by Tess Oliver
“To my dear loves, Richard and Alexander, when this is being read, I will be with you already, and I confess, knowing that makes death come much easier. We’ll talk when I get there. Much to discuss.” A laugh spurted from my lips. I remembered writing those words and the two of us had had a good laugh over them. “And to my amazing granddaughter, Diana—” Nix’s sister sniffled loudly on the chair in front of me. I paused for her to compose herself. I knew Nana had wanted her to hear every word. “You helped fill a void left behind when your father died. You were my closest, dearest friend, and even though you had no good role model for motherhood, you are so perfect at it, and Jamie and Alec are wonderful. And speaking of role models— Katherine, if you actually showed up for my funeral then maybe you aren’t as terrible as I thought.” I spurted the words out, and I was sure I saw the woman with the big black hat fidget. I moved on quickly. “You did, after all, provide me with two amazing grandchildren, and for that, I thank you. Your loss was my gain.”
“And now for the boys. Even though, by blood, I only had one true grandson, who I adore with all my heart, in reality, I was blessed with three grandsons.” I took another breath. “Dray, my sweet, lovely, all too vulnerable, Dray. And I know that you’ll cringe at those adjectives, but those are the words that come to mind when I think of you. My only true regret in life was that I didn’t do more to help you. I’m sorry, sweet Dray, for that. But you know how much I loved you and that gives me some comfort.” There had been laughter a few seconds before and now tissues were being dragged back out. I peered across the heads. Cassie was hugging Dray. He looked completely shaken, something totally out of character for Dray. I had to compose myself or I would never finish. “And Jimmy, or Clutch, as everyone calls you only I’ve never figured out why, you never needed me quite as much. You were born taking care of yourself. I always marveled at how strong and independent you were. I know you had no choice. I just remember how upset you were the day your father sent Barrett off to work on one of those dangerous crab boats. You pretended to be so mad at your brother for getting in trouble, but deep down, I knew you were sick with worry for him. I only hope your parents realize what an amazing and resilient person you are. Although, I fear they do not.” Taylor was pressed tightly against Clutch’s side. He’d kept his dark sunglasses on the entire day. I knew there were tears underneath, but I was just as glad not to see them now. “And Alex, the light of my life. Without you, I never would have recovered from your father’s death. As far as I’m concerned, you can do no wrong. You are my light.” I willed myself to look up at Nix. He was standing with Dray and Cassie and looking as lonely and sad as I’d ever seen him.
I folded the paper. There was a mixture of sorrow, humor and even a bit of humiliation in the faces around me. Which, it seemed, was exactly how Nana had planned it.
While friends and family drifted back to their cars, I stood with our friends as Nix walked his mother back to the taxi. They spoke for a few minutes and he gave her a brief hug before she climbed back into the cab. “She makes my mom look like fucking Mary Poppins,” Dray commented as we watched Nix shut the door.
The pain on Nix’s face was hard to look at as he trudged back toward us. He’d been so busy these past few days, I realized we’d hardly spoken and I missed him. I headed toward him, and his arms went out so I could tuck myself against him.
He pressed his mouth to my ear. “I love you, Scotlyn.” They were words that comforted me and terrified me at the same time. I’d found someone who I cared so deeply for, my world would come apart if I ever lost him.
Chapter 3
Nix
It had been a long day, and I was glad to be done with my last tattoo. The shop had been crazy busy, so busy that I’d hired another full-time tattoo artist. She called herself Stormy, and her artwork just blew me away. I couldn’t quite tell what Cassie thought of her yet. Cass could be standoffish until she figured a person out. Stormy, like her name, tended to walk in every morning like a tempest, loud, wild and wanting attention. I didn’t mind, but I could tell Cassie wasn’t thrilled. The fact that Dray had stupidly, but not uncharacteristically, made a comment about Stormy’s smoking hot body probably hadn’t helped.
Cassie sneezed as I stepped out to the front.
“Bless you. Are you getting sick?” I asked.
