Inked

by Sarah Darlington

  “You okay?” she asked, staring up at me.

  “Great, actually. I almost had one, but it didn’t happen.”

  “That’s so amazing. Um, help.”

  “Shit.” Literally. “I’ll take the baby and clean her up. You clean that up.” I made a face, dropping the wipes on the floor. Parenthood was about a million times harder than expected. But Amanda and I had been managing okay now that my mom had finally gone back to Maine. We made a good team. Actually, we made the best team.

  I carefully grabbed the little one. She wasn’t crying, so that was a plus for the moment. I’d be bawling my eyes out if I had shit my pants like she had. I took her out of the living room and straight to the kitchen sink. This was definitely a kitchen sink kind of moment. I got the water running and got her clean, right about the same moment Amanda finished cleaning up the mess in the living room. She washed her hands at the sink with me, muttering under her breath.

  “Don’t stress, baby,” I whispered to her. I kissed her shoulder. “Lou should be here soon. We can have a small break then.”

  Lou and Finn arrived a few minutes later. Right on cue, they walked in without knocking. They were still dating and came over almost every evening. They often brought us dinner and helped to watch the baby. I hardly questioned their relationship anymore. Since having the baby, they’d quickly become our best friends. It wasn’t like I was going to turn down dinner and help.

  Even though I’d completely moved in here, Lou still hadn’t left the rental. She’d taken over the payments. Every time I asked her about it, she told me not to worry about it. I think in reality, it was Finn making the payments. She seemed happy so I tried my best to stay out of her business.

  “Thank you, God,” I said when she walked in the door. The baby was clean and dry, in fresh new clothes, and I immediately plopped her into Lou’s waiting arms. “Her bottle is in the fridge. I need a small break. Amanda needs a small break. Can you all manage for fifteen minutes?”

  “Sure.”

  “We can manage for thirty,” Finn added.

  “Thank you.”

  I took Amanda’s hand in mine and led her down the hallway. I didn’t care what we did for the next thirty minutes. If we slept, if we showered, or if we fucked—I didn’t care. I just needed her to myself for a while. Babies were a lot of work. A lot of constant work. And as much as I loved the time we spent as a family of three, taking these small moments alone was also something I needed, something we both needed.

  I softly closed the door to our bedroom.

  I turned into Amanda. Catching her face in my hands, I kissed her. I breathed her in. I loved her so much, sometimes it physically made me ache. My whole world was under this roof. I was so happy that on that random Wednesday night I’d decided I needed a turtle tattoo on my ass.

  THE END

  * * *

  ~ BONUS CHAPTERS ~

  Want more NICK & AMANDA???

  Download the INKED *bonus chapters* by following this link:

  https://dl.bookfunnel.com/xi7q3aa6xu

  Many secondary characters that appeared in this book, are leading characters from some of Sarah Darlington’s other novels:

  John Michaels | Never Kiss a Rockstar

  Caleb and Emma | Never Trust a Rockstar

  Mick Jasmine | Crazed

  Finn and Lou | Marked (coming Jan. 2021)

  Keep scrolling to read the first chapter of CRAZED by Sarah Darlington ….

  AVAILABLE NOW: CRAZED

  Mick and Raven’s story! Get your copy now!

  ~ CHAPTER 1 ~

  MICK

  My ‘aha moment’—that moment in life when everything clicks into place and you suddenly realize exactly what you need in order to feel some resemblance of completion, that moment when you know you have to risk it all…well, it happened as I was nearly decapitated by a vase. A vase! A Waterford Crystal, twenty pound, 20k euro vase from Ireland that my girlfriend and I had picked up on our last vacation—that kind of vase. It came flying at my head, flung with an incredible amount of force for a one-hundred and ten-pound woman. It must have been all those sessions with her personal trainer, sessions that I paid for, that gave her such inhuman strength.

