Burn Me Anthology

by Shantel Tessier

  “Not tonight, dirty girl. You need some R and R. How about for the rest of the night you just let me take care of you, deal?”

  I smile, happy to oblige.

  If I had any doubts I didn’t love Shane, that night relieved me of them.

  After filling the tub, he carried me to the bathroom and joined me beneath the hot water. When I hissed in pain at the contact of the warmth against my still throbbing bottom and the achy soreness between my legs, Shane held me tighter. Whispered all the right words in my ear. Massaged my shoulders. Washed my hair. Bathed me then gave me the pleasure of doing the same to him.

  Though it wasn’t comfortable, I sat on the counter as he dried my body and hair. The he made me soup. Held me in his arms as we watched a movie on the couch, then carried me to bed when I started to doze.

  Lying in his bed that night, my heart was full. The house fire had been devastating. But in the aftermath, once the smoke had cleared and the flames had died, I’d found beauty buried in the ashes.

  For years I’d lived a life of solitude. I was nothing more than a mere existence. I’d been burned by family. Burned by friends. Burned by fate. But it was the burn of a flame that changed my life. Those fiery, unforgiving embers brought me to him.

  The man I’d always known.

  The man I’ve always loved.

  The man who I owe everything to.

  My life.

  My heart.

  My soul…

  My Shane.

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  Crash & Burn

  A Crashing Series Standalone

  By Kristen Hope Mazzola

  Chapter 1

  Bryn

  Buzz.

  Buzzzzzzzzz.

  Buzzzzz.

  My heart flittered and fluttered as Larry started to suck red ink into his gun.

  I scanned the tray of colors that my artist had laid out as I huffed, “Let’s get this party started.” I glanced down again at the fine lines of the stencil that was the road map for my next tattoo excited to see it finally come to life. Over a year in the making and it is finally here.

  There was something so seductive about the aroma, sounds, and overall life force of tattoo shops. I took a few slow, deep breaths and glanced around the brightly lit room. All the paintings, half-drawn tattoos, and neo-traditional artwork set the stage for my mood to shift and life to calm a bit. I was in my element, ready for the next adventure to begin. Larry’s worn-out leather chair complained when he huffed down into it with a thump. He rolled a little closer to where I lay relaxed on his table, waiting for my latest masterpiece to be driven into my skin.

  The snap of my tattooist re-securing the black latex around his wrists broke into my zen, making my eyes connect with his weathered gray-blue oceans. “Ready Bryn?”

  “Heck yeah! Let’s do this.” Locking my eyes on the ash white ceiling, I popped my headphones in to let the screaming tones and thumping bass of I Prevail blast me into oblivion.

  As the needle dug in, I felt my muscles tense and my body flush. The first line was always the hardest, but I was addicted. I sucked in sharply through gritted teeth and held my breath for a few seconds. The initial shock and pain rolled over me and then I was good to go like usual.

  Deep.

  Slow.

  Breaths.

  The needle dragged over my skin quickly, sending shivers throughout my entire body.

  After about fifteen minutes of silence, Larry wiped the beginning of my new tattoo and smirked. “So, how stoked are you to no longer be a probi?”

  I took my right earpiece out and glanced down at my forearm where the Maltese cross was starting to form. “Stoked doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of how fucking elated I am!”

  “I remember when I finally was no longer a damn apprentice. No better feeling in the world!”

  We were ready for this to be at least a three-hour session; I was prepared to zone out, to meditate through the annoying pain that was sieging my right arm. It had been a long, hard year, and it was finally over. Probation for my firehouse had been grueling and incredibly stressful, but completely worth every minute. Hard work for sure had paid off in the long run, and I was about to really start reaping the rewards.

  “Wow, that’s badass.” I heard a burly unfamiliar voice scarcely come through under the death metal remix of “Blank Space” that was blasting through my headphones.