She shook her head and then leaned over to make sure Stormy was out of earshot. “It’s her darn perfume.” She wiped her nose with a tissue. “She must bathe in the stuff.”
“I guess it’s a little overwhelming.”
“You think?”
“I’ll mention it to her. Look, Cass, she’s doing great work, and she brought in her own string of regular clients. I was super lucky to get her in the shop.” I leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Just like I was super duper lucky, not once, but twice, to hire you for the shop.”
“God, your flattery is so shallow and see through. Super duper.” She rolled her eyes behind her big glasses. “Dray is coming by to pick me up after he gets done at the gym. I can close up if you want to get out of here.”
“Yeah, that’d be cool. I think Stormy is almost done back there. Scotlyn and I haven’t really gone out since Nana died.” I leaned on the counter. “Hey, Cass, has Scotlyn said anything to you about—” I stopped. The proposal had been stuck in my head since that night. Diana’s call had wiped it away, but I’d hoped that Scotlyn would say something about it. She hadn’t. “Nevermind.”
“What?” she asked incredulously. “You can’t start a conversation like that and not finish. I knew something was eating at you. Out with it.” She stared up at me expectantly.
“On the night that we got the call about Nana, I had just proposed to Scotlyn.”
Her hand flew to her mouth as a tiny squeal of joy shot out. She lifted her arms to give me a congratulatory hug, but I stopped her. “I mean just proposed. I popped the question as the phone rang.”
She seemed to comprehend what I was saying. “You mean she never had time to answer?”
I shook my head. “And, of course, that was it. We were both so devastated by the call, we never brought it up again.”
“But that’s not what’s bothering you.” Cassie knew me so well it was almost scary.
“Her reaction as I showed her the ring—” I shook my head. “She looked kind of shocked.”
“Well, that’s normal, I think. I mean, if Dray put a ring in front of me, I’d probably faint.”
“Yeah, I guess. But it wasn’t a good ‘oh my god I can’t believe it’ shock. It was pretty fucking disappointing, and then the call came and— and it just seemed that was the final blow to the whole idea. I mean, it’s not exactly the kind of proposal a girl dreams about.”
She reached forward and patted my arm. “Scotlyn was really broken up about losing Nana. And between work and school and homework, she’s so busy. Why don’t you call her right now and ask her on a date. Then, if it feels right, you can bring up the proposal again.” She smiled at me. “Nix, when you walk into the room, I swear Scottie’s feet float up off the ground. She is absolutely bonkers in love with you. You are stressing about nothing.”
I hugged her. “Thanks, Cass. I think I’ll call her right now.” I headed around the corner and crashed right into Stormy. Or rather, she crashed into me…again. She tossed her head of red curls back and laughed but managed to stay pressed against me in the interval.
“Oops! That is the third damn time I’ve barreled into you this week.”
I stepped back because she didn’t seem inclined to.
“I never hear you coming. It’s almost as if you float around with little wings on the backs of your shoes.” She sidled past me. I glanced back at Cassie. Another eye roll. But Cass was right— too much perfume. I headed into my small, cluttered office and sat at my desk. I stared down at my phone a second. What I hadn’t mentioned to Cassie was that since the proposal, it seemed that Scotlyn was pulling away from me some. When we’d met, Scotlyn and I had f
ormed a deep connection almost instantly. And that connection had been unbreakable until now. She spent most of her spare time poring over her textbooks and doing homework. I knew she wanted to excel in school, and I was proud as hell of her, but lately, it seemed the work was an excuse not to spend time with me. At first, I blamed it on the shock of losing Nana. We’d both experienced our share of horrible loss, but hers had come all at once in a terrifying accident that had left her in such despair, she’d lost her ability to speak. The years that followed were almost as bad. When she was only sixteen, she ran away from an awful aunt, her only remaining family, and lived on the streets before falling under the care of a controlling man who was obsessed with keeping her as his possession. She’d come remarkably far and, with a good deal of therapy, she’d found her voice again. But now, I was convinced there was something else going on, and it bothered me plenty.
I picked up the phone and felt like a young kid making his first call to a girl. “Hey, baby, what are you doing?”
