by Mj Fields
“I don’t know who you think you are, but it went well enough that we will be spending a weekend together at friends of ours engagement party. So tell Katherine, I’ll see her then.”
As he turns I have an incredible desire to kick him square in the ass to see him and his khaki Dickies and his navy blazer grass stained up, but I don’t, I’m a dad now.
She isn’t back, it worries me. As the dick pulls out in his Volvo, I snap a pic of his license plate because if I don’t find her I am going to hunt him down and kill him with my bare hands.
Something doesn’t feel right and it’s not fucking jealousy either. I walk over to my truck and get in. No fucking clue where I’m going, but I know one thing for sure, as tight lipped as she is about her Harvard days, she sure as hell wasn’t expecting to come face to face with a man who pissed on her art.
Her art, I think.
I pull up to the shop and I see a light coming from the back. I drive down the alley leading to the back and her car is parked there.
I get out, punch in the security code and walk in, shutting the door quietly behind me.
I walk down the dark hall toward the sound of music and a light coming from her room.
I walk to the doorway and look in.
Kat is lying on her table, feet planted on it, knees up with a sketchpad resting against them. She has a bottle of wine in her hand and her face is tear stained. The song playing comes to an end and then the same one starts up again. I know the voice, it’s Pink, but I don’t know the song.
My chest tightens immediately.
I knock and her not being startled tells me Kat’s fucking buzzing pretty hard.
She looks over, sees me, looks away and takes a drink.
“You okay?” I ask and walk over to her chair, sit and wheel it over next to her.
She shrugs and I hold up the phone. She takes it and gives a haughty laugh. I lean back and hit the volume on the old school boom box.
“Wanna talk about it?”
“Fuck no,” she says and yeah, she’s fucked up.
“Okay, well it’s obvious the fucker made you feel some kind of way, and Kat,” I pause until she looks at me, “no one is here but you and me so fucking talk.”
“How did you get this,” she holds up her phone.
“Some tool in Dickies and a blazer.” She smirks. “Says he used to be your man. That true?”
“Professor Michaels?” she slurs.
“I guess,” I say because it’s the first I heard that.
“He was no man.” She pushes up and her sketchpad falls to the ground.
“Good to know,” I say, because it fucking is.
“Says you’re spending the weekend together,” I begin. “Not gonna lie, it fucking pisses me off.”
Her jaw drops.
“What? Did you think I’d be okay with it?”
It snaps shut and she scowls.
“Cat got your tongue?”
She shakes her head.
“Alright then, let’s get you home. Your friend Stephanie showed up, she’s waiting for you and so is your sister.” I walk to the door and she’s still standing there just fucking looking at me.
Fuck!
“Don’t give a fuck what you do Kat, you fuck him, we don’t anymore.” I shrug like it means shit to me. “You want to relive your Ivy League experience, have at it. But you could have given me a heads up about needing time off. Piss on me but not this place.”
In order to keep my shit together I fucking walk.
She walks out, hits her key fob and I rush her and snatch up her keys. “You aren’t fucking driving!”
“No shit,” she pushes against my chest. “When the hell have I been one to drink and drive?”
“Who the fuck knows Kat.” I tap a finger on her head. “Seems to me things aren’t gearing right up here.”
She bats my hand away. “My father died because he was drunk and driving. Things will never be that fucked up!”
“Then what the fuck are you doing? Get in my truck!”
She opens the door and grabs her purse. “I’ll call a cab.”
I wrap my arm around her from behind and she starts kicking. I open the door to my truck and do my fucking best to put her in it gently, it ain’t easy.
I slam the door behind her and thankfully she stays put.
I get in and start the truck and she turns to me and starts yelling.
“Don’t you think I would have mentioned it if I was going away tomorrow? The fucking party is in two weeks! I am fucking responsible asshole, and I have never once pissed on you or this place! Don’t you ever talk to me like that again! Ever! I will lop that fucking dick of yours off and shove it in your ass!”
