Page 74 of Take the Blame (Seaside Mergers #3)

Chapter Thirty-Eight

AUGUSTUS

Frigid.

That’s the only way I could describe the short days of December that seemed to both pass in a blink and drag on forever. It had little to do with the icy weather and a lot to do with the state of my life right now.

My parents were staying with me. It had only been a week, and the deal was still being reconsidered by Fernandez, but the fragile ecosystem we were keeping with them in my space and my emotions all over the place made each day feel like a year.

Every time I looked at them, I felt this overwhelming sense of something pressing on my heart showing me how things could have been if I’d held on a little tighter back then.

Like Alta had held onto me in that office.

Just the day before, Dad had wandered into my office, openly inspecting my work. When I noticed the light on, I stopped in the doorway.

“I remember her telling me how well you drew, but I never thought much more could come of it...” he trailed off, the look in his eye polite and appreciative. I knew he wasn’t into this kind of stuff, but it felt good to have him pay attention to it anyway.

I shrugged as I leaned against the doorjamb, crossing my arms and watching him closely. “I’m a right brain, Mar knew that. She knew me best.”

“Is that why you chose this?” he asked. “For her?”

I nodded slowly. “And because I love it. If I can do something that keeps her present in my life while also loving it, then I think that’s a win, don’t you?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “I do.”

I grinned, noticing the way he eyed my bare arms overtop his glasses. “And it’s pretty badass too.”

Huffing a laugh he shook his head quietly, his eyes wandering back to the spare machine parts in the corner. “Well, I see your ‘ bad ass’ is still experimenting. But I hope you’re not using these on people. Those wires look dangerous.”

Surprisingly, a laugh burst from me. My dad had been staying in my house, right under my nose for days and the only thing I’d been able to offer in his regard was my hospitality, yet now out of nowhere, he was pushing on a wall I didn’t even know was already cracking. And we were laughing together?

“Only the people I have locked in the basement,” I said, which won me a horrified expression. Pushing off the doorframe I joined him at the desk. “Nah, I’m only playing around with these. Can’t quite get it to stop sparking. Or jamming or falling apart completely. ”

“Hmm,” he grunted, bringing the little prototype for my newest tattoo machineI’d been working on periodically at nightup to his eye to get a closer look at the open face.

“But…” I said as I reached down and turned the key at the bottom of my desk.

Pulling out the very first completed prototypes to my official tattoo machine series, I set them on the surface in front of him.

They were boxed up even though the official models in production were much nicer.

I liked to keep the raw models as a reminder of something I’d made out of nothing.

Being able to set the boxes in front of my dad—the man who taught me everything I know—I felt something weird go through my chest. “There’s no going back with these babies. ”

Dad’s eyes lit as he took in the old tattoo machines.

They were unique in that they were self-inking.

Depending on the model, the pen could be attached to a tube that fed into a large ink well or hold up to three ink cartridges within the pen itself.

Both had their own kinks, but the ink payoffs were controlled by a squeeze pad located around the grip, making the machine more like an actual pen than any other I’d ever used before.

“You made these?” he asked.

I could tell he wanted to open it up. It was his thing, our thing, really. He’d always loved machines big and small and had passed that love down to me in turn. Which is probably why that expression on his face was so strange.

“Yeah, nothing too special. Easy designs and simple electrical,” I said.

His eyes ran over the label in the front. A little harp label I drew myself. Then his gaze went to the framed blueprints above my workstation of the three completed machines I had in production.

My dad huffed. “Simple, huh?” He leaned in, “How are you getting such large output with only?—”

“Ah, ah.” I raised a hand and blocked his view. “No cheating, old man. We don’t fraternize with competition around here. ”

He laughed. I noticed his laugh wasn’t as hearty as it used to be, but still a version of the same one I’d grown up with. When he looked at me again, it was serious. His head bobbed in a strong movement I couldn’t help but think it was in approval.

“You did good, son,” he said, then looked down at the tool in his hand. “Real good. I just wish I would’ve known.”

That weird thing in my chest from earlier, yeah, that was pride.

Stupid, childish pride like I was some kid hearing that my dad was proud of me for the first time.

It didn’t feel anything like I thought it would feel after all this time.

It hurt like a bitch, bringing a stinging surge to my eyes and replacing the overwhelming pressure around my heart.

And yet… it wasn’t totally unwelcome. Uncomfortable, but not unbearable. New, yet so old.

Right.

Now it was morning and as the pounding steps I’d been waiting out in the ball shriveling cold for got closer, my mind was spiraling around that word again.

Right.

I watched the figure jog closer to me, with a numb sense of longing. Her cheeks were rosy, her skin not losing a bit of color from the cold winter months and she was in entirely too little clothing for it to be somewhere under twenty degrees this morning as she went on her run.

She’s been running by daily.But she wasn’t just running by the shop in the mornings.

It was much more than that. She’d been messaging me and leaving me voicemails too.

Bringing me food and drawing me little notes and pictures that made me smile when I didn’t want to.

She was checking in on me both physically and mentally.

She was being a friend and a partner in all the ways that mattered and looking at her running straight for me, all I wanted to do was scoop her up in my arms.

Right .

“Oh,” she startled as she came to a stop in front of the shop door I was waiting outside of. “You’re here.”

I wasn’t surprised by her reaction. I’d been avoiding her, mainly because I was avoiding all of my feelings lately. But I wanted to see her suddenly.

Conflicting feelings peppered my brain as my first thought was to lean down and press my lips to hers, but my next was to leave her out here to freeze her ass off like she clearly wanted to in nothing but that thin top and leggings.

