“It’s cute until you decide it’s either too hot or it’s too cold,” I tease, and this time it is a tease. It’s not a dig about her complaining. It’s us being the people we used to be.
“You could come cuddle with me on cold nights.” She winks at me.
It’s the first time either of us have said anything about the future. I don’t want to dwell on it, but I squeeze her hand. “We’ll see.”
Last night the two of us didn’t talk much, but we did sleep in this morning, and it was the best sleep I have ever had in my life. My cell buzzes in my pocket, and out of habit, I grab it. It’s a text from Reaper with a picture of his back.
Sore as fuck today, but the tattoo is on point. Loving how it looks! Have a great time with the wife.
“Is that what you did yesterday?” Nina asks as I show her the screen of my phone.
“Yeah, it’s massive.”
She’s examining Reaper’s back, her eyes growing wide. “You both sat through that?”
“Yeah.” I nod. “He’s a great client. He understands the art of it; he does everything I need him to. He’s not squirmy. He appreciates the tattoo.”
“I love that he’s got his wife’s and son’s names in there. He seems like such a rough and tumble guy,” she comments.
I laugh, because I’ve seen Reaper and Hannah together. “He is putty in her hands; trust me when I say that. That’s the second tattoo he’s got dedicated to her. He’s got an H on his bicep too.”
“He must care about her to get her name permanently on him. Isn’t that normally frowned upon?”
I grasp her hand tighter as we cross the road. “It is, but there are some people who believe with all their hearts they have one soul mate, or they feel so strongly for the person they’re with to do it.” I’m nervous. There’s something I want to show her I never had a chance to before. Even after she left me, I’d gone through with it.
“Would you ever do that?” I can tell that she’s not fishing, she’s honestly curious.
There’s a small alley up ahead, and I pull her into it. “I have,” I admit, lifting my shirt up. There on my ribs is her name, along with the date of our marriage. It’s discreetly hidden in some of my other tattoos. Unless someone was looking for it, they wouldn’t see it.
“Sketch,” she breathes, putting her hand up to her mouth. “When did you do that?”
“Two weeks after you left.” I laugh. “I can’t even explain it. I’m not sure why I did it, but I felt an overwhelming need to, to never forget what we had together. There was a part of me that wanted to remember the good, early times and forget the ugly things we’d done to each other.”
“I’m sorry.” She hugs me tightly to her. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
It hits me then. “I’m not, babe. I’m really not. It’s made us better. Part of me is starting to see that what you did was the brave thing. You made us change.”
“I could have done it a better way.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “There didn’t have to be all this hurt and miscommunication.”
“If we end up happy because of it, then the journey has been worth it.”
I say those words and realize I mean them. All the hurt we’ve gone through, all the pain and anger I felt, it meant my life months ago, but this Sketch is wiser, older, and more willing to change. The change, though, has to be for me. It has to be to make me better—not for her, but for myself.
“Who would have thought after seven years of marriage we’d still be learning about each other.” She hugs me tightly around the waist, and I hook my arms around her neck, burying her face in my chest.
“That was the problem, we stopped learning.”
I feel like we’ve reached a turning point, and I hope that we continue with it when we go home.
*
“So.” Nina has a seat on the couch beside of me that night, turning so that she faces me.
“So?” I’m curious. She’s got this mischievous look on her face.
She looks down at her hands, messing with her fingernail polish. It looks as if she’s trying to figure out what to say, and I wish she would spit it out, but I’ve come to learn that I have to wait for her to be ready for whatever it is she wants to talk about. I can’t force things. Finally she blows out a deep breath and glances up at me. “About those nipple rings?”
I let out a laugh that’s a half-groan. “Are you serious?”
“Yes.” She nods enthusiastically. “I am, and I like that you’re the only one who’ll know. It’s something between us that no one else will ever know about. It’s our secret.”
When she puts it like that, it’s the hottest thing I’ve heard in my life. “When we go home tomorrow, after the shop is closed, we’ll do it if you want.”
There is immediate excitement in her eyes. “I want.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
SKETCH
The whole way home I’m hard as a rock. I can’t stop thinking about what we’re going to do once we get to the shop.
“Are you okay?” Nina asks, grabbing my hand from where she sits beside me in the truck.
“Fine, just thinking about putting some metal into your body,” I admit. “It’s more of a turn-on than I thought it would be.”
“Can I be honest?” she asks, as she slides up next to me, even closer.
“Please do.” I switch hands on the wheel and place one on her thigh.
“I’ve always wondered what it would be like to get frisky on the floor of the shop.”
I glance over, and her face is red with her admission. That’s kind of always been a fantasy of mine too, but there’s absolutely no one else I’ve ever wanted to do that with besides her. “It’s kind of on my bucket list too.”
She giggles. “I just think I might be too sore after the last few days.”
I get what she means, we’ve fucked like rabbits. Even more than we did when we were first married, and that’s truly saying something. “We’ll see how it goes,” I tell her, grasping her knee in my hand.
