A Twist of Fate

by Christine Michelle

  I finished up the quick line drawing of a heart on the woman’s thigh and quickly sent her on her way. She tried to exchange numbers with me, but I wasn’t interested. Not that she got the hint because she grabbed one of my cards from the front before she finally left the studio. Gretchen had been standing there then. She gave me one of her disapproving glares, shook her head, and then went back to playing her little video game. Fucking hell! I couldn’t win with any women, it seemed.

  “Did you get in touch with Erin?” Zeke asked as he came strolling through the shop a little while later.

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “And?”

  “And she just wanted to call me a fucking idiot and blast me for shit.” The grin on Zeke’s face told me she had already let him in on whatever she had been wanting to call me for. “She told you?” I asked even though I didn’t need to. He nodded.

  “Sure did, and I have to tell you, I agree. You’re a fucking idiot. I don’t think it’s for the same reason your sister thinks so though. Ever and Deck are meant to be. I can see that something special click into place whenever they get near each other. It’s hard to compete with that level of chemistry or familiarity or whatever the hell it is that’s driving those two.”

  “So why the hell do you think I’m a fucking idiot then?”

  “Let me count the ways…” Sully sing-songed from his space as he cleaned up after his last client.

  “I told you, there was someone else here who had her eye on you, but you were too hung up in the wrong places to notice.” My brows rose in question as he tipped his head toward the front.

  “You’re wrong. I saw her leave last night with Ever’s brother.”

  “Yeah, that’s why you’re a fuckin’ idiot. You let that shit happen right under your nose and ended up going home with a stage five ink-slut clinger instead,” Sully explained as he leaned over the half-wall that separated our stations.

  “What the fuck? You too? I thought for sure G was into you.”

  Sully laughed. “As into me as a sister is to a brother, dipshit. Most days she’s too busy staring at your excellence to bother with the rest of the peasants in this place.”

  “Most days, huh?”

  “Yeah, today being the exception. She’s been glued to her phone all day, and I can tell every time she gets a text because her whole face lights up like I’ve never seen it before.” He reached over and swatted my shoulder. “Snooze you lose! Might want to learn that lesson quick smart before the next woman you end up interested in is taken too.”

  What the fuck was going on? Gretchen hadn’t even been on my radar in that way before now, and just those words coming from his mouth made me wonder what the hell was wrong with me that all the women in the shop were suddenly so interested in the Aces High assholes rather than the man right here in front of them day in and day out?

  When I was done with my day, I was still pissed about the fact that the women in the shop were losing their shit over the motorcycle bad boys instead of me. Yeah, that sounds egotistical as fuck, and no that thought didn’t bother me one fucking bit. Instead, I decided to drown my sorrows in pussy I knew wouldn’t have any problem climbing on the back of my Harley, or on my lap, for that matter. I called up Shelly Andrews and told her to meet me at the shop while I cleaned up my space and waited. Ever and Gretchen were both still hanging around, talking up by the front desk, when Shelly came bouncing in looking like someone I was going to have to pay for her time. Fuck me. Both girls slid their gazes from Shelly back to me and didn’t bother saying a word. I should have remembered Shelly was never subtle.

  “You ladies can look, but he’s all mine tonight,” Shelly informed them both, making me cringe inwardly as I snagged my leather jacket from the hook and slipped into it, as if it could shield me from the embarrassing situation playing out.

  “Kane is my shop brother,” Ever declared with a look of disgust that curled her lip up in an unflattering way.

  Gretchen just shrugged her shoulders and wouldn’t look me in the eye. “I have a date later,” she mumbled.

  “Oh my God! With who?” Ever asked excitedly.

  “Um,” Gretchen hissed out quickly. “It’s no one, just, well, I don’t want to talk about it just yet.”

