Page 24 of Breaking Through the Doubt (Espen Jetties #4)

24

COREY

“Scrambled or over easy?” I called down the hall.

Leslie had just gotten out of the shower and was getting dressed in my room. We’d agreed to shower separately if we wanted the chance to leave the house today. As much as I wanted to have my hands all over Leslie, I also wanted to spend some time with him outside of the bedroom before he left on the long road trip. Especially considering I still hadn’t worked up the courage to come clean about my mother. I wanted to tell him when he arrived last night, but the moment I saw him standing on the other side of the door, I lost all train of thought. Having my hands on him was more important than dredging up the past.

If I was being honest, I used that as an excuse. I hadn’t even tried to start the conversation. I led right in with a line about sex. A part of me still wasn’t ready to talk about her, even if I needed to. Now, I had to figure out how to bring it up.

“Scrambled,” I heard him call down the hall.

I began cracking eggs into the bowl. Coffee was already brewing in the pot on the counter. Scrambling the eggs, I thought through all the possible ways I could approach the conversation. How should I begin? Hey, I forgot to tell you my mom is a junkie. Or maybe, My mom chose crack over me .

I shook my head and dumped the eggs into a hot pan. Everything that came into my head sounded ridiculous. This was something I should have mentioned in the beginning.

His footsteps sounded in the hall, and I shook off the thoughts running through my head. Warm hands wrapped around my waist, and I remembered very quickly why we decided to shower alone. With my free hand, I reach down and adjusted my hard dick in my pants.

“Coffee’s ready if you want some. Mugs are in the cabinet next to the fridge.”

I picked up the pan and divided the eggs equally onto each plate. Leslie poured us each a cup of coffee. “Sugar?”

“Black, please.”

He added a little sugar and cream to his and took both mugs to the table. I followed behind him with the eggs. Sitting across from him, having a simple breakfast, felt better than any date we’d been on. Don’t get me wrong, those were amazing. There was just something intimate about sharing my morning with someone else when no one was doing the walk of shame.

I picked up my mug of coffee. “Anything specific you want to do today?”

“I was thinking about another tattoo, and I was hoping we could design it together.”

I couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across my face. “I’ll do you one better. How about I take you to the shop and we can work on your tattoo today?”

He stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth. “I don’t want you to have to work on your day off.”

“It’s not work if I’m spending the day with you. Any ideas what you want?”

“I was thinking of a pocket watch on my inner forearm.”

“Good choice. A little tender area, but you didn’t even flinch when I did your back. Let’s finish breakfast and head over to the shop.”

An hour later, Leslie and I were walking down the block from where we’d parked my car. We reached the shop, and I unlocked the door. The place seemed eerily quiet when no one else was working for the day.

“Let’s get the design drawn up and I can start working.”

We sat in the chairs in the front, which were much more comfortable than the ones in my station, while I drew what he’d described to me. We talked and I made changes he suggested. With the perfected design, I printed it on the transfer and collected the colors we needed.

I placed the transfer on his arm, letting the temporary ink mark his skin. The paper hit the trash can as soon as I removed it. The dark lines of the outline were where I planned to start.

I dipped the gun into the black ink and looked at Leslie. “Ready?” He nodded and I lowered the gun to his skin.

A shadow across the floor of the front window caught my attention. It didn’t move quickly across like a person passing by, instead it lingered in the same spot. When the shadow grew larger, I knew someone had stepped closer to the window. I glanced up to see what was happening. If I had to, I could have a conversation with the person about not being open today but scheduling them for when we did open.

A woman stood with her hands up against the glass. Her face gaunt and her clothes, if that was what I could call them, barely covered much of her skin. The material was torn and had obviously been worn longer than it should have been. The woman had to be homeless. Maybe looking for someone to give her money or food. The least I could do was give her a bit of money.

I set the gun down, standing from where I’d gotten ready to start Leslie’s new ink and froze the moment the woman’s eyes lifted from the ground.

“Corey? Hey, are you okay?” Leslie asked.

What the fuck was she doing here?

Rage poured through me like boiling lava. I couldn’t…No I wouldn’t let this woman ruin everything I’d built. Without a thought I raced to the front door, unlocking it and yanking it open in seconds.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

Her lip curled, revealing teeth mangled from years of drug abuse and god only knew what else. It looked more like a sneer than a smile. There were dark circles around her eyes and the sockets were sunken in. None of it drew any compassion from me. She made her choices and now she needed to face the consequences of those decisions.

