Dedicated Ink

by Rose, Ranae

  “Well, you can’t just say that and keep me in suspense. What is it?”

  “Okay…” She let go of him, settling back onto her heels. “Well, you’ve seen some of my illustrations, right? There are some in the art portfolio included on my page at Hot Ink’s website.”

  He nodded. “I’ve seen you sketch designs for your clients, too.” She’d brought a big box of art supplies when she’d moved in and sometimes sat at the kitchen table in the evenings, drawing tattoos.

  “I don’t just design tattoos. I draw other things, too.”

  “Like what?”

  “Illustrations.” Her cheeks went a little pinker. “Since moving in, I’ve only worked on them while you were at work. I guess I didn’t want to tell you about the project Natalie and I have been spending time on.”

  He fought the urge to frown. Something wasn’t right. What could she and Natalie possibly be working on that she’d felt the need to hide from him? “Are you going to tell me about your project now?”

  “Yes.” She looked up and a hint of a smile bowed one corner of her mouth before flickering out. “For over a year now, Natalie and I have been working on a series of books – children’s books. She writes the stories and I do the illustrations. It started out being just for fun, mostly, although now that I think about it, I think she was scheming for something bigger all along…

  “Anyway, they’re picture books, for young kids. The main character is a fox named Amethyst.”

  “Amethyst?” He reached for her, his hand drawn automatically to her left arm. She was wearing a long-sleeved tee to ward off the early February chill, but the fabric was thin enough that he could see the outline of her tattoos, including the purple fox that raced down her upper arm, along with a cascade of colorful jewels. He traced the dark shapes beneath her sleeve.

  She smiled and nodded. “Amethyst was invented years ago. Natalie and I used to stage these elaborate plays when we were little, and he was our favorite character. We’d make up stories and act out his adventures – sometimes we’d fight over who got to be Amethyst, too. A couple years ago, Natalie got the idea to create a series of books based off of our old games.”

  “And you’ve finished one?”

  Her smile stretched a little wider. “Yes, but that’s not what I’m so excited about. Natalie has been querying publishers, trying to find a company that might be interested in the books. Today, she heard back from one.”

  “Wow.” She didn’t look embarrassed anymore, just excited, and no wonder. When he’d noticed her excitement, he’d figured maybe she’d filled her upcoming maternity leave with plenty of guest artists or something. “Someone wants to publish the books?”

  “We don’t really know yet.” Her smile faded as her hesitancy returned. “They’re considering that right now, and eventually they’ll let us know. They may or may not offer a contract. Even though there’s a chance that nothing might come of this, I just… I guess I didn’t really expect anyone to be interested in the first place.”

  “Why not?” He’d seen her art – not the book illustrations, but plenty of other pieces, and it was top-quality.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s notoriously hard to get a book published. Why would I assume that we’d be so lucky?”

  “Because you’re an amazing artist.”

  She shrugged away his reply. “You haven’t even seen the illustrations.”

  “So show me. Why didn’t you want me to know about them in the first place?”

  She turned, heading toward the spare bedroom where a few boxes of her things sat unpacked in one corner. When she knelt carefully in front of one, her cheeks were even pinker than before. “I was kind of embarrassed. I didn’t want you to think that I was sitting around the house wasting time on something so unlikely to succeed – not while you were out working so hard.”

  “Wasting time?”

  She huffed as she stood, pulling herself up with a hand on one corner of the box. “Yeah.”

  He gripped her by one arm – the one with the fox tattoo – and helped her to her feet. “You’re an artist – why would I think your art is a waste of time?” Art was a significant part of who she was; he’d known that ever since he’d first laid eyes on her at a bar and studied her tattoos, which were intricate and unique, not your average ink.

  She held a portfolio aloft and focused on undoing its fastening instead of meeting his eyes. “I’m a tattoo artist. I’m just a wannabe book illustrator. I already feel bad about having to cut my work hours in half – I felt kind of selfish spending so much time on these, knowing the project would probably never go anywhere.”

  Sam took the portfolio and let a stack of papers slide out. Carefully, he flipped through them, taking time to study her work. It was as if the tattoo he’d memorized the night he’d met her had come to life; the same purple fox was in every drawing. Abby was silent and still as he went through the entire stack and then slid them back into the portfolio.

  “Those were all the drawings for the first book,” she said, her voice softer than before.

  “They’re good enough to be published, and I know you know that.”

  She shrugged. “That doesn’t mean they will be. There are a lot of other factors involved in getting a book published, including luck.”

  “Still. You wouldn’t have put so much work into these if they didn’t mean a lot to you. Did you really feel selfish spending time on these illustrations, or were you afraid I’d think you were selfish?”

  The flash of surprise that lit up her eyes answered his question before she spoke a word. “A little bit of both – but yeah, I was afraid you’d think I was selfish.”

  Even if he’d already known it, it grated to hear her say it. It was a lot better to think of her at home working on something she cared about than imagining her sick and lonely while he was at work. “I don’t think you’re selfish. Even if there wasn’t a publisher who was interested in the books, I still wouldn’t think that.”