  “Oh, okay.” Ever sounded a bit disappointed, but didn’t get to say anymore because Shelly decided I’d paid the two of them enough attention and she ran and jumped on me, slamming into my chest so hard I thought she was going to knock us both out. Instead, reflexes kicked in as I took a step back with my left foot to brace and reached around, grabbing hold of her ass. And it was her ass I was holding because her tiny little skirt had ridden up with the motion and her efforts to climb me right there in front of the other women. Mental note – Shelly is on my ‘do not call’ list from here on out. Staking a claim in my workplace was not fucking cool at all.

  “Ew, gross!” Ever called out as she basically ran for the door.

  “This is where we work,” Gretchen growled in my general direction. I couldn’t see her face because Shelly’s tits were blocking my view of anything beyond Shelly’s tits.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, but I don’t think she heard me since the bell over the door tinkled in the background, indicating someone else had gone out the door too. I set Shelly on her feet and glanced around. They had all left. “What the fuck was that about?”

  Shelly ran her perfectly manicured, hot pink fingernails down my chest as she poked her lip out in a mock pout. “It’s been forever since you called me. I just got excited. Then, I showed up here and you’re too busy staring at those bitches to even say hello.”

  “Those bitches?” The question didn’t quite roll off my tongue smoothly. The words erupted from my throat in a dangerously low growl instead. Shelly simply shrugged her shoulders. “Those bitches are women that I work with and respect.”

  “So?” She questioned, popping a hip out and getting ready to unleash attitude.

  “You know what?” I asked. Her eyes rounded out, hearing the seriousness in my tone. “I don’t think this was such a good idea after all.”

  “What? Wait! No. I ditched my date to come running when you called tonight. You owe me a good time, Kane.”

  “I don’t owe you shit, especially after acting the way you did. This is where I work. Those were my coworkers.”

  She shrugged again. “You work in a fucking tattoo shop not a nunnery,” she hissed. “I’m sure they’ve seen worse.”

  I would really be doing the world a favor if I strangled this bitch and dumped the body somewhere. Swear to all that is fucking holy, someone needed to save this woman from herself, but more importantly, they needed to save her from me. “Get out!”

  “W-what?” She stammered.

  “You insult my coworkers, have no respect for my place of work, and you think I’m still going to be interested in doing shit with you? Seriously? Maybe you need to rethink the fucking attitude. I already invited you here. I invited you, which means you had nothing to prove to anyone.”

  “Sure looked like I had something to prove to you,” she hissed.

  “Well, you proved it.” She grinned at me, obviously missing the point where I was still dismissing her. “You proved that I made a huge fucking mistake tonight. Now, go!” I ordered her with a finger pointing angrily to the door of the shop.

  “Fine, but don’t call me next time you’re lonely,” she insisted.

  “Not a problem. I already lost your number,” I told her. Normally, I wasn’t such a dick, but Gretchen had been right when she said, ‘This is where we work’. The display Shelly made had been completely inappropriate. I waited a good fifteen minutes for Shelly to clear the fuck out and away from the shop before I left for the night. Instead of going home to pound away my own issues in someone else’s body, I ended up going home alone to sulk in the dark of my apartment. Even sitting there in the dark with no one for company but my own miserable self, it started to finally dawn on me why I’d been so restless lat
ely. This life, the one where I just called a hook up periodically, was getting old. The problem was, I think I’d kept the people who might have been interested in more with me waiting on the sidelines too long as I worked through my own shit. That left me exactly where I was, alone in the dark.

  Over the next couple of weeks, Shelly was a long-forgotten memory, as was the red-head I’d hooked up with before her. Though, it was weird because I could have sworn I’d seen her around here and there when I’d never noticed her in our town before. I shrugged it off, because let’s be honest, it didn’t matter. What did matter was that every time that asshole – okay, he wasn’t really an asshole, but I was still thinking of him as one – came around to take Ever out, my gut took a hit and I ended up going to find someone to take the edge off and the hurt away. First it was Nicole, then Sandy, and Melanie, and, well, there were a couple more. I kept trying, and it never worked. Not a single one of them could take my mind off what I thought I was losing out on.

