I watch Allie with Emilio and jealousy hits me like an oncoming train.
She takes his hands and rather than retreating, she steps closer to him. Reaches out and touches him.
Dominique slaps a hand on my shoulder and my gaze jerks toward him. “You need to fix this.”
“I’m trying.”
“Try harder.”
I tug away from him. “She’s letting everyone else in but me.” Even I hear the bitterness in my voice. The second I see Emilio pull her into a hug, I see red. I want to punch the fucker in the face, to hell if he’s one of my best friends.
“I know this hurts, man—”
“Hurts?!” I turn to him, eyes wide, and a sneer on my lips. “You think this hurts? Fuck you. I wish all it did was hurt. This shit right here”—I wave in their direction—” it fucking guts me. My girl won’t talk to me. Won’t look at me. She was fucking r—”
Dominique grabs me and shoves me inside an empty classroom. “Keep your goddamn voice down,” he whisper-shouts.
I’m shaking my head, hands already forming fists. I need to hit something. Or someone. I need to funnel all of whatever it is that I’m feeling into something or I’m going to lose my goddamn mind.
Dom gets in my face and it takes everything in me not to draw back and hit my best friend.
“This sucks. You’re pissed off because you know you fucked up. You had a good thing going and she got hurt.” I open my mouth but he cuts me off. “But you’re still not getting it Rome. She got hurt. Her. Not you. You don’t get to be pissed off at her or anyone else because you’re a jealous asshole used to getting his way. She deserves better than that.”
“Get off me.” I shove him back. He takes a few more steps away, his jaw clenched and his eyes narrowed.
“This isn’t about you. Not what you want or what you think you need. If you want to get her back then stop being a selfish prick and realize this is about her. What she wants and what she needs. That’s all that should matter right now.”
I work my jaw. The asshole is right and I hate it. My eyes fall to the floor and I force myself to take a deep breath before dropping down, my ass hitting the cool linoleum with my back against the wall. My eyes hit his once more. “What do I do?”
He rubs the back of his neck, a weary expression on his face. “I don’t know, man.”
“She won’t talk to me,” I say, my words hollow and empty.
Dom sighs. “You’re making this about you again. It’s not just that she won’t talk to you. She can’t. You saw what happened before. She freaked out and damn near had a panic attack.”
Fuck.
It’s the hands thing.
Something clicks. An idea forming in my head and suddenly, I know what I have to do now.
I push to my feet and head for the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Out.”
“What do you mean, out? We have class.’
I shake my head. “I’m skipping. I have something I need to do. Just—” I pause. “Watch out for my girl.”
I head straight to the parking lot, ignoring Mrs. Jennings when she pokes her head out of her classroom and asks me where I’m going. Season’s over. She can give me all the detentions she wants.
I spot Henderson in the parking lot getting out of his Subaru WRX and make a split-second decision to call out to him. “Yo, Henderson.”
His head jerks toward me and he scowls.
“Come on, we’re cutting.”
“What?”
I stalk toward his car and open the passenger side door. “Get in the car, Henderson. I need a ride. Let’s go.”
Surprisingly, he does as I ask. I give him directions to The Missing Piece and have him park in the first available space we can find. There’s no hesitation as I walk inside. I don’t even need to think about what to get. I already know. He follows behind, uncertainty written across his face.
The woman at the desk takes one look at the two of us and her smile brightens. She’s wearing a low-cut tank top in the middle of winter, exposing her arms, both covered in ink. “Do you have time for walk-ins?” I ask, ignoring the flirtatious smile she gives me.
“I’ll check for you,” she turns to her computer before her gaze returns to mine. “And what about him, sugar? You both here for some work?”
Henderson shakes his head in a definitive no.
“Just me,” I tell her.
“Alright then. Henry has some time. What are you after?”
I give her a quick rundown of what I’m looking for.
She purses her lips. “Are you sure you want that on your hands?”
I nod and she goes and gets this Henry guy who comes to the front, and I explain again to him what I want. He looks at me the way some tattoo artists do when they think you’re making a mistake, but he’s not going to say anything because he’s happy to take my money.
