echoed in my mind for months. He thought this was funny. He thought being on trial was a joke. “Relevance.”
“It has to do with the background of their relationship,” Mylee told the judge. “To gain a perspective of what happened previous to the night in question.”
“I’ll allow it,” the judge said, his voice almost bored.
“You may answer the question, Elodie,” Mylee told me.
“It was an abusive relationship,” I murmured, hating the words coming out of my mouth. I’d been stuck inside the hell he’d created for so long that it wasn’t until I was completely out of it I could see how bad it actually was. I’d let him take what he wanted from me. I’d let him use me in any way he saw fit because I’d been scared.
“Could you give me an example of when Knox was abusive?”
I could have listed off several times, but I knew what she wanted me to say. “He beat me up in front of the dance studio where I had lessons.”
“The bitch deserved it,” I heard Knox murmur, and my heart raced in the kind of way it hadn’t since I’d last seen him. It was as if it was trying to escape my body—escape him.
“Counselor, please keep the defendant under control or I’ll hold him in contempt of the court,” the judge ground out, and it was the first time I’d heard any kind of emotion in his voice. Maybe he had to sound bored, so he stayed neutral and didn’t sway the jury, but Knox’s comment didn’t affect me. It was hearing his voice again after so long that messed with my head.
“Your Honor, I’d like to submit evidence of this incident into evidence,” Mylee said, walking back to her table. “This particular incident was witnessed by several people, whose statements I have here. I also have a photo taken a couple of days following the assault.” She passed the judge a stack of papers and he filed through them, nodded his head, then passed them to the guard who gave them to the first person on the jury.
Burned Duet: Asher & Elodie: Fast Burn & Deep Burn (Easton Family Duet Boxsets Book 4) Page 41