I did neither. Instead, my hands moved to pull my sweatshirt over my head. I handed it over with a frown intact. Still, her big eyes reacted to the movement in their normal innocent observation, following the sweatshirt and my hands as they traveled the distance between us.

She flicked her gaze quickly up to me. Her eyes scanning my none too happy expression and weighing it against the outstretched shirt? “For me?”

“Who else?” I huffed, offering the shirt higher.

She tucked her lips into her mouth and slipped her arm around the offering. And right there in front of me, she brought it up to her nose and breathed. Humming and letting the smallest smile flutter over her face as she snuggled it into her chest.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

You would think it was a strip tease the way my eyes glued to the motion. You would think it was a love confession, the way my heart fluttered around like it was a bird in a cage.

When she looked up at me again, she smiled bigger. “Thank you.”

“Sure.”

Right. Right. She was just so fucking right. What was I doing with this girl? Why was I so scared to just accept what she was offering me and be happy ?

Her eyebrows raised, her face lifting in the slightest bit of hopefulness as she noticed me staring at her like a maniac. “Do you want to talk now?”

I felt my stomach curl. She was so eager, her feet even carried her a step closer to me in her excitement, and I remembered why I was so hesitant in the first place.

All the things I wasn’t ready for.

I stepped away from her, a motion I could tell hurt her from the drop in her expression.

But I wasn’t quite where she was on this.

She’d always been way stronger than she thought herself to be.

It took strength to face your issues head on.

Successful or unsuccessful, she’d always had the courage.

Me on the other hand, I didn’t possess that courage.

When it really mattered, my courage cowered, nowhere to be seen and leaving my only choice as cowering with it.

The same thing I was doing now as big, sad eyes watched in obvious agony while I stepped away from her. “I… I’m not ready to talk yet. Not about that.”

She swallowed. I knew because I could hear it, the sound loud as it moved roughly through her throat. Her eyes moved over my face surveying me, slow and deliberate as she took in my expression. Softly, and not for the first time, she said, “I’m sorry.”

“I know, Alta,” I sighed. Because I did know.

She knew how to apologize, this girl, and when she did something wrong, she felt it.

I could tell it was eating her up inside and I didn’t want her to think I was holding anything over her head.

“I just need time, okay? Everything is so jumbled up in my head and I just need to wrap my mind around some things.”

“What things?”

I paused. I wanted to tell her. Mad or not, confused or not, she’d become the person I told things to. But it felt wrong to use her in this way when we were in this weird whatever we were stuck in.

She noticed, and her expression grew more determined. “What things, Harper? You can talk to me about whatever you want. I won’t pressure you to say more.”

I sighed. I forgot how safe she made me feel. “My parents aren’t leaving until this new deal is wrapped up.”

“Sorry.” She bit her lip worriedly and I’m not going to lie, it felt good to tell her things, even if it was just a few sentences. “Do you want me to get Ox to put them up somewhere else?”

“No, no,” I said quickly. “It was my idea, and I’m not blaming you, that’s not what I meant it’s just—it’s weird you know. Strange.”

“Strange, nice?” she asked, eyeing me from under her eyelashes.

I shrugged. “Strange, nostalgic in a way. It’s not as horrible as I thought it’d be, I guess.”

She made a noncommittal noise, careful not to lean one way or another. I peeked at her, wondering what she actually thought about it. What she thought about me and my indecision lately. “Is that bad?”

“No, Harper, it’s not.” Her soft expression touched mine, and she went on. “The heart is a funny thing, you know? It bends and it breaks and it’s sewn back together to look like new but it’s never really the same each time. Kind of like that picture you drew.”

I blinked at her, surprised that she remembered that picture from months ago and she took another step closer.

This time I didn’t move away. “If I’ve learned anything in the past few months it’s that while our past shapes us and our future moves us, sometimes it’s fear of a future looking too much like a bad past that can paralyze us.

No one ever wants to repeat their mistakes, Harper.

But the truth is, we can’t change the past and we don’t know the future, so we have to live in the right now.

We have to trust that our decisions now will set us up for a future we’ll want when it finally rolls around. ”

“How do we do that?” I asked, voice cracking .

“By doing what feels right, and trusting yourself, Harper.” She smiled sadly. “That’s all we can do.”

I lost track of how long I stared at her. I was fighting that urge again. The urge to wrap her up and never ever let go. She was the kind of thing you were supposed to never let go.

But the urge kept fighting back with me, asking me grating questions like what if she changes her mind and leaves too?

“Okay,” I said finally. Call me a hypocrite for wanting to stop her from leaving. For wanting to reach my hand out and keep her with me, even now.

But that wasn’t fair. If I wasn’t ready to give her all she wanted, I shouldn’t take advantage of what she was willing to give either. So I let her move away. Pointing to the sweatshirt in her hands.

“Put that on before you catch pneumonia again,” I ordered.

“ Yes, sir,” she smirked before slipping her head through the hole and letting the too big shirt swallow her up. When she popped her head out the other side, she noticed me looking at her and smiled.

“ Te amo ,” she added, and the unknown words sent a prickle down my neck. She’d been saying them often. Eyeing me suspiciously every time they left her mouth. And I had a suspicion…but no. I wouldn’t assume.

So I just nodded my head curtly and tried to ignore the disappointed sigh she let out before she turned and tore away.

And as the phantom feeling of her hands on me buzzed awareness all over my skin, I couldn’t help but think, there was something right between us.

But was it right enough to call it love?