  I ducked just in time and the vase hit the wall behind me. Miraculously no crashing sound followed, only a giant thud of contact with the wall and then the floor. Wow. The vase was a really thick vase. Superb quality. Excellent craftsmanship.

  “You piece of shit, asshole!” she screamed at me.

  I’d never heard Sandra swear before. This was a first. She’d always shown me a refined, perfectly put together, proper side. Her true colors were coming out now. I almost liked this side to her better. Almost. Maybe if I hadn’t already had my previous epiphany then I might have reconsidered the break-up that I knew inevitably was about to follow this fight. Because I didn’t want the ‘wet-blanket, roll-over-and-die’ type in woman. I wanted someone who would challenge me and didn’t put up with my bullshit.

  For the first time in our relationship, Sandra was showing me more than just compliance and agreement. So for a moment, a very meniscal moment, I almost considered giving our relationship another try.

  But…Nah.

  No matter what her true personality was, I still wanted her out of my life.

  She picked up a lamp.

  “Sandra,” I said calmly, raising my hands up like she was a wild, rabid animal. “Put the lamp down. You love that lamp. You got it in Paris. None of this is the lamp’s fault.”

  “I hate you!” she screeched and hurled the lamp with all her strength.

  The lamp wasn’t as lucky as the vase had been. It collided with the floor and broke into several pieces. As I watched it shatter beside me, I realized that I’d kind of liked that lamp. The lamp didn’t deserve this. So instead of trying to consul her, I grew indifferent to her temper.

  “You know what?” I said to her, my voice sharp and direct. “Your suspicions are perfectly accurate. I have been cheating on you. On multiple occasions with multiple different women. You know why? Because I just don’t care. I don’t care about you. I don’t care about where this relationship is going. I never have, and I can’t pretend anymore. I don’t love you, and I don’t want to love you. And you know I’m never going to ask you to marry me. So why are we both wasting our time here? I think we should end this. Yeah, I think that’s the best thing we can do. So would you please go?”

  There. I said it.

  Finally.

  Two years too late, but I said it.

  She was right. I was a piece of shit asshole. But at least now I was an honest piece of shit asshole. I watched as the tears started to fall down her cheeks. Then as she began collecting her things. Then as she packed her bags. And then as she left my apartment, slamming the door as she went. She told me she’d send a company out to come collect the rest of her stuff. In reality, the rest of her stuff was my stuff. I’d paid for it all, which made it mine. But, whatever, she could have all of it. Except the vase.

  “I’m keeping the vase,” I yelled at the door a few moments too late. The door was closed, and she was already gone. I stood there in my now silent apartment, broken things all around me, still staring at the door.

  So back to my ‘aha moment.’ I realized why I sabotaged all my relationships—every single damn one of them. Because that was exactly what I always did. When things got to a point where stuff became too serious, too close to turn into forever, I inevitably did something to fuck it up. And I finally realized why I always did this.

  Raven.

  A girl from my past.

  The only girl that had any hold over me.

  The memory of my Raven, of leaving her behind all those years ago, haunted my thoughts daily, almost hourly. There was a guilt there that I never could shake. It was the deep seeded kind too. I hadn’t seen Raven since I was ten years old. Seriously, ten. Circumstance of life had separated us. She’d only been a childhood friend, but somehow this gut feel
ing inside me told me that she was always meant to be more. It was a crazy notion. But when I slept around with different women, it never felt like I was cheating on Sandra or whoever my current girlfriend at the time was, it felt like I was wronging Raven. Ridiculous, I know, because I hadn’t seen her in fifteen years. Fifteen fucking years! You’d think I would have forgotten her by now. But I had this loyalty to her and only her.

  Now it was time to do something about that loyalty.

  Or else I was doomed to forever have giant, twenty-pound vases thrown at my head.

  I didn’t know anything about current day Raven. If she still lived in our old town, on Cherry Hill Drive, in the trailer across from my mother’s lot. For all I knew Raven could be an unwed mother of four, addicted to drugs, working some dead-end job, if she was even working at all, and still living in that same damn trailer. Because that was the type of person that came from our neighborhood, the type of person that life chews up and spits back out.