“I’m nervous but probably not in the way you think,” she tells me; pulling her leg up under her and turning to face me as much as the seatbelt will let her.
“I’m intrigued.”
She puts her hands in her face and talks against them. The words are muffled, and I barely make them out.
“You’re not worried about it hurting? You’re worried about being turned on all the time?”
She snorts with laughter and nods her head. Removing her hands from her face, she continues. “I mean, we both saw how much I liked the fake ones. What if I walk around in a perpetually aroused state? I’m going to be a bitch if I’m on edge all the time.”
I laugh along with her. “There’s a difference. There won’t be pressure on them all the time like there was with the clamps. It’ll be uncomfortable at first, but trust me, after a while, you might not even know they’re there until I want you to know they’re there.”
“I’m trusting you.”
Those words tell me a ton about how far we’ve come in such a short amount of time. I hadn’t thought I’d hear those words again, and for her to say them—it means the world to me. I take my eyes off the road for a few seconds and give her a soft kiss. “I won’t lie to you.”
*
“Do you have to breathe so close to them?” Nina asks as she squirms on my table.
“I can’t help it.” I laugh. “I have to breathe to live, and I have to do both of those things while I’m marking up your tits.”
“I feel like maybe you’re doing it on purpose,” she accuses.
The side of my mouth tilts up in a grin. “I wouldn’t say it’s on purpose.” I’m done and pull back, checking to make sure things are even.
She lunges for me, hitting me on the arm. “Stop teasing.”
“Oh, babe, I haven’t even started. You better make sure this is what you want before I do it.”
I can s
ee her thinking, and I can tell the minute she makes up her mind. She nods and sits up straighter. “I do.”
I grab the materials I know I’m going to need and then glove up. “Let’s get this going,” I tell her. It’s hard to ignore the bulge in my jeans; this is the hottest thing I’ve ever done, hands down. Rolling my chair over, I grab the clamp and use it to hold her skin. “You okay?” I ask, looking up so that I can see her face.
“Yeah.” She nods. “I see what you mean about the clamps.”
“Deep breath,” I tell her as I stick the needle in and put the barbell into her skin. “This ring is a little bigger than what you’re going to have permanently. It allows for the swelling that sometimes happens. After about eight weeks, we’ll change them to smaller ones.”
She’s looking down at the metal I just placed in her skin, licking her lips. “That hurt less than I thought it would,” she whispers.
I’m tightening the end so that the jewelry doesn’t slip out. When I’m done, I wipe up the small amount of blood the piercing caused. “You ready to do the next one?”
She bites her lip and her eyes meet mine. “Yeah, I like it.” She grins.
“I do too,” I admit, leaning up to give her a kiss on the lips. “You’re takin’ this like a trooper. I’ve had grown men sit in my chair and almost pass out from the pain.”
“I trust you with anything, Sketch. I love you and I trust you.”
I grab the other piece of jewelry and do the other nipple, sitting back once everything is done. “You good?”
She breathes heavily. “Yeah, I am. It hurts, like I imagined it would.”
“You wanna see?” I ask, holding up a mirror so that she can. I watch as her eyes widen, as her cheeks redden and a look of desire takes over her face.
“That’s me?” she asks, her eyes meeting mine.
I confirm. “That’s you. Hot as fuck. Never imagined it, huh?”
“Never.” She shakes her head.
I never imagined it either, and I can’t put into words what this means. It’s not even about her embracing something that I do as a job; it’s about her embracing herself as a woman. It feels fucking good to be a part of it.
I grasp her hand with mine. “I didn’t imagine half the shit we’ve done, but I tell you what, I’m enjoying the journey we’ve been on for the last few weeks.”
She leans over. “I am too, Sketch, I am too.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
SKETCH
River and I are bullshitting as we sit in the shop. We’ve opened and it’s a cold day. The first snowfall is on the ground; neither one of us expect much to happen. In fact, I’ve already made the decision that we’ll probably close it up a little early. Jackie is at the counter working on homework. It’s been a week since I’ve seen Nina; she’s busy with her job, and I’m busy with mine. Doesn’t mean we haven’t talked, we have every day and night through text, and on the phone, but I need to see her soon.
“When are you and Nina going to give it up and move back in together?” he asks as he flips through one of the books we have at the shop. He’s interested in doing a couple of small pieces that customers can choose from, and he wants to make sure we don’t already have them.
That’s a question I haven’t thought about, and I’m not sure why. I don’t want us to rush anything. I’ve thought a couple of times about asking her, but it’s never felt right. “I’m not sure. What we’re doing right now is working. Why change it?”
“If I were you, I would worry, but that’s just me.” River lifts his shoulder in a nonchalant manner, but I know this guy—nothing he does is nonchalant.
“Worry about what?”
He lifts his face up from the book and looks at me. “Like maybe she doesn’t think you’re exclusive because you aren’t living together.”
Suddenly, it dawns on me. River wouldn’t be saying something like this to me unless he knows something that I don’t. “Are you trying to tell me something? If you are, you better fuckin’ spit it out right now.”