“You better shut the hell up Kat or so help me God I will pull this truck over and spank that ass, but this time you won’t get my dick to take away the sting.”
“Fuck you,” she hisses.
“Not if you’re fucking him.” I stop at the light and look over. “You hear me?”
“Loud and clear asshole!”
I grip the steering wheel tighter because my hand is aching to sting her ass and I’m giving less fucks now than ever before.
Silence is fucking deafening.
***
I lay in bed with my girl, from the time I scooped her up and hauled ass out of Kat’s place until the time we got home she complained of a stomach ache. I was pretty sure it was the steak she destroyed topped with ice cream but you never know.
At three in the morning she throws up and I know my little one is sick.
For the first time in years I shoot a text to Zack and ask him to cover me that I won’t be in today. He lets me know he’ll reschedule my appointments and I thank him.
I clean her up, the the rest of the shit and we lay in her tiny little bed with her shivering beside me. Fuck.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Feels
KAT
I listened to Stephanie cry and fuck if she didn’t make me cry. Partly due to the fact that she was so hurt, partly due to that fucking asshole showing up, and partly because I hurt my friend, him, Ricco.
Poor Darby even cried. Partially because we were and partially because she’s a teenage girl, normal ones cry a lot. Hell I did, behind closed doors of course.
Stephanie put in her two-day notice, packed up her shit, bailed on her lease, and told me she was staying with me. She worked for Pete’s uncle at his office. She was a dental assistant.
I lay in bed, sandwiched between sobbing Stephanie and down and out Darby thinking of just him. No, not the asshole who tricked me into meeting him, the asshole who was still sending messages up until an hour ago when I blocked his number.
Ricco.
Fucking Ricco.
He started this shit, yet blamed my drunken wandering hands until admitting he spanked his mountain cock thinking of me for years.
Now I’m not a delusional female and think because a man jerks it to my image he’s in love. Shit is untrue. I know that men look at a woman and wonder what they’d be like in bed. I took on that trait when I gave up on giving a fuck. The difference is I never, not once, looked at my co-workers and thought of fucking them. Work is work… well work was work.
We all slept in until noon. Normally I was at work at this time, today I would not be going in early.
My chest tightens at the thought and not because of Ricco, or the shop, but because for three days I have hung out with… her.
Fucking kids, I don’t like them I swear I don’t, but she’s, well… she likes art, yeah that’s it. And she’s cute as hell and funny. Plus, she expects us to be there.
Darby looked at me oddly when I told her we won’t be going in until four. She nodded toward Stephanie and I nodded yes. Total bullshit, but hey, it worked.
***
When I get to the shop Zack laughs. “Building is still standing we did good right boss lady?”
I give him the finger as I walk past him scanning for Ricco an
d the little…human.
“Ricco messaged that he has that chick starting today at 5. Supposed to be nice and not try to fuck her,” Marcus laughs as he rounds the corner.
“Excuse me?” I ask, pushing my shades up on top of my head.
He stops dead in his tracks and holds his hands up. “Don’t shoot the messenger boss lady.”
“You call me boss lady one more time and I will slice you,” I snap.
“Kat,” Stephanie whispers behind me.
I shoot her a glare and she looks down.
The phone rings and Darby hops over and answers it, “Forever Steel, how can I help you?”
I push past the guys and head to his room. “Where is he?”
“Kids sick, puking and shit. He took the day off, may need tomorrow too,” Zack says and I turn around.
“He didn’t text you?” Marcus asks walking over to the reception desk.
“No,” I seethe.
I watch as Marcus opens Ricco’s appointment book. “Huh.”
“What’s huh?” I ask and walk toward him reaching for the book.
“No can do,” he tosses it over my head to Zack.
“What the fuck?” I ask looking at the two of them like they’ve lost their damn minds because they fucking clearly have.
I hold out my hand and he tosses it to Stephanie, who catches it and gasps.