We sit down together and he works on the sketch for both pieces. Laying the stencil on my hands we go over placement and then we’re set. He doesn’t bother asking me for ID. I’ve learned that once you have some ink, no one really cares much about adding more.
“Last chance, man. You sure?”
I nod. I explained to Henry what the tattoos meant, it’s not every day a guy walks in asking for what I’m after, and the explanation only cements his belief that this is stupid. But that’s okay. This girl is it for me. She’s not just my beginning, she’s my end. I’ve been fucking around and going through the girls in this town one right after the other until she showed up. That had worked for me these last few years. I never wanted more than one night with any of them. But with Allie, I don’t want just one night. I need more. I need her every day. For all of the days that are to come.
She’s the first person I think about when I wake up and the last one on my mind when I go to sleep. She’s not just some random. She never was. She’s the real deal. I know we’re young. I know we said we were having fun. I shouldn’t be worried about my tomorrow or my forever, but that’s what I want with her.
She needs to know she’s it for me. I’ll make the sacrifices. I’ll step up and put in the work. Because she fucking deserves it. I just hope this shows her exactly what she means to me because if this doesn’t do that, I have no fucking idea what else I can do to win her back.
It takes four hours for Henry to finish. When he does, he walks me through the usual list of how to care for the ink. What lotions to use. And gives me the reminder that hand tats are notorious for fading faster than anywhere else on the body. I pay him and give him my thanks after he covers the tops of both my hands in a thin bandage.
There’s still around an hour left of school and another twenty minutes or so after that until she gets home. I need to talk to her where she’ll feel safe. I don’t want to do it at the school. We don’t need the audience and I know the parking lot holds bad memories for her, so I decide to head to her place. I don’t want to spring this on her or make her uncomfortable, but I don’t see an alternative.
“I can’t believe you just did that,” Henderson says.
I shrug like it’s no big deal because it isn’t. I’d do a hell of a lot more for that girl than just get a little ink.
He gives me a sideways look as I tell him to head toward Allie’s place. “You really care about her?” he asks, sounding surprised.
I grunt because I don’t have to justify my feelings for her to him.
He parks across the street from the mansion where she lives, and I recline my seat and settle in to wait. A glance at the clock shows me we have some time before she gets home. Henderson turns off the car and the silence between us stretches, becoming awkward.
“We ever gonna talk about—’
I cut him off. “No. There’s nothing to talk about.”
He sighs. “I fucked up.”
“That’s the understatement of the century.”
He turns toward me in his seat, nostrils flaring. “You’ve fucked up too, Rome. Don’t pretend like you’re some saint.”
“Never said I was,” I tell him. “But I’m learning from my mistakes. Trying to fix them. Can you say the same?”
His face tightens and he looks away, staring out the windshield. “I was in a bad place back then.”
I nod. I’m aware. I might not have been at the time. He was good at covering his tracks, keeping his nose clean, but I found out later what he’d been going through. “We made a deal,” I remind him. “You help me, we wipe the slate clean. But, Henderson.” I wait until he meets my gaze again, wanting him to see just how serious I am. “I won’t make this deal again. Whatever shit you still need to clean up, be sure that you do.”
He nods, not denying that he’s still in some shit he shouldn’t be.
Knowing I shouldn’t I ask, “You still doing?”
He shakes his head.
“Dealing?”
A pause and then a single sharp nod.
“Keep that shit away from her. Got it? She likes you. She doesn’t have many people here and she’s been through too much. Don’t let whatever you’re into rub off on her life.”
“I won’t. I would never—”
I snort. “Because it didn’t fuck up our lives either, right?” That quiets him and he exhales a harsh breath.
“I’m getting my shit in order. I just … need time.”
“It’s been a year and a half.”
“I know.” His jaw tightens. “But I have my reasons, and I’m working on it.”
I nod, letting the subject drop. We wait in silence for a few more minutes before Allie’s Audi comes into view.
“So, what’s your plan here?”
I turn to him and shrug. “I don’t have a plan. I’m winging it. If she’s okay to talk to me, make yourself scarce. I’ll find a ride back later. If she struggles, stick around and try not to listen as I pour my heart out on the fucking pavement.”
He frowns, rubbing the back of his neck. “Uh, okay. I guess I can go with that.”
