Spider: A tattoo romance (Rough Ink Book 2)

by MV Ellis

  Not only that, but I really did want to tell her. Telling Chris had been a relief. The feeling that I could be myself with someone and not have to put on a show of “normality” or attempt perfection was liberating. I was so tired of painting on a face and pretending to be someone I wasn’t.

  “Look, I want to tell you. I do. But it’s not quick, and it’s not easy. I can’t do it here. Can we maybe take a late lunch and go for a drink, and I’ll tell you as much as I can before I have to go get Noah?”

  “Yeah, sure. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to ambush you. I just wanted to be up front in offering you emotional support, and I realized that to do that, I needed to say something.”

  “No, it’s fine. Don’t be sorry for continuing to be a friend in the face of my crappy friendship in return.”

  “Don’t be silly. It’s not even a thing.”

  She was a good friend. I wasn’t.

  We both worked through lunchtime, then left early, heading for the cozy Italian bistro a few blocks away from work that we knew was one of the few places open between lunch and happy hour. It would be quiet, and most importantly, it served the best red wine of any of the eateries in the area.

  We settled in a secluded nook in the corner, a bottle of Montepulciano on the small table between us. After a few sips for Dutch courage, I poured out the whole sorry tale, starting with recent events with Chris and working backward to the horror show that was my childhood.

  I was an absolute emotional wreck by the time I’d finished. We’d both cried our way throughout the entire ordeal, and though I felt wrung out, I was overwhelmed both with relief and gratitude. With the weight lifted from my shoulders at sharing my shit again, I almost felt physically lighter.

  I was also grateful to Stacey for continuing to be a friend to me when I hadn’t shown her the same consideration. Most people would have stopped bothering or even caring long before that point, but she’d hung on in there for all that time, and now, after three glasses of red each, there she was—panda eyes, a red nose, and mascara tracks running to her chin—burdened with the horrors of my existence.

  I bet she wished she’d never asked. That was where my gratitude kicked in even harder. I appreciated the fact that she let me put that shit on her. Although it was hard for me to do, once it was done, I felt better for it, whereas I was sure she felt a lot worse. It wasn’t a fair exchange.

  When we’d kind of pulled ourselves together after much nose blowing, sniffing, and eye dabbing, Stacey dropped the million-dollar question.

  “So, what are you going to do?”

  “What can I do? It’s not like I can avoid going to court. Even if I tried, they’d just hold me in contempt if I didn’t show up. No way I’m going through all that. I don’t want to face him, but the fact is I have to, as hard as it’s going be.”

  “What? No, I’m talking about Chris. You’re right about court; it’s not negotiable. I’m no lawyer, so what do I know, but I can’t imagine it’ll be much of a trial given there are a ton of witness statements and also camera footage from the studio, you say?” I nodded. “Well then, barring an unexpected act of God, I think we can be confident in saying that he’s not going to be walking the streets for a very long time. But the situation with Chris isn’t so clear cut, so what are you going to do about that?”

  “I don’t understand the question. I’ve already done what I’m going to do. He’s off the hook to find someone whose life doesn’t resemble the plot of a cheap telenovela.”

  Stacey patted my hand. “That’s not how love works, sweetheart.”

  “Um, who said anything about love?”

  “You did.”

  “No I didn’t—”

  “You didn’t say the word, but they say actions speak louder than words for a reason. The guy created a drive-in movie theater for you. You don’t think that was an act of love?”

  “Uh… I suppose so.”

  “You suppose right. I know you’ve never really dated before, but you have eyes and ears, and access to Cosmo. You know as much as the next person about how dating these days mostly plays out. A few swipes right, and then it’s ‘wham, bam’ and not even a ‘thank you, ma’am.’ A dude doesn’t create a date worthy of the biggest-budget rom-com out there ‘just because.’”

  “Hmm….”

  “What does that mean? That ‘hmm’ sounded a little off.”

  “Nothing. Well, not really. It’s just that he told me he loves me right after I called it off.”

  She gasped. “What? Christ, Emi. I thought the whole point of this come-to-Jesus conversation was ‘sposed to be that you told me everything. No holds barred. Now, after all this, after you made me ugly cry in public, now you tell me you left out a major detail. You’re lucky I’m such a forgiving person.”

  Ain’t that the truth?

  “I guess I didn’t want to admit it to myself, but yeah, he did.” I hung my head, not wanting to look her in the eye. I hated that after recounting all the details of my life over which I had little to no control, I’d had to admit to completely screwing up the one thing I could influence. I was fucking remedial at life.

  “So I’ma just circle back to my original question. What are you going to do?”

  She was insane if she thought I had any kind of plan. My plan consisted of pretending I didn’t need a plan. That was it.

  39

  Spider

  Watching Emi struggle through the trial was one of the hardest, most heartbreaking things I’d ever had to do, second only to burying my father, and helping my mom and brother deal with the fallout. Only when I did that, I’d had Emi there to support me, whereas this time, I was there to support her, even if it was from afar.