“Steph, hand it over,” I say holding out my hand.
“Don’t do it sweet stuff,” Zack warns her.
“Steph?” I gasp and she tries to throw it to Marcus but I snatch it up, hold it tight to my chest and walk to my room.
“Kat,” Marcus warns and I flip him off on my way.
Once in my room I slam the door and open the damn Holy Grail.
I see a little drawing in the note section of a cat inside what appears to be a tornado on the first week of the month. The next week is a cat with its ears flat against its head. The next is a sleeping cat and the last a cat with shades on.
What the fuck is that supposed to mean.
Each month is the same three cats and the next month too. Then I see something different. On one day there is a cat holding a syringe three months later another.
A knock at the door alerts me to someone thinking it’s okay to fuck with me, and it’s not.
Then the motherfucking door opens and Marcus pushes Zack in the room, shuts it behind him as he exits on a laugh.
“What the fuck?”
“Oh hey Kat how are you?” he asks running his hand through his black hair nervously.
“What?”
“Um nothing, I kind of need the book,” he points to Ricco’s calendar.
“Take the damn thing.” I thrust it at him.
A look of relief washes over his face as he all too eagerly snatches it out of my hand.
“Wait just a minute,” I say as he hurriedly opens the door.
“Hot people to ink,” he says scurrying out.
“Lives to save,” Marcus laughs out loud and the door slams behind him.
A few minutes later I am still standing there dazed and confused when the door opens and Stephanie and Darby walk in.
“You okay?” Stephanie asks.
“Do you think Natalia is okay?” Darby asks at the same time.
I plop down in my chair. “Honestly I have no clue.”
The phone rings at the same time the door chime goes off and I stand up. “Gonna be one of those days. If I were you two I’d go hide. I know I would if I could.”
An hour later and in walks twinkle tits, the bitch I told Ricco he was not hiring. She puts on a fake ass smile and says, “Hello Kat, I think we got off on the wrong foot.”
I lean back in my chair and laugh shaking my head no.
“No?” she questions.
“No. As in no we didn’t. I can see past your fake as fuck smile. No, as in, no fucking way you’re ever going to work here and no as in-”
“Um Kat,” Marcus interrupts as Zack pushes him out from the hallway.
“What?”
“Ricco wanted to be sure you understood, we need someone. We especially need someone over the weekend.”
I make an O with my hands. “I give this many fucks.”
“He also said we should point out that he is the,” he shakes his head, “fuck.”
“Go on Marcus, be the man,” Zack goads him.
“He’s part owner and-”
“Part owner doesn’t mean shit-’
“He said that we need someone and so far she’s the best option,” Marcus says cautiously.
“I agreed to a two-week trial run,” Twinkle tits adds. “I’m sure you and I will become fast friends.”
Both Stephanie and Darby chuckle and she shoots them a look.
I walk to the door and open it. “This here is your opportunity to walk out of here unscathed. You and I will never be friends and if you ever give my sister or my friend the hairy eyebrow, oops I mean hairless eyebrows,” I point to hers that clearly did not need plucking for another ten years, “I will grab you by the three hairs on your head and drag you out of here myself.”
She gasps and then straightens. “Ricco,” she rolls the R and seriously it makes me laugh. No one says his name like that, “said to stand firm and the position was mine.”
“Well tell, Ricco,” I roll the R right back at her, “that I’ve already hired Stephanie and we’re all set.”
Stephanie was in heaven. I mean she was seriously excited about working with me and a bunch of ‘bad boys’, so excited she snapchatted a picture of her and the guys.
New Life, new job. Yay me!
A lot, and I mean a lot of messages went back and forth between the guys. I knew damn well it was Ricco.
Fuck him.
Fuck. Him.
“Ask them how Natalia is doing?” I whisper to Darby.
“Why don’t you?” she asks raising a speculative eyebrow at me.
I stand up and head to my room. “I’m busy, that’s why.”
