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“Now, what do you say we finish this tattoo?”

34

BRYCE

I’ve just finished cleaningup my station when a key jiggles in the door and Shade saunters inside. He keeps his hood up as he closes the door with his foot and carries the pizza boxes and a white bag of food to the front desk.

“Oh honeys, I’m home,” he calls like a douche.

Daisy drops from the table to her feet and turns to face him, grinning. “And you brought food.”

Still only in her panties, I have to distract myself with putting all of my supplies back so I don’t force her into her pants before she has a chance to see the tattoo. The thought of her half-naked in front of anyone but me feels like a sucker punch to the gut, but it’s only Shade. Even if he is one flirty fucker, he won’t try anything with her. Not like he would have a shot, anyway. She made that more than clear to him.

“Hope you like pizza and wings. That’s just about all we’ve got in this town.”

“I love both.”

I tug my gloves off and crumple them into a ball before asking him, “Did you remember my order?”

He shakes his head in disbelief. “You’ve been gone a coupleof months, Bryce. Not years. So yeah, I remembered, and I even got the extra blue cheese ranch that you love.”

“Blue cheese ranch?” Daisy asks, nose scrunched.

Shade winces, setting the bags down and beginning to rifle through them. “Uh-oh.”

“I hate blue cheese,” Daisy says like that is excuse enough.

I make a pained noise and roll back on my stool to toss the gloves. “No fucking way.”

She gapes at me. The irritated, red skin around her new tattoo is angry in the fluorescent lights, but fuck me, it’s a good tattoo. So completely her.

“Don’t tell me that’s a deal breaker?” She balks.

“Normally, I’d say it would be. But that art on your leg tells me that you might stand a chance, little devil,” Shade says, butting in with a loose grin.

I catch her stare and wink, loving the way she doesn’t bother hiding the flush that smears across her cheeks. “Go look at your tattoo.”

With a skip in her step, she moves around me toward the wall of mirrors. I fight off the blast of nerves that hits me the moment she props her leg in front of her and fixes wide eyes to the reflection of the wrapped design.

It’s some of my best work, despite the simplicity of it. Two long black stems crossing at the middle and topped with yellow daisies. Script isn’t my specialty, but theDaisywritten in cursive along the left stem was an impulse decision. Once I finished the initial outline, it was like my hand had a mind of its own.

“It’s beautiful,” Daisy murmurs.

My heart smashes against my ribs. “You like it?”

Nodding quickly, she catches my gaze in the mirror. “I love it. It’s so freaking perfect.”

“Bryce is one of the best I’ve ever come across. Obviously, she’s not as good as me, but it’s a fucking shame she isn’t in a space of her own like this one,” Shade says with a pointed look in my direction.

I wet my dry lips and flip him off. Daisy answers him before I can.

“Would you ever share this place with her?”

The question takes both of us by surprise. Shade cocks his head and stares at me with those dark eyes of his. We’ve joked about it before, but he knows just as well as I do from all of my complaining about my parents that it wouldn’t work.

As fucked up as it may be, the moment I cut that last cord, I’ll free myself from them entirely. It sounds like everything I should and often do want, but at the same time, they’re still my parents. Shitty ones, but parents nonetheless.

Who am I without them? Would I regret my choice years down the road?