Beloved Ink

by Ranae Rose

  Or so she’d stupidly thought. One chance encounter – walking into his private work room – at the wrong time had pulled the wool from her eyes. She wasn’t sure how many women had come to him under the guise of getting some cutesy ankle or wrist tattoo just for a chance to fuck him in his client seat, but she knew the number was high.

  She was just lucky she hadn’t gotten an STI from him. Half-panicked, she’d had herself tested just days after discovering his infidelity. Thank God, she was clean. It’d been a cold but deeply appreciated comfort.

  “Hannah?” Ben leaned in close, mercifully snapping her out of her trip down memory lane.

  “Yeah?”

  “I was asking whether you plan to have another drink after that one.”

  “No, I don’t. Why?”

  His eyes gleamed in the dull pub light, and he squeezed her thigh under the table. “No reason.”

  She had no doubt his answer was merely a precaution, in case Jenna overheard. His touch signified his true intentions, and her body responded with alacrity.

  The butterflies that cascaded through her belly were balanced by guilt. Here she was sitting next to a guy who’d shown no signs whatsoever of being interested in anyone but her, and she was thinking about her ex. Not in a good way, but still. She didn’t want to associate any of those memories or misgivings with Ben – he deserved more credit.

  She needed to pull herself together so she could enjoy the night he’d thoughtfully invited her to be part of.

  “I’ll be right back,” she said, standing up and pushing back her chair.

  CHAPTER 13

  It was too cold to go outside for air, and besides, that would’ve looked weird. Instead, she went to the women’s restroom and took her time touching up her lipstick, concentrating intently on the simple task. Afterward, she washed her hands thoroughly for no reason and tucked a stray lock of hair back into her braid. When she couldn’t think of any other ways to waste time, she took a deep breath and exited the restroom, a little calmer.

  The bar seemed especially dark and loud after the clear lighting and quiet of the restroom. She blinked, willing her senses to adjust. She wasn’t drunk, but she was buzzed, and it took a moment for her mind to catch up with the change of scenery.

  She was only a few steps outside the restroom, at the far end of the bar, when she caught sight of the table where her empty seat waited between Ben and Jenna. That wasn’t what caught her eye, though.

  The waitress was back. She stood next to Ben with a tray tucked under her arm. She was grinning, and at one point, she reached out to touch Ben’s arm briefly.

  Hannah’s stomach clenched and her feelings of guilt came washing back. She did not want to be insecure or stuck in the past. But right now, that was how she felt.

  She also felt like telling the waitress to fuck off – an idea that would’ve been supremely appealing, had she not been embarrassed by her jealousy.

  “Can I get you something?” A voice drifted to her ears, piercing the fog of her emotions.

  “What?” She turned to see a bartender leaning toward her. She was standing less than a foot from the bar, and he clearly thought she was waiting to place an order.

  She cast another glance at the table, and her nerves failed her. Nervous and agitated, she didn’t want to return and be tempted to embarrass herself by telling off the waitress.

  “I’ll have a tequila sunrise, please,” she said, speaking on autopilot.

  By the time the drink was in her hand, she felt like an idiot.

  “Tequila sunrise, huh?”

  She looked up to see a man leaning on the nearest bar stool. She’d been so lost inside her head that she hadn’t noticed him approaching.

  “Uh-huh,” she said, and started to step past him.

  He stepped to the side, blocking her and nearly making her spill her drink.

  “Hey, hey, where are you going in such a hurry?” He laughed like he’d just made a world-class joke.

  Hannah looked him up and down, pegging him as late thirties-ish, white and somewhere around one-eighty. Not a small guy, but he seemed drunk enough to be uncoordinated. Then and there, she decided she wasn’t above pushing her way past if he refused to move.

  “Excuse me,” she said, looking him in the eye. She wasn’t in the mood for his crap – hopefully he’d see that on her face. “I need to get through.”

  “Take it easy, beautiful. What’s your name?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  He acted like he didn’t hear her reply. “I used to date a girl like you.”