  I didn’t know. I didn’t know where she might be now and to what degree of fucked-up she might be after growing up there. Either way. I needed to find her, help her, hell…marry her…I didn’t know. Something. Maybe all I really needed was closure from the wounds of my adolescence, from those formidable years before my father rescued me from that hellhole. Whatever. I had a plan now. I knew what I needed to do next. Make things right with Raven, help her, and hopefully heal something inside me in the process.

  * * *

  Three days later, and I road shotgun as my brother Nick drove us in his mint-green old-school Volkswagen Bug. We were currently in the ‘middle-of-nowhere’ Missouri—vast nothingness surrounding us. Any minute now we'd be crossing the state line into Kansas. After driving for twenty-two hours straight, only stopping for food and bathroom breaks, there were only miles left before we reached Pecan. Which meant my stomach at this point, heavy with the reality of my decision to drop everything and find Raven, felt a lot like I’d swallowed a gallon of battery acid.

  And yes, my brother’s name was Nick. My name was Mick. That coincidence happened because Dad didn’t even know I existed until I was almost ten years old. After having a fling with my mother, a few years later Dad married Pamela, my stepmom, and together they had Nickolas. Meanwhile, halfway across the country, I already existed. Nick and Mick—kind of hilarious, I guess. My real name was Mickey, actually, but I legally changed my name to Mick years ago when my father officially adopted me. I took his last name too because I wanted to scrub myself of my mother and my old life in all possible ways.

  Going back to Pecan wasn’t something I ever thought I’d want. The only time I thought I’d cross into Kansas again was at thirty-thousand feet, flying at six-hundred miles per hour, relaxing in a business class seat of a Boeing 747.

  “So why am I just now hearing about this woman?” Nick asked. “Who is she exactly?” He reached out, hitting the volume on the music, turning down the Taking Back Sunday song he had blaring.

  In the twenty-two hours since we first sat down in his car, he hadn't questioned this insane impromptu road trip once. Now with only miles left to drive he wanted answers. Typical Nick behavior. As much as he liked to act disinterested and aloof ninety-nine percent of the time, he also had this need to pry into everyone's business. To question and poke and prod—even if it meant exposing the one truth Nick desperately liked to keep hidden: he cared. He cared so damn much. It was my brother’s biggest weakness and his greatest strength.

  I opened my mouth to respond, not even sure how to explain Raven and my sudden need to find her, when Nick hit the blinker and pulled the car over. “Hold on,” he said. He parked on the side of the road.

  The Kansas state sign.

  Of course, he needed a picture with it. He’d taken one with each state sign thus far in our trip. So we both exited the car.

  Hot, suffocating wind whipped across the open plains. God, I'd forgotten how hellish this land could be in August. The sooner we could turn around and return to Maine the better.

  Nick ran up to the sign, the beanie that he always wore in place on his head, and he stood there rather awkwardly while I snapped a quick photo. Then we both hurried back to the comfort of the air conditioning. “It’s pushing one-hundred degrees outside. You going to lose the hat while we’re here?”

  “Nope,” he simply answered. That thing never left his head; it was pointless to even ask. “So tell me about Raven then,” he deflected.

  Once the car was moving again, I admitted the truth. “Raven was my best friend from birth until the day I left Pecan. I haven’t mentioned her in years because I've always felt guilty about leaving her behind in Kansas.”

  “You were ten, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You shouldn't feel guilty. Did you even have a choice when Dad came to rescue you?”

  “Maybe. Probably. I don’t know.” Yes. I’d had a choice. I knew then just as I still knew now that I could have refused to leave. I didn’t even know my father, but when he’d shown up on that random day in January fifteen years ago, I’d picked living with him over living with my mother without even blinking. Living with my mother and in that town had been that fucking bad. But Raven—I couldn’t help but wish somehow, she could have been able to come with me. I'd been rescued, as Nick put it, but she'd been left behind to suffer and fend for herself without me.