  My eyes flew open. I was about to flip my shit. I hated when people talked to Larry while I was getting inked. It broke into my zone of blocking out the pain, and I didn’t care for that in the slightest. Right as I was about to start ripping the rude douche canoe a new asshole, I locked eyes with one of the most breathtaking men I had ever seen in my damn life. I mean, he was drop-dead gorgeous, and that was saying something since I was surrounded by muscly firefighters day in and day out.

  My rage quickly went out the window, melting into swooning while I picked my slack jaw up off the floor and prayed I wasn’t drooling too much.

  Larry glanced up at the striking stranger after moving the needle away from my tender skin. “Thanks dude. Looking to get inked?”

  He was tall with a short, dark beard, sleeves of tattoos, short light brown hair perfectly styled in a cute comb-over, kind ice-blue eyes, and a killer smirk that was making me want to ride his face right there on the damn table I was lying on.

  “Seriously thinking about it. I’m pretty new to town, and this shop has some killer reviews online. Figured I’d stop in and take a look before making any decisions.”

  “Cool man. Feel free to look around and talk to some of my guys if you’d like. I’m Larry, and I own the place. If you need anything, have any questions, just holler.”

  “Thanks, I’m Mitch.” They bumped elbows, which made me laugh a little. Larry took being sanitary ridiculously seriously, which was one of the things I really respected about him as a tattoo artist.

  “How do you like him?” Mitch looked down at me and his smile widened.

  Soaked.

  On the spot.

  Holy fuck.

  Hook.

  Line.

  Sinker.

  “Only guy I let touch my skin—well, with a tattoo gun.” I had to pause as my face got hotter than hell because the eyebrow raise Mitch gave in response to my statement made me want to crawl under the table and die from embarrassment. “He’s fast, doesn’t rip you apart, and the ink heals easily.” I spit the words out in rapid fire to try to recover as quickly as possible from my sexual innuendo.

  He nodded and licked his lips, eyeing me up and down. “Very nice. Just getting off of your probation, I take it.”

  I laughed a little as Larry started to shade a bit. “Yeah, how’d you know?”

  “That’s when I got mine too. I’ve been a fireman for just about ten years. Just took a job out here. I start tomorrow.” Mitch rubbed the back of his neck. “Thought about getting a piece done to celebrate the move and the change in my life.”

  “Oh, a-awesome,” I stammered through gritted teeth as my eyes slammed shut. Talking and getting tatted were not things I could do well at the same time. I had to zone out through the pain or I felt every prick and scrape from that sharp-ass needle, and it drove me insane.

  “I’ll be done with Bryn in less than an hour. Wanna chat about what you were thinking about getting when we’re done here?”

  We were almost done—music to my ears! I shut my eyes and popped my headphone back in, turning the volume all the way up right after hearing Mitch say, “Sounds like a plan, brother.”

  ***

  “Fucking sick, dude! Camden is going to freak when he sees this!” I rolled my arm back and forth to see the gorgeous, bright colors shining across my puffy skin.

  Larry stretched his back out, chuckling a bit. “You
need to get that punk ass back in here for some more ink. It’s been forever!”

  “Yeah, I know. I’ll see what I can do.” Camden was my best friend and roommate. Right when we met, I dragged him into Larry’s shop and he was hooked instantly, just like I had been when I found Larry years before.

  I had Larry snap a quick picture of my new piece. Within seconds of sending the picture off to Camden, he responded.

  Camden: Holy hell, girl! That is one way to celebrate for damn sure!

  Me: Haha yup! My shift tomorrow is going to be interesting, to say the least. This baby is going to itch like crazy sooner than later.

  Camden: Can’t wait to see it in person.

  Me: Getting into anything tonight?

  Camden: Nah, shift in the morning means early to bed for this guy.

  Me: Lame. See you when I get home.

  Camden: I’m crashing soon. See ya in the a.m., roomie.

  Me: Fine. Bright and early it is. Night, loser.