  She smiled faintly, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Sorry. I’m not trying to make you out to be some bad guy. I just … don’t want to be a burden to you.”

  “You’re not.”

  “I feel like one, sometimes.” She motioned toward her belly. “We only had one night without this responsibility. I know you’d never walk away from it, but it would be almost as bad if you resented me for it.”

  Ignoring the unintended sting of her words, he focused on the uncertainty shining in her eyes instead. “Love is never a burden. Maybe it’s a sacrifice, sometimes, but not a burden.” A few months ago, he would’ve laughed if he’d heard himself making any declarations about love. Now, he knew what he was talking about, whether she believed him or not.

  Her smile did reach her eyes this time, but it didn’t last long.

  “You know, the reason you’ve cut down on your hours at Hot Ink is because you’re supposed to be resting. You don’t need to be working on anything while you’re here. I couldn’t care less if you chose to watch TV all day, or read, or whatever you felt like doing. I hate that you think I’m at work brooding over the fact that you’re at home.”

  She nodded, then met his eyes. “It’s just hard not to worry. I love the way living here allows me to spend so much time with you, but sometimes it seems like I’m intruding and I can’t help but want to be more … useful.”

  Intruding? How could she think that when they spent every night tangled together – the ones he didn’t work, anyway? “Having you here is a hell of a lot better than living alone – trust me.” Not once had he wished he’d wake up to find the bed empty, or come home to a dim, silent house. Unable to resist, he wrapped his arms around her.

  She melted against him, her belly a firm curve against his hip, and he breathed in the clean, floral scent her shampoo leant her hair. It was one of his favorite smells; he’d breathed it for the first time the night he’d met her and she’d left the scent on his sheets and pillows when she’d disappeared withou
t a word. It had faded from the linens, eventually, but had haunted his dreams afterward. “I want you here. I love having you here.”

  He was hard just holding her, and the way she was pressed against the front of his body, she had to feel how much he wanted her.

  “I love you, Sam.” She managed to get a little closer, despite her belly. “A lot.”

  He breathed a sigh that was half-relieved, half-bewildered. It didn’t make any sense that she could have the doubts that she did or think that he’d share them, but he believed her when she said she loved him, and that was what mattered most. After all, without her love, he’d be nothing more than a burden to her – someone circumstance had stuck her with instead of allowing her to choose who she wanted to build a family and a life with.

  When he thought about it that way, her worries were a little more understandable. If he’d suspected that her sense of obligation to him outweighed her love – that they were only together because they had to be – the thought would’ve crushed him, too.

  * * * * *

  Sam seemed impervious to the cold – maybe because he worked in it. Dead of winter or not, he hadn’t stopped his daily runs. Inside, where it was warm, Abby finished a decidedly less athletic endeavor – making dinner.

  A casserole dish cooled on the stovetop as the open oven flooded the kitchen with heat and the scent of baked chicken, cheese and broccoli. Pushing back the curtain, she peered out the kitchen window. Sam should’ve finished his circuit a few minutes ago.

  He was there, on the sidewalk in front of the house, and he wasn’t alone.

  He stood across from a woman with chin-length brown hair. A twinge of familiarity rippled across the surface of Abby’s mind. Why did she recognize that haircut and the slender build that was evident despite the woman’s puffy coat? Was she a neighbor?

  The woman crossed her arms over her chest and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. The change in position revealed one side of her face, casting it in the glow of a streetlight that had just come on.

  As sudden as the surge of electricity that illuminated the sidewalk, certainty hit Abby. Substitute a green apron for the woman’s winter coat and she was the spitting image of the barista who’d prepared her and Natalie’s coffee at the book store.

  She hardly had time to wonder what that meant before Sam turned his back on the woman, heading for the house.

  She took one step forward, but he called something over his shoulder that stopped her in her tracks. The closer he got to the house, the angrier Abby could see his expression was.

  The woman didn’t look happy, either. Glaring, she stood still on the sidewalk, her gaze trained on Sam until it veered toward the window.

  It was the first time Abby had ever made eye contact with the woman. She’d only seen her from across the café the day before – Natalie had ordered the coffee. Even with a couple yards and a pane of glass between them, Abby could feel the woman’s anger, and something else… Surprise?

  Whatever it was, it was gone, and the woman turned and stomped away.

  “What was that all about?” Abby asked as Sam walked through the door.

  His expression was dark – the darkest Abby had ever seen it. “That was Trish,” he said, only after he’d closed and locked the door. “My ex.”

  Abby’s blood ran cold, and she could no longer feel the heat of the oven at her back. “What did she want?” She asked, although it seemed obvious – who wouldn’t want Sam?

  He grimaced. “Money.”

  She was surprised into several moments of silence. “Money?”

  He nodded, pulling off his jacket and throwing it onto a chair.

  “How could she think...”

  “I don’t know,” Sam said. “I don’t get how she thinks. I don’t get how even she could work up the nerve to show her face here again.”