  Somewhere in the process, the defense had chosen to plead diminished capacity, angling for a lower sentence based on extenuating circumstances. They claimed Tommy had been suffering from depression and undiagnosed bipolar disorder with paranoid ideation for years before the incident at the studio.

  After hearing from the defense’s medical “experts,” who legit looked like they’d been ordered from Google ten minutes before court was in session, I remained convinced that the only disorder he suffered from was being an asshole to his very core.

  What was worse was listening to Emi’s testimony. With the line of questioning from both the defense and prosecution, Emi was forced to go into great detail about her life with Tommy. She talked about the days leading up to the day we met, where he’d held her prisoner in her own home but also had to rake over some of the events of the preceding years. She’d lived with daily verbal taunts and attacks, and the constant threat, and delivery of violence—physical, sexual, emotional, and even financial.

  I couldn’t even identify all the emotions I grappled with as she spoke, though anger was at the top of the pile. I so badly wanted to hurt Tommy that I could hardly breathe sometimes. I’d dig my thumbnails into the opposite palms of my hands so hard I’d break the skin and draw blood, but it was better to focus my energy on that pain than to obsess over the many ways I could take Tommy out.

  As I learned more about what Emi had been through, it was as though my heart was outside my chest all of a sudden, and every time she revealed a new detail, a new horror, someone would pummel it with a meat tenderizer or drive it through with a cleaver. I felt turned inside out—raw and bruised.

  At other times, my admiration for her ballooned and filled me with more pride than I thought I could physically contain. For someone who seemed to have such a low opinion of herself, Emi was one of the most incredible people I’d ever known. Just getting up on the witness stand and outlining everything she’d been through took strength and courage that most would have struggled with.

  Emi sat there and calmly outlined the horror that was her life. Bar a few stray tears here and there, she was remarkably composed, and never shied away from even the most intrusive and personal questions. I knew she hated every moment, because anyone would, but she also had the grit and determin
ation to know that she had to do it in order to make sure Tommy got what he deserved.

  As I sat silently in the courtroom day after day, I knew with absolute certainty that I loved Emi hard, and I would never hold anyone in my heart the way I held her. As stupid as it sounded under the circumstances, I knew she loved me too.

  It was hard to pinpoint in words exactly how I knew. I just did. The same way we knew to breathe in and out to keep ourselves alive. I’d known from the moment we met that the connection between us wasn’t something that could be dismissed or ignored. It bound us in a way that was inevitable and inescapable.

  Like Zed said, I just needed to wait for Emi’s brain to get the memo that she was worthy of love and happiness. The irony was that if either of us didn’t deserve the other, it was me who was outclassed by her, not the other way around. This capable and competent woman who’d been through so much in her life and still put herself through college, built her career, bought an apartment, and brought up a child vs. the dudebro man-child I’d been until very recently.

  I’d done almost none of those things. The one thing I had achieved was to build a successful career, which had allowed me to buy my apartment, but even that had fallen into my lap. I’d simply followed my natural interests and abilities and landed on my feet.

  It wasn’t a huge achievement to do well under the circumstances I’d been blessed with—financially comfortable parents who loved me beyond life and, even when they didn’t agree with what I was doing, still supported me. I’d never had to fight for anything I wanted, until I met Emi. Then I was determined to put everything I had into convincing her that we were worth fighting for.

  So each day I went to court. She was aware of my presence, but she avoided eye contact or any kind of acknowledgment of my existence. I kept my cool and reminded myself of Zed’s advice. I had to show her I was there for her, like I said I would be, and that whether or not she could see it at that point in time, we were better together than apart.

  After a long and tiring day toward the end of the trial, I was leaving the courtroom a few minutes after everybody else because as soon as court was no longer in session, I flicked on my phone to deal with the backlog of stuff from the studio that wasn’t getting done while I was there all day. Zed was pitching in when he could to help keep the wheels turning, between working on his own project, but two absentee managers didn’t equate to one full-time. So even with Harley, Kian, and Jorja also doing whatever they could to help, I was spinning a lot of plates, trying to keep everything from slipping.

  I hadn’t noticed Emi coming my way until it was too late and I was pretty much standing on her.

  “Ouch! Shit!” Her voice rose several octaves from the norm, both from the shock and pain, I was sure.

  I looked down to realize that I’d trodden on her high-heel-clad foot. Every day at court she’d dressed as though she was the one on trial—with smart skirts, pretty blouses, and nice heels, her thick wavy hair teased back off her face, where it usually flowed free—and in many ways, maybe she was.

  “Oh my God. I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there. I was looking at my phone.”

  “So I see. I just came back to grab my scarf. I left it over the back of the bench where I was sitting. Not that you needed to know that.” She smiled uncertainly, then popped her knuckles. She was nervous, and she wasn’t the only one. I felt like a high school kid asking his crush to the prom.

  “I’m sorry about your toes, but I’m glad I bumped into you. I wanted to ask you if you’d like to grab a drink?”

  She looked flustered and, if I wasn’t mistaken, a little irritated. Not the reaction I was hoping for. “Um… I have to go get Noah soon, so I can’t.”

  I glanced at the time on my phone. “It won’t take long. Please?” I wasn’t above begging; I had nothing to lose.

