The rest of my shift goes by so fucking slowly it should be a crime. A bunch of college kids came in asking for some bullshit tattoos that I have done a hundred times, some shit off Pinterest. The images have burned into my eyes to the point that I would ban the app from my shop if I could.
Finally, fucking finally, I’m closing up, shutting the lights off, and locking the door. My adrenaline runs through my blood, anticipating what comes next. My body already seems to know that I’m going to Olivia’s house. I’m going straight there, straight to fuck the memory of another man out of her head.
“Hey, we need to talk,” a voice behind me says gruffly, and without even looking, I know it’s Greg. We close around the same time every night depending on who we have in the chair and how long their tattoos take, although Greg makes a habit of staying late, fucking around in the shop for god knows what reason.
“What do you want?” I ask, turning around and looking at him. What Olivia saw in him is beyond me. He’s an okay-looking guy, I can admit that, but he is bland as hell. For someone who runs a tattoo shop, he has very little ink on his skin. It has always floored me that someone who does this for a living wouldn’t want art all over his body, but whatever. His brown hair is basic, in the same haircut as every fucking college kid in this town, as if Greg hates the idea of being an eighteen-year-old’s definition of uncool. He is dressed in jeans and a grey t-shirt, neither of them fitting him that well.
Greg is just like every fucking white guy you’ve ever seen. He’s boring, cliché, and oozing insecurity masked by Axe. Not someone I would have put with Olivia, who is every straight guy’s fucking dream. It drives me up a fucking wall that she was with him for so long, but I push the feeling away. I just want to get over to her house, not wanting to deal with this idiot.
“I saw Olivia come into your shop this morning,” he states, looking at me as if I have to explain myself. I smile at him, that cocky shit-eating grin that tends to piss people off, and laugh a little, enjoying the idea that he thinks I need to answer to him.
“And?” I ask, raising my eyebrows, waiting for him to elaborate. I already know what he is going to say, but I want him to spell it out and dig himself into a hole. He has had an ass-kicking coming his way for a long time and now is as good a time as any to finally deliver.
“Stay the fuck away from her. She doesn’t need some piece of shit like you hanging around, asking for my sloppy seconds,” he spits out, looking at me with such disgust it’s almost comical, as if I fucking give a shit. I had no problem with him until he started to be a dick, which was pretty quickly after we met. I think he hated my success long before he hated me, but that’s his problem, not mine.
I take a deep breath, trying to calm down as his words soak into my fucking bones. I want to break his teeth and make him pay for talking about Olivia that way, but I know she is waiting for me, and I wasn’t planning on going over there bloody.
“Believe it or not,” I say, talking real slow so my words get through to his fucking dense ass head. “She isn’t your possession. Don’t fucking treat her like that, or I’ll break your jaw,” I say, my teeth clenched, meaning every fucking word, loving the way his eyes light on fire. I can see that he wants to punch me, but he could never stand a chance in a fight with me.
Greg isn’t small, but I still tower over his six-foot frame by three inches, and when he is at home doing whatever the fuck this loser does, I’m in the gym, enjoying the burn of a workout more than enjoying the way it makes me look. I could knock him on his ass in about seven seconds, and he knows that as well as I do.
“You always want what I have, don’t you?” he hisses, trying to get a dig at me, trying to convince himself that he is better because he dated her first. But I don’t fucking care. She isn’t sloppy fucking seconds. She is a goddamn person. And I wanted her from the second she walked into my shop, before I even knew he was dating her, but I don’t have to prove anything to him. In fact, I don’t want to waste another second talking to him, not when she is waiting for me.
“Greg, let me know when you stop being a fucking loser. Maybe then I’ll waste my time talking to you.” I don’t give a fuck about the way that he mutters under his breath as I leave. I know that his eyes are trying to incinerate the back of my head as I walk to my car. Not a single fuck is given when he flips me off as I drive away because Olivia is expecting me, and I have wanted this for too fucking long to waste another second on that piece of shit.