He’s squirming like maybe he didn’t mean to open up this can of worms, but now that he’s done it, he wants to close it back up.
“I was at Glow last night,” he mentions a popular restaurant here in town that also has a decent bar area. “And she was with some guy. She hugged him before she left.”
Rage settles into my stomach. She questioned me about if women come onto me and got pissed when she saw me tatting up Janelle. That was weeks ago, yet last night it seems as if she was on a date. “Are you fucking kidding me?” I ask, wanting to make sure River saw what he thinks he saw. My hands are shaking, and I’m pissed.
“Yeah, I know what Nina looks like, and she had dinner and drinks with this guy. They didn’t leave together though,” he’s quick to point out. Like them not leaving together makes it okay.
I grab my phone out of my pocket. I can’t call her, I’m too pissed. Instead I text her with shaking hands.
Where were you last night?
I realize I sound like an ass and I have no cause to question her like this. Yes, we are married, but we’re separated and there have been divorce papers filed. I’m stupid, and I fucking let my guard down again. She came crawling back to me, exactly the way I wanted her to, but now my mind is working overtime. Was it just so she could obliterate me again? How she answers this question could change everything.
I was at Glow with one of my dad’s business associates. Dad is trying to convince this guy to sign on with his management company. I’m doing a little freelance work for him for some extra money. We had dinner and drinks, I talked up the company, and then I came home.
That flies the fuck all over me. Nina’s dad has never liked me, even when I was in high school and I had no preconceived notions of anyone. He asked her to do this because he knew it would piss me off.
Okay.
It’s the only thing I can think of to text back. I owe this fucker one more payment on the loan he gave me to start the shop, and I can make it today. In fact I think I’m going to make it today.
Sketch? Is something wrong?
I can’t answer her, I’m too pissed off. I don’t want to direct my anger at him towards her. There’s been enough misunderstandings between us to last a lifetime.
No, I’m good.
I glance over at River. “You got this? I have someplace I need to go.”
“You good?” River asks. “Do I need to go with you? It looks like you’re going to kill somebody.”
“This is something I have to do on my own,” I tell him as I stand up.
“I’m sorry about Nina.” He glances back down at his book, almost like he can’t meet my gaze.
“It wasn’t what you thought it was, no reason to be sorry. Just don’t assume the worst about her. She and I have both changed, and the speed we take those changes is our business, no one else’s.”
I don’t wait for him to say anything. I walk back to my office, open a larger safe and take out the final payment. I would have had this paid off years ago, but like any good businessman, he charged me a shit ton of interest. I’m tempted to throw in more as my own fuck you, but that’s childish, and he won’t see it as that, he’ll only think I don’t know how to count and wonder how in the world I can run a business. Putting it in an envelope, I grab my jacket, yell at River and Jackie that I’m leaving, and head out the back door. It’s time to let go of this anchor that’s been dragging me down.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
SKETCH
I haven’t been to this house in years. I’m not invited for Christmas, Thanksgiving, or birthdays. Normally Nina goes without me, and I’m perfectly okay with that. When I do go, there is so much tension that everybody (including me) wishes I had stayed home.
Vincent Baker always assumed his daughter would marry into money. He wanted her to have the best things in life and thought whoever she chose to spend the rest of that life with would be like him—have the means to give her whatever she wanted. In hin
dsight, I think this was where my need to overcompensate started. Trying to keep up with him is what started Nina and me on the path we were previously on. At some point, he made me believe money was what she loved and what she deserved. In the back of my mind, I realize he was setting us up for failure, and I’m hopeful we’ve made it past that, that this man won’t ever have that kind of hold on our marriage again.
I get out of my truck and walk up to the front door. I never know what to do here—do I ring the bell? Do I use the knocker? This shit is way too fancy for me. I do both and smile to myself after I do it. I’m sure they saw me on camera, and it gives me a chuckle. I don’t expect Vincent to be the one on the other side of the door when it opens, but there he is.
“Devin.” He nods. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
He says pleasure like it’s the nastiest word he’s ever spoken, but I’m used to it. He doesn’t invite me in, even though it’s fucking freezing and still snowing. I don’t assume he will; in fact I never thought he would. “I’m here to give you your final payment for the loan.”
I don’t offer any preamble because there isn’t one. This was a business deal, and that was all it ever was. He never expected the shop to take off, and he sure as hell never planned on getting this money back. I’m almost positive he was looking forward to the day when he’d be able to take it out of my hide. I thrust the envelope into his hand.
“You sure you want to give me the last payment. What if you need something?”
“I’ve got everything I need, and so does Nina,” I add.
“Sure she does, that’s why she’s doing jobs for me for extra money. You aren’t a man if you can’t take care of her,” he needles me, and this is the part where in the past I would cower into myself, I would start to question. I would wonder if I’d ever be able to give her this big-ass house and the Lexus sitting in the driveway. Now I know that’s not what she wants, I know that trying to do that tore us apart. I will not rise to that bait anymore.
Sketch Page 10