“I’m just heading to the campus library.” Car motors and other people’s conversations rumbled through the phone. “What’s up?”
“Nothing much.” I picked up the hole punch off my desk and squeezed it in my hand like one of those rubbery stress relievers. The tiny compartment on the bottom popped open and hundreds of paper dots covered my desk. “I was thinking of making some reservations at that little Italian restaurant you like so much. What do you say? You, me, red wine and some extremely mind-blowing sex afterwards.”
A horn blasted through the phone, and I pulled it away from my ear for a second. “Sorry, everybody is in a hurry to get out of here tonight. Sweetie, can I get a rain check on dinner? I’m meeting my study group at the library. We’re exchanging notes for finals.”
I started flicking the paper dots off my desk with my finger. “I’ve got to work all day Saturday. Why don’t you study then?” I wasn’t sure what I hated more— that she couldn’t make time for me or that I sounded like a complete ass begging for some attention.
“Cassie, Taylor and I are driving out to see Finley and Rett at their Sweet Haven Rescue Barn on Saturday. Cassie is taking pictures for a magazine article to drum up interest and donations.”
I swept my hand through the pile of dots, and they fluttered across the room. “Great. I guess I’ll talk to you later.”
“Are you mad?”
“Nope,” I said sharply, assuring her that I was. “I’ll find something to do. Be careful walking through the parking lot tonight. Bye.”
“I won’t be too late,” she blurted just before I hung up.
Dray was standing at the counter as I walked back out.
“Hey, bud, what’s up?” Dray absently dragged his finger across the handmade earrings in Cassie’s display, and she promptly slapped his hand away.
She didn’t have to look long at me to know how her suggestion had gone. “No date, huh?”
Dray’s attention snapped my way. “Date? With who?”
“Who the fuck do you think?” Dray could get on my nerves fast when I was in a bad mood. And I was definitely that.
“Sorry, jeez, touchy tattoo artist.” He clapped his hands together once. “But I’ve got good news. Tank’s Gym is hosting an amateur fight this Saturday night. Another club on the other side of the valley was supposed to host, but they pulled out. I let Rett know. You should talk Clutch into coming. Maybe he can pull himself away from work for two seconds and have a little fun.”
“Not sure if watching two guys pound each other is on the top of my fun list right now.”
His mouth pulled tight. “Yeah, if you’re going to be in this pissant mood on Saturday, then you should just stay home.”
Cassie looked at both of us. “It’s like watching two old curmudgeons trying to outgrump each other.” She sighed. “Look, Nix, you’re reading too much into all of this.”
“Into what?” Dray asked, never knowing when to shut up.
“Nothing,” Cassie cut him short. “Take me home, Dray. I’ll make you an omelet.”
“With cheddar cheese?” His mood was already lighter, but mine grew darker by the minute.
Cassie rolled her eyes. “Yes, with cheddar. We’ll see if we can’t get those arteries nice and clogged before you hit forty.” She grabbed her sweater from the hook and glanced back at me. “Wasn’t your sweatshirt on this hook earlier?”
“Yeah.” I glanced around. “I must have moved it somewhere.”
Dray raised his fist for a bump. “We cool?”
“Yeah, and I’ll think about Saturday.”
They walked out. I went into the back room to see if Stormy was close to finishing her last tattoo. She was hunched over the guy’s leg in my sweatshirt. She had the extra long sleeves pushed up high over her elbows, displaying the vast array of tattoos that covered her right arm.
She smiled back at me. “Hey, boss, almost done here.”
“Great, I’m just going to clean up while you finish.”
I walked past her.
“I hope you don’t mind I pulled on your sweatshirt. The air conditioner vent is right over this chair.”
I nodded a hello at the guy on the table. “Yeah, in the summer this shop runs too cold. Not much I can do about it. If we turn off the air, it gets too stuffy.”
“I’ll remind myself to wear more clothes tomorrow.” Stormy’s wardrobe seemed to consist mostly of extra-mini skirts and leather halter tops and, apparently, my sweatshirt.