  The worst part was, it wasn’t just seeing Ever ride off into the sunset on the back of her new man’s Harley that bothered me. I noticed Gretchen slinking off into the shadows out the back door of Permanent Marks more than a few times when she didn’t think Ever was around, and it was always followed by the distinct sound of a certain someone’s pickup truck or bike. Yeah, I knew them both now, because I stood watch as it happened every time.

  We were three weeks into this little game that only I knew the three of us were playing when Gretchen finally called me on my shit. “You need to knock it off!” She hissed at me as I sat in the breakroom trying to talk Tammy into coming over so I could take her to my place for a little therapy session.

  “Knock what off, exactly?” I asked as I hung up on Tammy, who politely declined my invitation, telling me she was seeing someone now and would no longer be available for hookups. I was removing her number from my phone when Gretchen tore it from my fingers and tossed it on the couch opposite of the one I was perched on the edge of. “What the fuck?”

  “You need to knock your shit off. I know you had it bad for Ever and she never noticed, because you never manned up and told her, but bringing every floozy in Charleston to work to flaunt them in front of the rest of us before you go have your little fuck fests is getting tiresome!” Her words were shouted at me through gritted teeth as she poked her pointer finger in the air as if she were trying to bury it through my chest and inflict actual harm. “We’re tired of dealing with your messes!”

  “My messes?” I asked her, not knowing what the fuck she was talking about. She huffed and rolled her eyes as her left hand perched on her hip.

  “Yes, idiot! Your messes. Like Sandy, who came here crying after she realized all you wanted was sex. You kicked her out of your apartment right after you finished with her in your bed.”

  “How the hell do you know that?” I had a sick feeling in my stomach as Gretchen rolled her eyes at me again and continued jabbing her right finger at the air in front of me. Yeah, I definitely wasn’t getting any closer. That finger was out for blood.

  “I know that because she came here blubbering, asking me if I knew what she did wrong. Then, she gave me a play-by-play of your night that I very much did not want to hear at all before the red head came back and overheard her. No worries about Sandy anymore though, the red head made sure she’d never darken your doorstep again. She laid her claim and told her the reason you kicked her out so quick was that you came to your senses and realized she was it for you.”

  “Wait, what red head? What are you even talking about?”

  “The red head who came in for a tattoo a few weeks back, left without a tattoo, but on the back of your bike. She’s been coming around, harassing the staff, and I’m pretty sure keeping tabs on your every move. You might want to check in on all of your one-night stands and make sure they’re all doing okay. I’m not so sure she isn’t quietly taking out the competition.”

  “Are you fucking serious right now?”

  “I’m not making it up!”

  “Why the fuck wouldn’t anyone tell me this has been going on?”

  “When were we supposed to do that? While you had a client in the chair, or when you were popping the next ink groupie on your bike to take them back to your place?” She laughed a sad a little sound then. “Maybe you need to take a clue from the club guys. They think of their bikes as a sacred space. The only women who get a ride are family or the woman they’re claiming.”

  “Yeah, so you’re family or claimed now? Funny, I don’t remember hearing Ever welcoming you to her family – the one she was born to, or the MC.”

  Gretchen stepped back as if I had actually physically attacked her. “There’s nothing,” she started to say. “We’re not talking about me,” is what she settled on instead of the denial I was about to call her out for.

  “Yeah?” I questioned. My anger getting the better of me. “Have you considered how much it will devastate her to know you’ve been sneaking around behind her back with her brother?”

  “I,” she hesitated, biting her lip. “It’s not like that. You don’t understand.”

  “Hmm,” the noise settled deep in my throat, resonating there as I narrowed my angry eyes on her. “Maybe you don’t understand either. Maybe you should mind your own business if you don’t want someone all up in your bad decisions too, huh?”