  Camden: Don’t have too much fun tonight, punk.

  Larry grabbed my hand, looking closely. “Let it rest for a bit before we before we wrap it up with A&D and cellophane.”

  “Aye, cap.” I put my phone down to the side to do as I was told.

  Mitch walked over to me with a shit-eating grin on his face while I sat staring at my forearm as the ink bled out a bit and rolled onto the table.

  “That is one badass piece. It matches mine.” He pulled up his shirt to show me his chiseled chest, which was decorated with one of the most gorgeous pieces I had ever seen, a complete shrine to his love for the work we did. “Doing anything after this?” His low, raspy voice sent shudders down my spine; it had been too long since I’d felt something like that.

  I shrugged. “No one is really doing anything from what I know of. I was thinking of heading home, ordering a pizza, and nursing this bad boy. I have a shift in the morning.”

  Mitch nodded. “Well, I’m new to town and don’t report to my station until early afternoon. Want to show me around a bit? Maybe grab a quick drink?”

  Larry wiped off my arm and winked at me subtly. He knew how long it had been since Joshua had cheated on me and knocked the bitch up; those scars had run deep for a while, but I was finally coming out of my fog.

  “Yeah, sure, why the heck not?”

  Mitch sat down in the chair next to Larry. “Awesome. You want to head home and take care of that then you can text me when you’re ready? Just let me know where to meet you.”

  How is it this easy?

  “Okay. Sounds good.”

  Larry wrapped plastic around my arm. “You know the drill, Bryn. When you get home, wash, ice, lotion.”

  “Yup.” I hopped off the table, grabbing Mitch’s phone right out of his hand.

  If he gets to be forward, so do I.

  I typed in my number and shot myself a winky face emoji in a text.

  “I’ll text you in a bit,” I said while watching the message send.

  “I’m looking forward to it.”

  I handed Mitch back his phone, hugged Larry, and was on my way home to deal with the burning, angry skin that had just been beautifully inked.

  Chapter 2

  Mitch

  I watched as the cute blonde waggled her hips in her low-rise jeans as she walked out of the tattoo shop.

  Dammit.

  Another fucking blonde.

  Will I ever fucking learn?

  They were definitely my biggest weakness, and she hit my type to a fucking T: short, blonde, sassy, fit. Add in the fact that she was inked and I may as well have dropped to one fucking knee right on the damn spot.

  “So, dude, what were you thinking about getting done?”

  I noticed Larry’s beard was graying around his mouth and close to his ears, and I stared at his crow’s feet for a second while I tried to figure out the best way to explain how I wanted to memorialize my entire world shifting on its axis.

  I rolled up the left side of my Salt Life shirt to reveal her name. Big scrolling letters in purple ink blared up at me, burning my retinas like the sun glaring off the water had on the morning she packed up her shit and left me for her fucking rocker dreamboat.

  Never again.

  “An ex?” he asked with a stoic timber.

  I nodded, ripping my eyes from staring at California running down my side. “I need this gone like yesterday.”

  “Who names their kid California anyway?” Larry rolled his eyes and chuckled to himself.

  I shrugged. “Damn idiots, I’m pretty sure.”

  Larry stared at my side and pulled out some tracing paper. “I’m going to sketch this and take a few pictures.”

  “Go for it, dude. She needs to be in the fucking past. I was thinking a phoenix, or something like that. Full, bright colors, huge—whatever you have to do.”

  I took a few shallow breaths in and out, standing in the middle of the shop like a fucking goober, holding up my shirt while Larry did his thing. I couldn’t believe that I had been that dumb to get Cali’s name tattooed on me, but at the end of the day I just blamed it on the fact that love makes people do some crazy ass things from time to time.

  It only took a few minutes then an appointment was made, numbers were exchanged, and I was loose in a city I didn’t know one person in. I didn’t even really know how to get around.

