“I don’t believe in falling in love, Cassandra.” A pause, fraught and significant. “I ain’t fallen in love with you.”
Another pause. I tried to digest what he was saying. “Ink…” a broken whisper.
“I believe love grows. It’s built. It ain’t a fuckin’ accident. What is it my cousin’s teenage kids say all the time? I caught feelings for you. That was an accident. I didn’t mean for that shit to happen. Feelings come and go, though. I coulda stayed shut down, coulda taken the progress you helped me make and walked. I got offers from tattoo parlors all over the world. I could move to Tahiti and do tattoos full-time. Anywhere. I don’t gotta be here.” A shake of his head. “But I am here. I’m with you. I’m facin’ my shit and saying the hard things, the hard fuckin’ truths, scared out of my mind you won’t get it, you won’t agree. Because I choose—I choose—to build a love with you. To grow a love with you.”
“Fucking hell, Ink.” The world was blurred through a screen of tears.
“All that bein’ said, babe.” Big rough fingers brushed my tears away. “What do you want?”
I shook my head. “I don’t fucking know!”
“I ain’t askin’ you to have all the answers now, Cass. I’m just asking you to be willing to actually look.”
My leg ached. Throbbed. Burned.
So did my heart.
I felt anger. Unreasoning anger, unrealistic, irrational. At him. At myself. At life. At god or fate, or luck. At Rick. At the lorry driver who ran the light. At him. At Ink. Because he was saying shit that scared me into the kind of irrational fear that became anger.
I was ready for hot sex, with feelings.
I was okay having caught some feelings for this man.
That’s fine.
But love?
I wasn’t ready for love. It’s too soon for love. Because love requires commitment. Honesty. Vulnerability…
God, all the shit he said.
I was not ready for that.
I wanted to be.
I wanted him.
If I was going to have that, I wanted it with him.
But I was too scared. Too paralyzed by fear of…
See, I can’t go there. My head shuts down. What am I so afraid of? I can’t even face that.
So, instead of handling it like a grown-up, like a mature woman, I watched myself act like an idiot child. Like a hormonal teenager.
Lashing out. At Ink. The one who least deserved it.
“Go to hell, Ink.”
I heard the words. And I immediately realized the stupidity in them, the unfairness in them. I heard the bitterness in my own voice. Heard the irrational panic, felt it, knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he saw it and heard it, too.
He understood exactly what was going on with me.
He probably knew this is how I’d react.
Damned insightful motherfucker.
He knew.
And he still had the balls to speak his truth.
Instead of taking a moment—a rational, quiet moment—my sad, confused broken heart had taken over, and I was unable to stop myself from acting the way I was acting. And, believe me, I tried. I tried to tell myself to turn around and say sorry and kiss him and tell him I’d figure it out. I wanted to promise him that I would do what I needed to do, because I wanted to grow a love with him, too.
But I didn’t do any of that.
I just couldn’t.
My brain knew better. My body sure as hell knew better.
But my heart? No way.
My heart told me to get off the bed, go down the ladder, and out the door.
Ink
I watched her leave, again, and my heart broke.
Not for me.
For her.
I’d known, deep down, that she wasn’t going to take my honesty well, yet I still said what was in my heart.
I’m upset and hurt.
I’m hurting for me.
Because that—that was rejection.
I slid out of bed, knowing I couldn’t sleep anymore.
I had to get out of this place for a bit.
I wasn’t sure where I was going. My feet wanted to take me to where I knew she was, but I couldn’t do that. She had to figure herself out. I couldn’t do it for her. I knew I was right. I knew she was avoiding figuring herself out, and if I let her use me as a distraction, she never would. And it would fester. And, eventually, she’d resent me.
I knew, deep in my heart, that I had to put the truth out there, and accept the consequences.
And consequences can really suck.
A few minutes later I found myself at the door of the apartment building where Juneau and Remington lived. I knew it was late but I pressed the buzzer anyway.
A pause.
“It’s one thirty in the goddamn morning.” I heard Remington’s sleepy, irritated growl. “Who the fuck is it and what the fuck do you want?”
“Sorry, Rem,” I murmured. “It’s Ink. I—”
“Shit, sorry brother,” he cut in the moment he heard my voice. “Come on up.”
The door buzzed and I padded up the stairs to the third floor, and saw Juneau standing in their open apartment door, waiting for me. She was dressed in a short black silk robe. Barely covering anything. But she was my cousin, and I wasn’t bothered by it in the slightest.
I leaned down to hug her. “June Bug.”
She breathed me in, rubbed my back. “Ink.” She pulled back, grabbed my hand, and led me inside. She closed the door and pushed me toward the couch. “What’s wrong?”
Rem was leaning a shoulder against the hallway wall, watching, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers—all muscle and tattoos, a ripped IG model/trainer physique covered in gorgeous ink. “Sorry about the shitty welcome, Ink. Don’t like getting woke up.”
I waved at him, dismissing his apology. “I wouldn’t be here like this but I’m just…”
Juneau was bustling in the kitchen. Pulling something out of the fridge, stuffing it into the microwave, beeping it into humming life, waiting—when it dinged, she brought me a glass container full of my aunt’s incredible elk stew. “Here. Talk and eat.”
I laughed. “You know me too well, June Bug.” I took a few bites, savoring the flavors. “Thanks, cuz.”
A few more bites.
Juneau sighed. “It’s Lucas’s girlfriend’s daughter, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Cassie.”
Juneau sat beside me, tugging futilely at the hem of her stupid little robe. “Did she hurt you?”
I laughed, bitterly. “It’s complicated.”
“If she hurt you, I’ll kill her. You know I’m not a violent person, but you’ve been through enough.”
I reached up behind me and grabbed the knitted throw blanket off the back of the couch and spread it over Juneau’s lap. “I must’ve interrupted somethin’,” I muttered, “you dressed like that.”
She ducked her head, but was grinning like a fox leaving an unguarded henhouse. “You didn’t interrupt anything.”
“Nah,” Remington said. Then chuckled. “We were between rounds.”
Juneau threw a pillow at him. “Remington Badd! Don’t be gross.”
I just laughed. “You’re in love. It ain’t gross. You’re my cousin, so I don’t need details, but it don’t bother me. Just glad I didn’t interrupt you in the middle of something.”