  She turned to leave then, but didn’t get to the hallway before she spun back around angrily. “I’m so disappointed in you, Kane! The thing is, my choices are kept in the dark. Yours are constantly showing up at the shop to torment the rest of us. Keep your ink groupies out of the shop, and we won’t have to say anything else to one another outside of scheduling questions.”

  “Gretchen?” I called as she turned, swiping at the tears that were falling down her face. She ignored me, shoulders so stiff they were almost to her adorable little elven ears as she huffed and ignored me. I felt bad, because she was right. I was being an ass and dragging my dirty laundry through my place of work and letting the rest of the staff clean up messes for me. Granted, I didn’t know I had messes spilling over here when I wasn’t around, until now. It was something that wouldn’t be happening again, now that I was aware. I just hoped Gretchen knew what she was doing, because I hadn’t been kidding when I asked her how she thought Ever would feel about the fact that she was sneaking around with her brother, a man who was persona-non-grata to Ever at the moment.

  Chapter 3

  Softly Spoken Secrets

  Gretchen

  I didn’t see Toby for a few days after my confrontation with Kane because he had been on a club run to Cedar Falls, West Virginia. That was apparently where the mother chapter of their club was. The guilt over what Kane had said to me had been eating me alive ever since though, and I’d been ignoring Toby’s calls and texts while he was gone as a result.

  One look out the shop window told me there would be no more avoiding him. Damn it. I glanced around, guilt swimming heavy in my stomach, thanking God that Ever wasn’t around today to see this. Then again, I guess he would know that since he was her brother. He seemed pretty in tune with her schedule even though they were still barely talking. I moved toward the door after shutting down my work for the day. “What are you doing here?” I asked as I stepped outside of the studio.

  “I came to see why in the hell you have me on ignore.” The anger in the air surrounding him was palpable. My shoulders drooped with the weight of what had been eating at me.

  “Can we go somewhere and talk?”

  He tipped his chin up at me, turned his back and moved to his motorcycle. Watching him throw his leg over and settle in was just as sexy as it always was, if it weren’t for the damn lead ball of guilt weighing me down. He held out the extra helmet he carried around for me and I took it, secured the thing that made me feel as though I had a bowling ball on my head, and then I hopped up on the foot peg to try to toss my leg over just as gracefully as Toby had done. It never worked out for me tho
ugh. Instead, I ended up fumbling and almost falling off – again. I felt, more than saw, Toby’s chest moving as he chuckled. I’d be mad if he hadn’t also caught me and scooted my ass where it needed to be on the seat, tucked up just behind him.

  We didn’t head to the clubhouse or the place I had been staying in, which was no more than a glorified hotel room. I’d been having roommate issues since my sister left to go find herself. She had travelled with a rock band, taking photos for them for a while. She was due to come back soon, which was great, but while she was away I’d had three roommates – all of whom failed to pay their portion of rent on time. Eventually, I had to rent a storage locker and an efficiency style apartment for myself. None of that mattered in the moment though, because instead of going to one of those places, Toby took me to the little fishing shack he had purchased.

  He showed it to me the last time we went out, just before he left town. It really was just a little one bedroom shack on the Ashley River toward the upper end of North Charleston. He got the two acre tract for a steal, or so he claimed, because he helped the owner of the plantation it resided on at some point. When we got there, he hopped off the bike and helped me off and out of my helmet.

  “I’m going to build a house here someday,” he started as he turned to take in the setting sun that cast a reddish-orange glow on the brackish waters of the river.

  “I can see you doing that,” I countered as I stood there taking it all in and imagining the house he would build here.

  Toby pointed to the west of where the shack was built, but back a little further from the water too. Right over there is where it’s going to go. It’ll be two stories, but built up higher on stilts to account for the possibility of flooding or storm surges that might make it this far inland.” He was always thinking ahead. It’s one of the things I had begun to love about him. “The porch will wrap around the entire house, and the ceiling of the porch will be Haint Blue.”