  “I doubt that – you have no idea what I’m like.”

  “You know what I mean.” He raised his beer as if to take a sip, then paused, meeting her gaze over the rim of his glass. “She was Asian.”

  His voice slurred slightly on the ‘S’.

  Hannah rolled her eyes and barely resisted the urge to grit her teeth. His statement tipped her off to exactly what kind of asshole he was, and she didn’t want to deal with it. A thousand retorts raced through her mind. When she opened her mouth, though, it wasn’t a very witty one that came out.

  “Congratufuckinglations,” she said.

  That finally seemed to put a damper on his delusions. “Hey! No need to get bitchy. Guess I should’ve figured you had issues, with tattoos like those.”

  Her mouth cracked open, and for a second, she couldn’t say anything at all. She’d met multiple idiots like him before, but the fucking nerve of men like him never ceased to infuriate and embarrass her.

  His original statements had been offensive enough. Insulting her tattoos on top of it was just icing on the shitty cake. It made her want to throw her drink in his face, or worse.

  She gripped the glass, hard, as her pulse throbbed in her temples. “You know, I used to date a guy like you, too. He was a total fucking douchebag.”

  She pushed past him, forced to bump his shoulder to get by. He had more than fifty pounds on her, but he stumbled to the side, spilling his beer on the floor.

  “Bitch!” He grabbed her before she even realized he’d turned around.

  A sickening pain sliced through her shoulder, and an unreal sounding pop met her ears, even above the noise of the crowded bar. The sound of shattering glass was next – she’d dropped her tequila sunrise. It splattered on the floor in a puddle of orange liquid and glass shards.

  He was still holding on to her upper arm, feeding the pain with brutal pressure. The sight of his fingers digging into her tiger tattoo sleeve made her feel physically sick. Or maybe that was just the pain. Her shoulder looked bizarre, its dimensions distorted. Staring made it hurt more and caused tequila-flavored bile to rise in her throat.

  She was fighting to keep her drinks down when she looked up and saw Ben.

  Or at least, she saw a man who looked like Ben. Same perfect body, same blue t-shirt with the biomechanical tattoo peeking out from beneath one sleeve. But his face was different.

  It was a mask of rage, and a wave of cold, clenching fear passed through her despite the fact that she knew it wasn’t directed at her.

  He reached out and grabbed Hannah’s assailant by the throat. He must’ve squeezed, because the man made a choking sound and quickly let go of her arm.

  Ben let go too, relinquishing his hold on the man only to pull back his fist and hit him in the face.

  The crunch of bone or cartilage – Hannah wasn’t sure which – sounded gross.

  The guy stumbled but didn’t fall, then lunged toward Ben with a curse.

  Ben had the upper hand when it came to clarity of mind and coordination, but the other guy fought with the wild abandon of a violent idiot whose inhibitions had been destroyed by alcohol. He hit Ben once, took another punch, and then Ben grabbed him again.

  Hannah threw up when Ben drove the guy’s face into the bar. Suddenly, the pub was deathly quiet, and there was a ringing in her ears. A ringing that got louder as everything got darker.

  * * * * *
<
br />   “Come on. I’ve got you.”

  The dim bar lighting seemed bright again. Hannah squinted against it as the room spun around her.

  “There.” At first, Jenna seemed incredibly close, and then Hannah realized that not only was she exactly that, but that she was also holding Hannah up.

  “What happened?” she asked, but she knew: she’d passed out. Now, her head spun and she smelled an alarming vomit-y odor.

  When she remembered she’d thrown up, she really began to panic.

  “You passed out for a few seconds,” Jenna said, gripping Hannah’s good arm. “And you’ve been kind of out of it for a minute. But it’s okay; the guy behind you broke your fall. You didn’t hit your head or anything.”

  Hannah nodded, her throat burning. The pain from her shoulder was still miserable, radiating out into her arm and upper torso. She was also worried that she might’ve fallen into her own vomit, but her panic over Ben overrode all of that.

  “Where’s Ben?”