  St. Louis hadn’t been my first choice by any means, but it had been the first place to accept my application, and I was gone before my mind could really process any of the recent events in my life.

  Cali was on the road with Maverick and his band The Hysterics, Walker and Mags were brand-new parents, my dad was starting a new relationship and finally getting over his cheating whore of an ex-wife, and I was in limbo, barely treading water.

  Such is life.

  Everyone else was getting a new start, I figured it was time that I took the bull by the horns and make some moves of my own for once.

  “Cali! You better pick up your damn phone!” I yelled as I left the fifth message, each one escalating in anger and volume.

  I stood in the middle of our oversized closet, huffing as I stared at all of her empty hangers lining the left side.

  Finally, my phone rang. My heart thumped in my ears. My hands shook.

  “Hey.” She sighed.

  “Hey? That’s all I fucking get is a damn ‘hey’?” I roared, rage boiling my blood. “What the fuck is going on, Cali?”

  “It hasn’t been working out for a while. I haven’t been happy for a while.” I could hear her sniffling.

  “That is news to me! For crying out loud, we just bought this damn house because you wanted to!” I started pacing. “Where are you? We need to talk this out face to face. You at least owe me that.”

  “That’s not happening. I’m not coming home.” She whispered.

  “What in the ever-loving fuck is going on right now?” I kicked the coffee table, sending it summersaulting across the living room.

  “I’m getting on a plane.”

  I gasped, literally gasped. It took me a couple of seconds to pick my jaw up off the floor. “What?”

  I could hear the noise of automated airport announcements and travelers talking in the background of the call. As it all started clicking, I started breaking.

  “I’m heading to Chicago.”

  ***

  “What do you mean, gone?” Walker asked as he shifted in his regular barstool at Charlie’s.

  “Like, her stuff was packed and she was at the airport getting ready to board a plane to Chicago before I even made it home from my shift,” I explained. Saying the words out loud was harder than I had expected. It was embarrassing that a woman I’d been preparing to spend the rest of my life with had up and left me for another guy without me even realizing there was a problem. How dense could I have really been all of these years?

  “I don’t fucking get it,” Walker mumbled before sipping from his beer. “Maverick, of all people?”

  “I w
ish I could say I was surprised, but I’m not.” I rubbed the back of my neck feeling even more foolish because at the end of the day, of course it would have been Maverick Steele. Ever since Cali met the rock-god bassist of The Hysterics, I knew they had a connection, and I was naïve to think she could ignore it to be with me.

  “Fucking Cali. Mags is beyond pissed,” Walker replied.

  I knew it was going to be hard for everyone. We had all been best friends since college—it was supposed to be us against the world. But, things change. People change. And I was going to have to move on.

  Taking in the still night air, I walked the few blocks to my brand-new bachelor pad. It was the most depressing part of the entire move because it was fucking breathtaking—ash gray hardwood flooring, white granite counters, dark brown cabinets, a gorgeous city view, brand new appliances that would make Wolfgang Puck jealous—and I didn’t have anyone to share it with. I had my bed set up and my TV mounted on the wall in my bedroom, and that was it. Procrastination had gotten the better of me. The rest would come when it did; I didn’t really care at that point.

  Opening my fridge, I knew the only thing in there was going to be beer and orange juice. It was perfectly bachelor-esque and I fucking loved it; it was the only good thing about being single that I could figure out so far—I didn’t have to stock up on fucking chick food. It had been a few years since I had lived on my own, without my dad or a woman breathing down my neck all of the time, and I was going to soak up every damn minute of that freedom.

  “There’s always a silver lining,” I muttered to myself as I leaned into the cold fridge to grab a bottle.

  I cracked open a Bud Heavy, tossing the red cap onto the counter. Trudging, I made my way to relax on my king-sized, pillow-topped cloud of a bed, hoping to catch the end of the NY Otters game.

  My boots were about to drop to the floor when my phone vibrated in my pocket.