“My baby, Corey.” She tried to reach out and put her hand on my arm, but I recoiled away from her touch.

“I’m not your any goddamn thing. What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Is that any way to talk to your mother?” She took a step forward and I took a matching step back, with no desire to be any closer to her than I needed to be in the moment.

“Mother? Not fucking likely. You’re nothing to me except a drug addict standing outside my shop.”

She glanced inside where I could see Leslie watching us. He hadn’t moved from his seat, but I could still see the concern on his face. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?” she asked, ignoring everything I said to her.

I rolled my shoulders and clenched my hands into fists at my sides to keep from losing my temper. I leaned forward. “I’m going to say this once,” I growled in a low voice. “Leave me the fuck alone. Stay away from me and stay away from the shop. You are nothing to me. Now leave.”

I whirled around on my heel and stormed back into the shop, not even bothering waiting for a reaction from her. Snapping the lock into place, I stormed past my station and into the back bathroom. I turned on the cold water and splashed some on my face.

What was she doing here? How did she even find me? I could tell by the look in her eyes that she’d come there specifically looking for me. I highly doubted she wanted to finally be a mother to me. Not with the scent of alcohol still wafting off her skin or the fresh track marks in her arm.

More than likely, she wanted money. Money for more drugs that her “son” would happily provide to his mother. She was delusional enough to actually think that.

Fucking hell.

Leslie saw the entire interaction. I’d told Emilio I would talk to Leslie about my mother, but up until this point, I’d actively avoided it. I didn’t even know what to say. How did you bring up to the person you were falling in love with that your mother was a derelict of society?

I shut off the water and looked into the mirror. The happy light that had been in my eyes when we left my apartment this morning was now dimmed. One interaction with that woman had ruined my entire day. One of the few I had with Leslie before he was back on the road.

Straightening my shoulders, I stood and used a paper towel to wipe the last bit of the water from my face. I couldn’t stay in the bathroom forever. The sooner I stepped out, the sooner I could rip the bandage off.

The moment the door opened, I saw Leslie standing at the end of the hall, his brows creased in concern. He didn’t move. He waited and let me walk farther down the hall before taking a step toward me.

“Is everything okay?”

I shook my head. “Not even close.”

When I reached him, I took his hand in mine and relaxed a bit when he gave me a slight squeeze. It said all the things he didn’t need to. He was there and ready to listen whenever I was ready to tell him.

I led him back to my station. After he took the seat on my chair again, I sat on the rolling one I used to do tattoos. I fiddled with an imaginary speck of dirt on my pants. Leslie, with all the patience of a saint, waited for me to be ready.

Tension stretched my muscles tight, but I looked up at him and started talking. “The woman you saw me talking to outside was my mother.”

He frowned. “Your mother? I thought she disappeared when you were fourteen. That she didn’t want to be a mom.”

I sighed. “Well, that’s mostly true. She didn’t want to be a mom. Mostly because she preferred drugs and alcohol over her family.”

“Corey…” The concern I heard in his voice almost became my breaking point.

I reached out and laid my hand on his thigh, hoping beyond hope he wouldn’t push my hand away. “I’m sorry I lied to you.”

The room was silent for a moment then he covered my hand with his. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It’s not exactly easy to talk about the mom who abandoned you for her next high.”

“Do you want to talk now?”

“I never want to talk about her, even when my dad does, but you deserve to know everything. Especially after seeing that.”

“I don’t deserve—” I shook my head, cutting him off.

“You do.” I sucked in a deep, calming breath. “My mom and dad had been part of a party crowd. They weren’t married, but still lived together at the time. Mostly low-key stuff. Drinking, marijuana, maybe some ecstasy. She always pushed the boundaries. One night they weren’t as safe and suddenly she was pregnant with me.”

Leslie rubbed his thumb along the top of my hand, giving me the courage to continue.

“They both gave up the drugs and alcohol while she was pregnant. Made it all nine months, but a few weeks after I was born, she was out partying again. Dad had used those nine months to pull it together. He didn’t follow my mom out the door and stayed to protect me. Every time she came home, she was sober, but it never lasted. And the drugs got stronger and stronger. Dad, my grandparents, everyone tried to get her help. She didn’t want it.”

I looked up at Leslie’s blurry image. It always hit me hard whenever I talked about her.

“Drugs were everything and I was nothing.”