  No sooner had she asked than she caught sight of him by the bar, surrounded by his coworkers. They’d formed a circle around him and he stood in the middle, still looking scary. It was hard to tell whether his face was bruised or it was just the lighting.

  Either way, guilt hit Hannah like a punch to the gut, and she nearly threw up again.

  “You okay?” Jenna asked, squeezing her arm.

  “No. Shit. No.”

  The bartender who’d made her the tequila sunrise was trying to keep her attacker seated in a barstool. He was halfway in and halfway out, slumped over the bar. There was blood pooled on the polished oak.

  She’d seen a couple bar fights, years ago. But never one that’d involved someone she knew. And certainly not one she’d caused.

  She took a step toward Ben, then doubled over. “I think I’m going to throw up again.”

  “Go ahead. No one’s paying attention to us anyway, and the place is already a mess.”

  It was true. People were gawking at Ben and the other man. An excited, murmuring roar filled the bar. It was the kind of noise crowds made when they’d just witnessed something that’d give them a good story to tell around the water cooler at work on Monday morning.

  Somehow, Hannah managed to keep whatever was left in her stomach down this time.

  “Come on,” Jenna said. “Let’s get you to a hospital.”

  “No.” Clearly, her shoulder was fucked up. But she couldn’t just run out on Ben. “Not yet.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous; your shoulder freaks me out just to look at. It’s definitely dislocated. Hopefully it’s not broken.”

  “I can’t just leave Ben. I don’t even know if he’s okay.”

  “He’s fine – he only got hit once. The fight was pretty one-sided.”

  Hannah’s gut cramped as she remembered Ben smashing the other guy’s face against the bar.

  “I have to see for myself.” She started forward and Jenna helped her. The floor was a minefield of glass, spilled alcohol and bodily fluids.

  “Ben!” she said, awkwardly shoving her way into the circle with Jenna’s help. “Are you okay?”

  He met her eyes, and the look of rage disappeared, though it left lines across his forehead. “I’m fine. Fuck – your shoulder!”

  He was ghost-white.

  He reached out, stopping himself before touching her damaged shoulder, then touching the other one instead. “It’s even worse than I realized.”

  Something like a lead weight settled in the pit of her stomach. Ben’s face was bruised, the injury a dark smudge across one cheekbone. He may have only been hit once, but he’d been hit hard – that side of his face was already swollen.

  “I’m taking you to the hospital,” he said, stepping forward and replacing Jenna. “Come on.”

  She let him lead her across the pub, her shame increasing with every step. What a fucking mess. She wasn’t stupid enough to blame herself for the actions of the man who’d assaulted her, but it never would’ve happened if she hadn’t run off to the restroom to pout.

  People gave them a wide berth, parting like the Red Sea and gaping as they walked past. The embarrassment seemed significant, until they reached the doors and encountered a much bigger problem.

  Two police officers entered just as they were about to leave. And they stopped Ben from walking out of the bar.

  Hannah listened in horrified disbelief as Ben told the police she was hurt, and one officer assured her that an ambulance was on the way. The other motioned for Ben to step aside with him, and he did.

  Jenna seemed to pop out of thin air. “Come on, I’ll give you a ride to the hospital. You don’t want to ride in an ambulance unless you have to, believe me. I took a five minute ride in one last year when I got appendicitis and it cost me a fortune.”

  “I should stay with Ben.” The sight of him in conversation with a police officer multiplied Hannah’s horror. No way was she going to leave him behind to hop into Jenna’s car or be dragged into an ambulance.

  “Hannah…” Jenna was watching the officer with Ben, too.

  Neither she nor Hannah said anything as the officer cuffed Ben. Afterward, though, Hannah couldn’t keep quiet.

  “Come on!” she said, marching out the door, following the officer as he walked Ben outside.

  “Hey!” She tried to jog for a couple steps but nearly passed out again from the pain. Settling for a shuffling walk, she caught up with them as quickly as she could. “He didn’t do anything wrong. He was just defending me.”

