Page 21 of Take the Blame (Seaside Mergers #3)

I frowned, my head tipping to the side in slight confusion. “You haven’t been able to tattoo because you were thinking about… that thing you wanted?”

His eyebrows pinched together for a second and then his face grew so soft, I almost wanted to touch it to make sure it was still him.

He smiled gently, grabbing my hand and giving it a small squeeze.

“I need your answer about the tattoo . The one you said you’d find a phrase for.

I’ve had to do incomplete pieces all day. ”

“Oh,” I said. I think I would just resign myself to permanently burning at this point. “That’s what you meant.”

“That’s what I meant,” he echoed in agreement, but he couldn’t keep the smile from pulling over the side of his face, lopsided and goofy.

“Give me a second, please?” I sighed, moving to stand. “I just need something cold first. I’ve got to get my head on straight.”

Harper stood first, holding a hand out to stop me. “Nah, you sit for a bit. You seem tired. I’ll go get you something.”

“Harp no, you don’t have to—” I started.

He stopped me. “Sit down and relax. You’ve been running around this place all day like it’s your festival. Just read your report and breathe for a sec and I’ll get you what you like.”

I bit my lip. “Really?”

“Really, Boss.”

I felt a little pull in my gut as I sat up straighter, nodding out past the booth walls. “There’s a juice stand over there. I’d like that, please.”

“What flavor? ”

“Lime,” I said easily. My favorite.

He nodded, “You got it. Watch the front for me?”

I nodded, then I realized something, thankfully thinking quick enough to catch him before he left, “Harper, here! You get something too! My treat.”

You would think the credit card I held between us was a poisonous snake the way he looked at it. “Um, that’s okay. I got it.”

“No, I’m the one who wants juice. Let me get it.” I wiggled the card between us again and I think his lip curled.

“This would be one of those times when I’m serious, Alta,” he said, voice strong and final. Completely ignoring my proffered card, he turned away. “I got it. You rest up.”

And that’s what I did, for several long minutes as Harper went off and bought me juice.

“Atlas!”

I jolted awake at the sound of a familiar voice. Had I fallen asleep? I must have. Right here out in the open on the padded outdoor chair Harper had sat me down in before getting me the lime flavored frozen juice from the festival stall I’d been eyeing all day.

Now the man in question was seated up front on a wooden stool manning the booth with the warm sunbathing his brown skin. He looked good in the light like that. Glowing as he sat forward with his arms crossed.

I shook my head. No Alta. He looked normal. Stop making him out to be some God among men. He kissed you once .

Also… the more I blinked awake the more I realized, he looked sort of pissed. His brown eyes slitted and stabbing toward something beyond the table .

“Yo, earth to Fernandez? What the hell? I’ve been calling you for like a year. Ox sent lunch. Chop, chop,” that same familiar voice said.

I wrinkled my nose. And then I shot up, recognition finally hitting me.

Clay!

My sister-in-law had three brothers, two of which were helping with the festival today and one of which was mean and pushy and all around sort of a ridiculous person.

That ridiculous one was standing a few feet outside the shop’s booth, waiting for me with a bag in his hand and an impatient look on his face.

“Sorry!” I said, hurrying in his direction. “I didn’t hear you call.”

He just huffed, “Yeah well, today, Fernandez. I got places to be.”

Scampering forward, I rushed toward him.

But just as quickly as I did, a hand circled my forearm and stopped me.

Setting the tablet he’d been messing around with aside, Harper turned me toward him quickly.

When I met his eyes, I saw I was getting the serious Harper.

He was even glaring as he slid his arms into a knot across his chest to prove it.

“Who’s that?”

“Brother-in-law of sorts,” I answered.

“Did he just call you ‘Atlas ?’” he asked, his voice dripping with disdain.

I ducked my head. “Um, yeah. He does that.”

He blinked, and when I didn’t elaborate he barked, “Why?”

I winced. “Um, I don’t know. It’s like a nickname I guess?”

He did that blinking thing again and I swear he was calling me an idiot in his mind. I glared back at him and he narrowed his eyes, pointing a finger at my chest. “That’s not your name and it’s not a nickname.”

“I’m aware, Harper,” I caved irritably .

“Then go over there and tell him to stop calling you by it.”

“What?”

“You heard me.” Hands grasped my shoulders and turned me around, forcing me to face Clay who was standing at a short distance with his ever present frown on his face.

Steering me around the table, Harper hissed close to my ear.

“Lesson one here at Take No Shit Academy, don’t let people call you out your name. ”

“You call me Boss all the time.”

He gave me a flat look. “That’s obviously out of admiration. It’s different.”

I blinked at him, momentarily taken off guard by his easy complimentary admission. “Yeah.” I cleared my throat, heat snaking up it suddenly. “Obviously.”

Given a soft push, I was suddenly standing in front of Clayton Ferguson. Tall, broad, with a few tattoos of his own running up his arm. He frowned at me as he looked between my form and whatever was behind me. “You good, Atlas?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks for the food. Ox sent it?”

“Yup,” he said casually and plopped the bag into my hands. “Just call me Errand Bitch.”

I laughed nervously and peeked over my shoulder to see if maybe Harper wasn’t watching. He was. Not just watching either. He was monitoring closely as he stood there staring with his arms folded. When he saw me looking, he pointed bossily to Clay as if telling me ‘you better do it.’

I ducked my head as my stomach sloped, nerves taking over my entire abdomen as I turned back to Clay.

I didn’t know what to say, how to demand things. I’d always just taken what I was given and been happy enough with it. I had no practice with telling others what I actually wanted.