Throughout the night Stephanie seems less down, which is totally understandable, the shop is hopping, and the shore was full of hot men waiting to get inked. They were also incredibly taken with her sweet Pollyanna demeanor, which had her blushing every time I looked at her.
At closing time, I was ready to sit back and breathe in the calm, something I always did after the guys left, but now I had the girls with me.
“Let’s go, we can pick up a get well bag and take it to Natalia,” Darby says walking to the door.
“I’m ready to go home and-”
I stop when I see the Carrie face, and that face is coming at me live from my sister. “I told her we were stopping by.”
She walks back, pushes past me and heads to my room. “Give me just a minute.”
“Kat,” Stephanie whispers and motions me to the desk.
I walk over and she pulls Ricco’s appointment book out of the desk.
“This,” she points to the cat with the syringe, “isn’t that next Wednesday?”
I look at her like she’s fucking crazy, because, “Of course that’s next Wednesday.”
“Well that’s the day we get our shot,” she whispers.
Darby starts coming back down the hall and she shoves it back in the drawer and smiles. “You ready doll face?”
“Steph, what’s your-”
She glares at me and it takes me by surprise so I shut it down.
“Ready?” She whisks past me to the back door.
After Darby fills the cart and essentially empties my wallet at the fucking store where more than half the motherfuckers are wearing pajama pants and apparently don’t realize without a bra their tits are hanging almost out of their too short tee shirts, we pull up to Ricco’s place.
I look in the rearview mirror and she is tapping away on her phone’s keyboard.
Stephanie gets out of the car with one bag, Darby with another and I sit to wait.
“Katherine,” Darby snaps, “she likes you.”<
br />
“Apparently you don’t,” I groan as I turn off the car and haul my ass out of it.
As soon as we get to the steps the door opens and Ricco fills it completely. “Completely unnecessary kiddo,” he says as he messes up her hair like they’re fucking BFF’s. “She’s in the living room. Can’t miss it, there are only three rooms in there.”
After they go inside I start to walk in and he stands in front of the doorway, leans back and says, “We’ll be right in.”
Then he shuts the door, plants his feet nearly shoulder width apart, and crosses his arms over his chest.
He’s wearing a white Yankees hat on backwards, a white wife beater, and navy blue loose fitting sweatpants. Loose fitting everywhere except his nearly offensive mountain cock that he certainly can’t hide.
“Stop looking at my cock Kat and-”
“Fuck you,” I snap.
“Don’t be a bitch, it’s been a shit day.”
“Yeah, it has. Tweedledee and Tweedledum think they have some sort of authority over me and you hire Twinkle Tits.” When I say it his jaw tightens and it makes me sick to my stomach. Clearly he fucking has the hots for her. “You know what, fuck you. I’m in no mood.”
“No, abso-fucking-lutley not. This shit stops now. You don’t fucking run the show. The shop never has and never will work like that.”
“Let me go say hello to your daughter and I’ll leave you the fuck alone.” I feel my eyes heat up and I don’t like it. Not one bit.
“No.”
“No?”
“No.”
I clear my throat and nod. “Okay then.” I turn to walk away.
“I won’t be in tomorrow. The guys have it covered and I hope to hell she knows what she’s doing because you of all people should know not to mix business with pleasure, and the attitude you sport, you’ll fuck up that friendship with her too and Kat, you need all the friends you can get.”
I turn around and lift my chin in the air.
“Don’t ever speak to me like that again.” I turn around before the first tear slips.
“That’s the fucking plan!”
I raise a finger in the air and walk to my car.
***
Darby fell asleep early and I was kind of scared she may be getting sick as well. Macey, Stephanie, and I share a bottle of wine to celebrate being ‘blissfully single’ and Stephanie’s new job. Macey helps her set up the Tindered app. She swipes right way too many times. I try to warn her but Macey gave me a look and I am in no mood to argue anymore today.