  The officer’s gaze darted to her shoulder. “Ma’am, you need medical attention. An ambulance is on the way. If you’ll just—”

  “I need medical attention because that man ripped my shoulder out of socket.” She tipped her head toward the bar, her braid swinging as a fresh surge of pain hit her. “You can’t arrest Ben for stepping in. Who knows what that guy would’ve done to me if he hadn’t been stopped? It’s not like I could defend myself after he did that!”

  “We’ll get this sorted out. You’re Hannah Nakamura, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “An officer will question you at the hospital.”

  “I’d rather you listened to me now.” Her eyes stung, and she fought furiously to ignore the feeling as the officer placed a hand on Ben’s head, protecting it from hitting the squad car as he ducked into the back seat. “You can’t arrest him.”

  “I just did. Take a step back.”

  Jenna pulled steadily on Hannah’s good arm, until they were well out of the officer’s way.

  “Jenna, get her to the hospital.” Ben spoke calmly from the back of the cruiser, though he didn’t look calm. “Hannah, I’ll be fine. Get someone to call Dylan and let him know what happened.”

  “I don’t have his number!”

  “Call Jed – he’s got it.”

  The officer shut the door, and Hannah’s heart lurched.

  “We need to get out of here,” Jenna said.

  “You can’t drive me to the hospital – you’ve been drinking.”

  “It was just orange juice.”

  “What?”

  “Well, it was supposed to be a secret for now, but I’m pregnant.”

  Hannah glanced at Jenna’s belly. It was practically flat.

  “I’m only a few weeks along – that’s why Nick and I haven’t told anyone yet. I sympathy puked alongside you in the bar, by the way. So don’t feel too embarrassed.”

  “I don’t remember that.”

  “You were unconscious.”

  “Ugh. I’m sorry.” Hannah stood up straight, gritting her teeth against the pain. She wasn’t about to slouch all over a pregnant woman. “Fine, let’s go. I’m not riding in an ambulance just because of a dislocated shoulder.”

  “That’s the spirit – you can use the money you save on new furniture.”

  Hannah couldn’t bring herself to laugh at Jenna’s attempt to inject humor into the nightmare the situation had become. Walking away from Ben in that
squad car felt like kicking him while he was down and leaving him lying in the dirt. Things almost seemed surreal, but her guilt kept her grounded – there was no escaping it.

  * * * * *

  Once booked in by the arresting officer, Ben couldn’t escape the feeling that things had come full-circle. The knowledge sat in his gut like a stone: cold and uncomfortably heavy, inexplicably a part of him.

  Memories of his two-day stint in jail back in Jersey flooded back to him, bringing a sense of failure. He’d sworn he’d never end up in a cell again. But here he was.

  Not that he regretted what he’d done. No, not a second of it. Who the hell would watch a man rip an innocent woman’s arm out of socket and not respond with force?

  Ben could’ve killed him without being sorry. He wasn’t about to admit that to anyone, especially the police, but his rage had been that real, and that justified. He’d looked toward the bathrooms, hoping to spot Hannah, just in time to see some drunken asshole attack her.

  He didn’t know what’d happened before the physical assault, and his mind raced with the possibilities, intensifying the suffocating sense of guilt that was consuming more and more of his sanity by the minute.

  It never would’ve happened if he’d walked with her across the pub. He could’ve gone with her and waited by the bar, outside the alcove where the restroom doors were located. Why had he let her go anywhere alone in a busy bar on a Saturday night?

  She was beautiful and that drew entitled, obnoxious assholes like flies to honey. He’d noticed men staring at her – he always did, when he was with her – but it hadn’t even occurred to him to walk with her.

  He’d failed her, and now she was hurt, and he was fucked. He deserved to pay a price for his failure, but she didn’t.

  He didn’t even have a way of finding out how she was doing. Her shoulder joint had been sickeningly misshapen…

  Bile rose in his throat and his nerves buzzed with a sharp edge of panic. Who would make sure she was okay if he was in jail? She’d just met Jenna, and it wasn’t like she had any family or friends in the area.