“I’ve actually been trying to send the new guy your way,” he said to me.
“Why?” I asked. I wiped at Benny’s skin and checked my work before starting back in on the line work.
“He has his ex-girlfriend's name tattooed on him,” Rox explained. “You’re good at cover-ups, right?”
Alarm bells rang in my head, but I didn’t know why. “Yeah, they’ve become my specialty. I made that mistake before, so now I want to fix it for everyone else.”
“We’ll get him to come in. I think he’s a procrastinator,” Benny explained.
I laughed and continued with my work, knowing when to change the conversation to distract Benny from the pain. Once we got to the shading, he relaxed. Rox was a champ at getting inked, so it was hilarious to me to see her big hulk of a man pretending it didn’t hurt. When I was almost done, my brother came over to inspect my work.
He and Benny shook hands. “Nice to see you again, man. My sis take care of you?”Alex asked.
Benny nodded. “She’s good at distracting you when she’s stabbing you.”
Alex laughed. “Yeah, she is.”
I wiped at Benny’s skin, admiring my work. This piece was awesome. I loved doing flowers so much, it had become my brand. I held up the mirror for him to see again. “What do you think?”
“Damn, V, it’s awesome!” Benny said.
Rox smiled. “Told you she’s great.”
I grinned back and covered his tattoo up. I took my gloves off and discarded them into the trash. “Rox knows the drill about taking care of your new ink, so listen to her.”
He smiled at Rox and kissed the back of her hand. A pink tinge crawled up the pale woman’s skin. “I always do,” he said.
“Oh my God! Please get out of here with all your love and shit,” I teased.
The couple grinned at me, and I wished them goodbye, watching them walk out the door.
I noticed Alex was standing around waiting for me to finish. That was odd since we had customers waiting. “What?” I asked.
He frowned. “I need to tell you something, and I’m really sorry to do this to you, but I have no choice.”
“Alejandro, what?” I seethed, using his full name, but my big brother flopped his mouth open and closed.
The bell on the shop door rang, and his worried gaze darted in its direction. I turned and clamped my mouth shut because I knew what he was about to say, but I had a lot of questions.
Standing in the doorway, his six-foot frame filling it, was my ex-fiancé, Seth. He wore a leather jacket, hiding the sleeve tattoos that went up both of his arms. The tattoo that used to depict my name peeked out of his v-neck t-shirt. But it wasn’t a red heart with a scroll anymore. Now it was an atrocious wolf's head. For some reason, that pissed me off even more. Even though I covered up his name as soon as he left.
I cut my gaze across at my brother. “What the fuck?”
Alex cringed, and Eddie looked up from the work he was doing on a client to mutter a swear. I wondered if they’d fought about this decision and when to tell me.
“V, I’m sorry. It’s temporary until we get another full-time artist. He’s doing us a favor,” my brother tried to explain.
I give him my middle finger in response. My ex was in the shop to help us out while we were busy, and I wanted to spit fire at him.
I never got an explanation from Seth. He straight-up ghosted me after he left. I’d heard from a friend at a shop in Kensington that he was working there now and was already shacking up with a pretty petite blonde. She didn’t say, but I was pretty sure I knew the woman was prettier than me. I would still be in debt from all the wedding cancellations had I not gotten an apology letter from his older sister with a check for his portion of the bill. I felt guilty cashing it because I knew it came from her and not him, but I needed the money.
Seth walked over to us and had a grimace on his face. Good, I’m glad this was as awkward for him as it was for me.
“You’re dead to me,” I hissed at my brother.
“V, I’m sorry. I had no choice,” he tried to argue.
“Hi, Roni,” Seth greeted, but I only stared hard at him.
“No!” I shouted and put a finger into his bony chest. “First of all, go fuck yourself gently with a chainsaw, and second of all, I’m not Roni. Not to you. Not anymore. You do your work, and I’ll do mine, but stay away from me.”
“V…” My brother pleaded for me to be civilized. But fuck that motherfucking shit.
“I deserved that,” Seth admitted, and then he went to say something else, but Olivia was at my side.
“V, your next appointment’s here,” she said with a grin.
What?
I was open right now and was about to go on my lunch break. I cast a glance at the front desk and saw a tall blonde man standing there. We locked eyes, and the smirk across his pale face made me remember a night of marathon sex last summer.
Blaise Holmstrom was standing there, grinning at me. Blaise Holmstrom was in my shop. My hockey hook-up who had ruined my pussy for all other men.
The two men next to me must have seen the wideness of my eyes. “Isn’t that—”
“My boyfriend!” I exclaimed.
What the fuck?
Suddenly, a plan formed in my head. A really stupid plan, but if I had to deal with my ex being in the shop with me, I wanted him to see all the shit he was missing. That I was perfectly fine without him and didn’t need him. To prove he hadn’t shattered my heart into a thousand pieces when he left. I just hoped Blaise was okay with this because I was about to startle the poor man.
“BABY!” I called out to Blaise. His brows knitted together, but he didn’t have time to think about it because I jumped into his arms, wrapping my arms around his neck and my legs around his trim waist. “Please, go with it. I’ll explain later,” I whispered in his ear.
His eyes showed his understanding, and his hands gripped my ass tightly while he slanted his mouth against mine like I really was his girlfriend and he was happy to see me. There was definitely a part of him that was happy to see me.
He pulled away after a long kiss, his eyes sparkling with a look that said, ‘woman, you have some explaining to do.’
“You missed me, sweets?” he asked, but it was all for show. I owed this man a beer. Maybe a whole six-pack because I felt eyes staring at the scene we were making.
I slipped off him and turned to Olivia, who was wide-eyed with confusion. “You could have told me it was just Blaise here to take me to lunch, Liv.”
“Um…” she stammered.
“We’ll be back,” I told her. I dragged Blaise out of the shop onto the busy sidewalk of South Street.
What was I doing?
Chapter Seven
BLAISE
I stared at Veronica with amusement. I had no idea what was going on, but if I got to kiss this hellcat again, I was down for that. I studied her while she stood on the sidewalk, trying to catch her breath.
She looked as good as I remembered. She wore a long-sleeved black sweater that made her tits look great, a red plaid skirt, and Docs. Like a woman who could fuck you up, and you’d like it. Her hair was different. Instead of blue at the tips, it was now red, almost matching the Bulldogs colors.