  And the guilt I had about that still consumed me to this very day.

  “I tried to write to Raven after I moved to Maine with Dad,” I admitted. “She returned each one of my letters with a big middle finger drawn on the back. She hated me for leaving her.”

  “Ouch.” Nick picked up his phone, glancing at the GPS. “Five more minutes to go,” he announced. “What if she doesn’t even remember you?”

  I sighed, running my hands through my hair. “If she doesn't remember me then I'll make her remember. And I'm taking her home with me…unless she's married.”

  “Wait. Hold the fucking front door!” Nick glanced at me sideways like I was some stranger sitting in his car. “You’re—we’re—taking her home with us? Are you insane? You haven’t seen or spoken to this random woman in fifteen years and you want to take her home with us? What are we going pull up in front of her trailer—in the trailer park—and you yell out the window hey baby hop in? Seriously, Mick, are you fucking with me right now?”

  “I’m not fucking with you,” I told him, and I cleared my throat for like fifteenth damn time today.

  It didn’t happen often, but when I was anxious my throat tended to grow extra thick and scratchy. Something I blamed on my mother. My voice, even when I wasn’t anxious, always had a gritty tone, like a smoker’s, though I’d never smoked one cigarette in my life. But my mother was a ‘two pack a day’ sort of woman, with no regard to the damage smoking around an infant might do, and so I had a permanent husk to my voice—a husk that magnified when mixed with stress. And right now I was more anxious than I’d been in my whole damn life.

  “Oh my God,” Nick complained. “You’re wicked crazy. This is what a mental breakdown looks like. Sandra broke up with you and now you’ve lost your damn mind.”

  “I broke up with Sandra, not the other way around. And don’t miss the exit,” I told him, nodding at the fast-approaching Pecan sign.

  He groaned, putting on his blinker and taking the exit.

  Fuck.

  I might have been calm on the outside. But on the inside my heart raced liked I’d just ran a marathon. Meanwhile, Nick was having a mini panic attack of his own—complaining and ranting as he drove. We passed through the one and only stop light in Pecan and turned into the Cherry Hill Trailer Park.

  Everything looked almost familiar…yet somehow vastly different.

  “Which trailer is it?” Nick asked.

  “Okay, slow down, let me think.”

  Goosebumps prickled over my skin. It was entirely too eerie being here again—surreal, and not in a good way.

  All the trailers wer
e copies of one another, the only thing differentiating them was the random junk piling around the outside of each. It seemed no one had enough room inside their homes to keep their stuff inside their homes.

  “So tell me when to stop—” Nick started to say.

  “Stop!”

  This was it. Raven’s trailer. Well…her mother’s trailer.

  For better or worse, here I was.

  * * *

  Read CRAZED now!

  Available for purchase on Amazon or read for *FREE* in Kindle Unlimited.

  ALSO BY SARAH DARLINGTON

  NEVER TRUST Series

  Never Trust a Rockstar

  Never Kiss a Rockstar

  Never Love a Rockstar

  Never Leave a Rockstar

  Kill Devil Hills Series

  Kill Devil Hills

  Changing Tides

  Pulled Under

  Adrift

  Kill Devil Ink Series

  Crazed

  Inked

  Marked

  Standalones

  He Belongs with Me

  Leo Maddox

  But First, Coffee

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Sarah Darlington was born in Colorado and grew up all over the United States. These days, she calls Virginia home, where she lives with her husband, two kids, and large dog. The best word to describe Sarah is ‘creative.’ She’s passionate about designing, crafting, and photography. But most of all... she loves creating stories through her writing.

  Her romance books are sexy and heart-gripping at their core, guaranteed to make you swoon. Any of them can be read as a stand-alone, but all are connected within the same world.