  “Yeah, okay. One. Let me just go grab my scarf and we can head out.”

  While she did that, I fired off the message I’d been sending to Kota when I’d pretty much stomped on Emi, then tucked the phone into my pocket while quickly trying to think of where the fuck I could take her. It’d been an off-the-cuff invite, so I hadn’t planned anything.

  Just as I was about to concede defeat and lead her to the Starbucks a block away from the courthouse, I remembered a little tapas joint I’d been to a few years earlier. As we walked along together in silence, I hoped to God it was both still there and still open. My prayers were answered when we rounded the corner and I saw that it was not only still in business and busy, but it looked the same as it had when I’d been there last.

  I led us to one of the more secluded tables and we sat down, each ordering a glass of red wine. We also grabbed a few snacks—when in Rome, or Barcelona in this case.

  Once we were settled, drinks in hand, tapas on the table, I took a deep breath.

  “Thanks for agreeing to this. I’ve been wanting to catch up with you but didn’t know how to break the ice.” She was so beautiful I practically had to sit on my hands to keep from reaching out and touching her.

  I didn’t want to spook her, but I had the strongest urge to scoop her into my arms and feel the warmth of her body seep into mine. My desire for her was like nothing I’d ever experienced. There was no thirst or hunger that could compare to the way I needed her.

  “No need to thank me. It’s the least I could do given you’ve been here for me every day.”

  “You don’t owe me anything. I’ve been here because I wanted to be, and because I wanted to let you know that I have your back, no matter what. Even when maybe you don’t want me to.”

  “I do want you to.”

  I pulled my head up so fast to meet her gaze that it nearly snapped off my neck.

  “What?”

  “I want you to be here. You know what’s been keeping me going through this whole ordeal, apart from trying my damnedest to ensure that Tommy rots in jail?”

  I said nothing, figuring it was a rhetorical question.

  “The sight of you sitting in that courtroom every fucking day. Putting your life on hold to support me, even after I pushed you away. Except for maybe Benji and Noah, you’re by far the most positive person I’ve ever met, and just feeling that vibe from you, the sunshine you radiate, has given me the strength I needed to get through it all without epically losing my shit.

  “Then every night I go home, deal with Noah, and get him into bed, then I break down. And every night the only thing I can think of that could help ease the pain and take the edge off my sadness is falling asleep wrapped in your arms. So back to your original point about whether I want you here—I do. I love you, and I want you everywhere I am.”

  Holy. Motherfucking. Shit.

  “But why didn’t you say something? I’ve been there each day, just waiting for a sign that I was doing the right thing. A glimmer of hope, something, you know? I mean, if you hadn’t needed to get your scarf, would we even be sitting here right now?”

  “I don’t know. Like, I wanted to tell you how I felt, but anything I thought of saying sounded lame. Plus, I was trying to do you a solid and save you from getting dragged any further into my shit. It’s a lot, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. You of all people deserve better than that.” Just like Zed had said.

  “Why would you say that?” I kept my features neutral, trying to hide my frustration and bury the need to gently shake some sense into her.

  “Because it’s true. Your life is like you—clean, and pretty, and straightforward, and perfect. Mine is ugly, and gnarly, and complicated, and messy. You don’t want my shit. I don’t want my shit, let alone inflicting it on someone like you.”

  “That’s not how life works, Emi, and it’s definitely not how love works. I love you, which means I love everything about you. Everything. Rough with the smooth. Light with the shade. The whole messy, real-life nine yards.

  “I’m down for all of it, and I’m there for you throughout it all, whatever ‘it’ is. Besides, I’m not the perfect caricature you’ve
created in your mind.” I reached out and swept a stray hair from her forehead, and she turned toward me, kissing my palm repeatedly.

  “What did I do to deserve you? You’re too good.” She smiled into my hand.

  “Not at all. All you did was live and be you, and that was more than enough. Truth is, you’ve had to push and fight your whole life to get to where you are, whereas I’ve had most things handed to me. I’m the one who doesn’t deserve you. I haven’t worked anywhere near hard enough to earn something so precious.”

  “I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on that one if this thing between us is going to work out.” She grinned as she spoke, her big amber eyes twinkling with mischief as my heart thudded in my chest. I knew right then that we had this. We could do it together.

  I leaned forward and kissed her gently on the lips. She kissed me back. It wasn’t the frantic, heated kisses we’d shared when we’d hooked up, or even the light, uncertain pecks that had hovered between us right at the beginning, before we knew where the thing between us was headed. This was a kiss that said we had all the time in the world, that we had unfinished business but a lifetime to attend to it. It was a kiss that promised more where that came from.

  Epilogue

  Noah

  Three Years Later

  Filing out of the school gates, I scanned the waiting cars, searching for my dad’s. After looking around for a little while, I spied it farther down the lineup of cars waiting to collect their kids. I jogged over. He didn’t pick me up from school often, but I loved it when he did. Actually, I loved it when we had the time to do anything together, even if it was just watching TV, playing video games, or chatting about comic books. I also loved that I had the coolest dad at school, by quite a long way.