“Probably a good idea,” I said.
Her client looked up at me as if I was crazy.
I pressed back a smile and walked away wondering when I’d become the guy to tell a girl with an incredible body to cover up. Or, maybe I’d suggested it more out of self-preservation than out of worry for her discomfort. Or, maybe I was only having this stupid mind discussion because I was upset about Scotlyn.
I soaked the tubes in a bleach solution and then wiped them off before putting them in the ultrasonic cleaner. Stormy finished the leg tattoo and rang up her client. She joined me in the back room, no longer wearing the sweatshirt.
She looked pointedly down at her scantily clad body. “I got the feeling you were a little put off by me borrowing the sweatshirt.”
“No, I don’t really mind. I’m just not in a great mood.”
“Sorry to hear that.” She turned up the radio as I slid the tubes into the sterilized bags to get them ready for the autoclave.
As I turned around, she slid past me, purposely making sure that her thigh brushed my hand. I leaned back against the counter and looked at her. She blinked up at me with innocent green eyes. “Look, Stormy, you are an amazing tattoo artist, and I’m really glad to have you in my shop—”
Her lip pushed out in a pout. “I know, Cassie told me you have a girlfriend.” She smiled and ran her finger along the art on my arm. “I just thought, you know— for fun.”
“As much as I love fun, and something tells me you would be a lot of fucking fun—” We were standing in the room where I’d drawn Scotlyn’s tattoo to cover her long scar. With every inch of skin, and every soft sound from her otherwise mute lips, and every quickly scrawled note, I’d fallen harder and harder for Scotlyn. She was the only person I needed. I looked at Stormy. “Not going to happen.”
Stormy shrugged. “That’s cool. The offer remains on the table if you are ever up for it. I’ll see you in the morning, boss.”
Chapter 4
Scotlyn
Morning sun was poking around the curtains in the family room. I plucked up the empty beer cans and chip bag from the coffee table. I’d gotten home near midnight, and my head throbbed from memorizing glycolysis and the citric acid cycle. I knew Nix had been upset with me for blowing off his dinner plans, but I didn’t want to miss a chance to study with the group. He had apparently filled himself on beer and chips and then gone off to bed.
I walked into the bedroom. He was still fast asleep. I stared down at him. He was just as handsome asleep
as awake, and my heart always raced at the sight of him. I tiptoed around and collected up the clothes he’d dropped on the floor before climbing into bed. I yanked his wallet out of his pocket and set it on the nightstand. He turned over and stretched. The sheet slid off, exposing his naked, muscular back, and I badly wanted to slide back in bed with him. I glanced at the clock. I had a good half hour before I needed to dress for work. I decided I could make up for last night’s disappointment, and satisfy my own needs, with a morning quickie.
I reached down and grabbed his sweatshirt and socks and carried them to the clothes hamper. On the way, a cloud of perfume floated up from his sweatshirt. I pressed it to my face and took a deep breath. I rarely wore perfume, and this was definitely not mine. My stomach tightened as I stared down at the sweatshirt. Tears burned my eyes. I hadn’t been acting myself around Nix, and deep down, I knew it was hurting him. The proposal had scared me. I wanted more than anything to marry Nix, but once I married him, he would be family and I’d lost family before. I couldn’t go through it again. My silly, superstitious mind had convinced me that being part of my family was a dangerous thing. I’d never understood why I’d been spared from death that horrible day. And when the call from Diana came at the exact same moment as the proposal, my overactive imagination had at once settled in on it being a bad omen for marriage.
I heard the sheets rustle behind me. “Hey, baby, why don’t you climb back in bed for awhile.” His deep, drowsy voice rolled over my shoulder as I gazed at the perfume soaked sweatshirt.
I swallowed away the dryness in my throat. “I can’t. I told Clutch I’d be in early to open for him. He is going to be late.”
I heard the bed move as he turned back over.
I dropped the sweatshirt into the hamper and went in to shower off the horrid smelling perfume and the tears.
Chapter 5
Scotlyn