  “I don’t know if this means anything, but I saw her yesterday – I just didn’t know who she was. She was working as a barista at the café inside the bookstore Natalie and I went to.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She must’ve lost her old job, then – she used to work full-time as a receptionist in an insurance office.”

  “So she came here to harass you for money?” Abby thought out loud. Any way she looked at it, even if Trish had lost her job, it was bizarre to think that she’d actually hoped Sam might be sympathetic. And what had happened to the man she’d left Sam for?

  Sam shrugged, a motion that highlighted the tension in his shoulders. “Told you she was bad. I just … never wanted you to see.”

  “It’s not your fault she has no sense of decency.”

  “It’s my fault she showed up here. I’m the one who was with her in the first place. Jesus, I wish I could take it all back.”

  “I might never have met you if you did.”

  His frown deepened. “I don’t like thinking that I owe being with you to Trish in any way. Wish I’d done things right from the beginning.”

  Abby’s heart sank a little deeper as she pulled a couple of dinner plates from a cabinet. What had Trish said to him, exactly, that had him fuming?

  * * * * *

  Abby’s Valentine’s Day plans had imploded into a total clusterfuck. Swearing, she dumped a plate of chicken and risotto into the sink, crammed it into the garbage disposal with a fork, turned on the faucet and flipped the switch on the wall.

  The strangled gurgling that accompanied the dinner’s demise was only mildly satisfying. Still fuming, she disposed of the second plate in the same fashion, letting the disposal run until it was nothing more than a quiet whir, the white noise confirming that all evidence of her culinary efforts had been utterly destroyed.

  Well, except for the giant mess spread over the counters and stove. Swearing again, she tore several paper towels from the roll above the sink and began scrubbing. Her biceps were aching before she was halfway done. “Fucking internet recipes,” she muttered, using her nails to work a particularly stubborn lump of burnt flour free.

  Why did people even bother to take the time to upload horrible recipes to the internet? She’d scoured cooking sites for the perfect Valentine’s dinner recipe and had settled, after hours of deliberation, on something called In Love with Lemon Chicken for the main dish.

  She’d followed the recipe to a T, down to the dash of curry – she’d had to make a special trip to the grocery store just to buy some of that. She’d had a big stupid grin on her face when she’d popped the chicken into the oven, but the poultry had morphed into something disgusting during the thirty-five minutes of baking time. When she’d pulled it from the rack, the two chicken breasts she’d labored over had been little more than gelatinous blobs, hunks of meat marinating in the pasty goo the coating had become.

  The risotto she’d made as a side dish – the recipe had come from the same site as the lame lemon chicken – had turned out mediocre at best. Maybe she should’ve saved it, but she’d thrown it into the garbage disposal along with the chicken, sacrificing the gloopy rice mixture to her rage. Now all she had left of the dinner she’d planned was a salad and some rolls. The worst part was that she’d timed everything to be ready when Sam arrived home from work.

  Sure enough, the sound of his key turning in the lock came as soon as she’d finished wiping the counter clean. The stovetop was still a mess, but there was no time to fix that. Turning with her huge belly splattered with flour and God knew what else, she felt the full weight of her failure descend upon her as he walked in.

  His uniform looked perfect, even after a day of work. “Hey. Smells good in here.” He smiled as he looked around, as if expecting to find a feast spread out on the table or one of the countertops.

  Abby marched over to the table, seized the two candles she’d lit only minutes ago, and tossed them into the sink, where dirty water and chicken-y residue put out the flames. Standing in the middle of the kitchen with her arms crossed over her filthy sweater, she had to look complet
ely ridiculous. Unfortunately, frustration and hormones had whipped her temper into a fever pitch, and she was incapable of caring.

  “Hey,” she managed to reply before firmly closing her mouth, refusing to let her lower lip quiver.

  “So do I get to see this dinner you’ve been teasing me about all day?” He pulled off his boots, the picture of obliviousness.

  Remembering that she’d texted him earlier that afternoon with a cute little message promising a special dinner and an even better dessert – not the kind you had in the kitchen – was the straw that broke the camel’s back. “Not unless you want to take apart the garbage disposal and look at whatever pile of mush is inside the plumbing.”

  He looked at her like he didn’t understand.

  “Dinner is ruined,” she clarified. “Either the recipes I used were total crap, or I fucked them up in some way I don’t even understand. God, we’re probably just lucky I didn’t burn the house down.” She wasn’t normally a terrible cook, and of all the days to totally ruin a dinner…

  He had the grace to look thoughtful instead of disappointed, but his courtesy couldn’t take the edge off the anger she felt toward herself and whoever had posted that recipe.

  She was seven months along now and her size, along with the increased strain on her body, had her at an all-time low, as far as productivity went. There was still no word from Red Harbor Publishing, and she really did spend most of her time at home reading, watching TV or starting sketches she rarely had the energy or the willpower to finish. This – the Valentine’s dinner and her plans for a perfect evening – had been one thing she’d been counting on being able to do for him, on being able to do right.

  “There’s nothing left?” he asked.

  “Nothing but a salad and some rolls.”

  “Why don’t we eat that?”

  “Because a salad and rolls make an appetizer, not a meal.”