I probably would have stood there awkwardly looking at my feet forever if Clay hadn’t started to move away. And if the pointed sound of a throat clearing behind me didn’t sing through the air like a weapon.

Taking the plunge, I stepped after him, “Um, Clay?”

“Yeah, what’s up?” he asked, hands sliding into his pockets as he turned back to face me.

“Um,” I fidgeted. Looking up and away from him several times. “Speaking of calling people names… could you… You can’t call me Atlas anymore, okay? It’s not my name.”

Dark eyebrows pulled together as he surveyed me, his mouth twisting to the side as if he had to think about something. “I know that’s not your name. It’s my nickname for you.”

“Oh,” I said, ducking further. See I knew it! I told him! But when Harper’s face came into view again, it was stern, his head shaking disapprovingly. I turned quickly back to Clay. “It’s not a good nickname. Can you please find a new one?”

Again, he turned his face as if he was giving it serious thought before finally he let his features relax and shook his head. “Tell you what? I’ll think about it.”

He gave me a pat on my shoulder and apparently that was that. Something in my gut felt like this was unfinished somehow. Like I hadn’t completed the task the way Harper probably wanted me to. When I met his eyes, the feeling intensified.

I was just about to slink back over to him when Clay asked, “Who’s your friend?”

“A client of mine.”

“He got a staring problem or something?” he asked gruffly.

“No, he?—”

Too late. Clay, confrontational as ever, was already lifting his head and calling out, “Do I know you from somewhere?”

I opened my mouth to say something, ready to defend Harper more than I was ready to defend myself, when Harper’s voice beat me to it, coming out sharp and menacing. “No. But you know her name, don’t you? ”

“Yeah?”

“Then fucking use it,” Harper said, his tone not a nice one. “She’ll even spell it out since you seem to be struggling so much.”

My eyes widened. Clay’s head snapped back, his eyes slicing over to Gus in sharp slits.

Oh no! Oh no! Oh no !

Today was going so smoothly! I did not need a Clay Ferguson fight to ruin that. Not when none of his brothers were around to keep him in line.

I rushed forward to preemptively put myself between the two men, hoping to be a calming presence. But before things even escalated that far, Clay’s shoulders seemed to relax and his head lilted to one side.

“Montez?”

It was Harper’s turn to snap his head back, obviously taken by surprise at Clay knowing him by name. “Who the fuck’s asking?”

I thought for sure Clay would be offended by my client since he was offended by the wind simply blowing wrong, but no. The man actually smiled, sauntering past me with his hands motioning toward himself. “It’s Ferguson, man. Long time no see.”

I was sure Harper wouldn’t know what the heck Clay was talking about, because how could they know each other?

Well enough for Clay to call him by his middle name, even?

But to my shock, recognition quickly passed over my client’s face and a second later the two were engaged in that weird boy handshake that I guess they just knew inherently.

I felt my entire face scrunch in confusion as I watched the two men, Clay looking pleasantly surprised and Harper looking… almost sick and very apprehensive. “Clay, hey. It’s, uh, been a long time.”

“Damn right,” he nodded as he took Harper in. “What are you doing in Seaside man? ”

“Ah…” Harp trailed off, his eyes drifting over to me for a short moment as he rubbed his neck.

Help? Was he asking for my help, or was I reading that wrong?

“You stay here now?” Clay went on, and when Harper nodded he whistled. “Huh, small world. You know I heard about… well, I heard, man. I’m sorry.”

I blinked at the man beside me now that I’d ventured back to the other side of the table. Heard what, exactly?

“Shit happens,” was Harper’s only response before he speared me with another look, this one particularly puppyish.

Help. He was definitely asking for help. And after he just yelled at Clay on my behalf and got me juice, I was pretty inclined to give it to him.

“Clay, Gus has a tattoo he has to prep for, so…” I started, reverting to his preferred name. “I’ll see you later?”

Clay’s eyes moved around the booth quickly as if he was actually taking in the contents of it now that he recognized its owner. He nodded. Knocking the table twice he extended a hand across it to pound Harper’s fist.

“Yeah, of course,” he said. “See you, Fernandez. And Montez, hit me up soon. Same number. We’ll catch up.”

And then he was gone.

Silence stretched between the two of us for as long as we watched Clay disappear into the crowd.

I moved first, turning my gaze up my shoulder to look at Harper.

He was holding his jaw tight, his gaze locked somewhere far off in the distance, way beyond Clay.

Way beyond this world I think. Maybe in a memory.

I frowned, feeling sort of clueless all of a sudden.

“You know Clay Ferguson?” I asked.

“Uh, yeah,” he said. He glanced down at me in a double take, his attention probably snagging on my apprehensive face. “What?”

I straightened. “He’s a pretty hard guy to know, Harp. ”

He straightened too, stiffening. “ You know him. What’s the big deal?”

“The big deal is his family has owned half of Seaside for literal generations and you’re not even from here. You mean to tell me you just know him ?”

“What’s so hard to believe about that?” he asked in a harumph.

“How do you know him?” I asked instead of playing into his indignation.

Another awkward fidget and I swear I’d never seen him look so uncomfortable. “I knew him when I was younger. A teenager. We did summers together at camp.”

Stunned. I was stunned.

I blinked several times, because the words he was saying were not the typical ‘Gus Harper who owns a simple tattoo shop on the coast’ words. They were bigger words. Because you didn’t just ‘do summers’ with the Fergusons if you weren’t also someone of comparable status.

Which had my whole understanding of him turning upside down. It had me wondering, who the heck was Augustus Harper?