Then a taller than average Asian man stepped into view. He didn’t wear one of the white ribbons, nor did he look inclined to smile. Shin wove through clusters of people, heading straight for her. Kellie groaned.
Trouble.
The kind she didn’t want to deal with.
“I’m going to bust his kneecaps,” she muttered.
“Not in the shop you aren’t. Good luck.” Mary turned tail and disappeared into the throng of people.
Kellie sighed and took a wider stance. She’d rather be wearing something besides a Japanese silk dress and pumps for a face-off with Shin, but this was her party, not a fighting cage.
“We need to talk,” he said as soon as he was within speaking distance.
“Finally decided to get a tattoo? I’m surprised.” She turned her attention to people watching, ignoring Shin positioning himself at her side.
They’d been best friends once as kids. Her childhood was full of time spent with him in the treehouse behind her grandmother’s house. They’d laughed and joked then about growing old together, getting married and traveling back to North Korea on vacation to see distant relatives. Puberty had changed everything. Kellie discovered that there were boys outside their small community who didn’t mind that she was too loud, liked to play football and watch boy movies. They’d grown apart until she didn’t know him anymore.
Shin’s mouth screwed up. He liked who she’d become as an adult even less, and let her know on every available occasion just how far she’d fallen from the role of his chosen wife. When she’d moved back to Texas, he’d lectured her about how a proper Korean woman wouldn’t get a tattoo, much less tattoo others. “We need to talk about the gym.”
His breath fanned across her neck. It was by sheer force of will that she didn’t gag. Did the man not know how to use a toothbrush?
Kellie studied the crowd. “The gym was sold. What else is there to say about it?”
“Your grandfather built that gym—”
She held up a finger. “No, my grandfather bought a warehouse and made it into a gym.”
Shin’s brows were two dark slashes across his forehead. His smooth skin had a sheen of perspiration despite the air conditioner, cranked as high as it could go. He switched to Korean, as if it would sway her more. “That gym was the heartbeat of our community. We could make it a haven again.”
To irritate him, she spoke in English. “Then why did it go broke? If people were that involved, why did the Gyeons have to sell it?”
“We’re all having hard times. If we combined our resources, we could do it. Think of the community.”
She rolled her eyes. The community. Did he mean the same one that ignored her at best? “Yes, hard times all around, thanks for the reminder. Did you hear about my shop burning down? Or maybe about my grandmother?”
“If we did this together, Cho Hee, the community would support us.”
“Why do we have to do this together? Why don’t you do this on your own?” And spare her having to put up with him.
Shin leaned toward her, violating all personal space rights. “If we did this, the community would accept you. Don’t you want that? To be part of something that matters?”
Kellie stared at him. Did he just say what she thought he did? “Let me get this straight. You think that if I marry you, let you use my money—because we all know you don’t have any—and buy a building my grandfather happened to own once upon a time, people will like me?” She laughed bitterly in his face and gestured to the shop. “I’m sorry, but I’m part of something already.”
He grabbed her elbow. Not tight enough to bruise—he was smart enough not to antagonize her that way. “This isn’t an appropriate business for a woman. Think about it, Cho Hee. Talk to the new owner. Make him realize he’ll never have the community’s support. We can get married and buy the gym together. Wouldn’t your grandmother want to see the gym again?”
She jerked her arm out of his grip. The urge to punch him in the face, kick his legs out from under him and whale into him was dangerously close to overriding her sense of reason. She stepped in close to Shin and pitched her voice low.
“You ever use my grandmother as leverage again, I’ll cut your balls off with a rusty knife. Do you understand me?”
The lines of Shin’s face became harder and something dark flashed in his brown eyes. They squared off, the crowded room forgotten. They could have been in a fighting cage, but they weren’t.
Red and blue lights swirled outside the windows.
“Kellie!”
The familiar voice cut through the red haze.
“Kellie! Come on,” Pandora yelled as she tottered toward the front doors on her kitten heels.
She didn’t bother to say anything else to Shin. There was nothing else to say.
She followed the crowed spilling out into the parking lot and pushed her way up to where the other girls stood at the back of an ambulance in front of the shop. The back doors were already open and the EMTs were carefully lowering a stretcher.
“Carly!” Pandora waited only as long as it took for the wheels to hit the pavement before she pushed the paramedics and nurses aside to gingerly hug the girl lying on the bed.
Carly had been paralyzed from the waist down in the same accident that destroyed the old So Inked shop. It was only right that she attend their grand opening as the guest of honor. Kellie wasn’t as close to her as Pandora, but she liked the kid and got to know her better through the time spent visiting her in the hospital.
“Hey, Carly.” She waved as she was wheeled onto the sidewalk and through the double doors, escorted by a host of nurses and paramedics.
It was touching how the community had rallied behind Carly. Almost every business had hosted its version of a fundraiser for her medical bills and sent gifts to cheer her up. It was a small reminder that the world wasn’t a dark place. Goodness still existed. Somewhere.
Kellie stayed on Pandora’s heels as they followed Carly’s procession into the shop.
“Are you still going to do it?”
Pandora nodded. “Her doctor cleared it.”
“Does she know?”
She shook her head. “Nope.”
“That’s awesome. I’ll get you set up.”
“Thanks.”
Kellie slithered through the crowd back to Pandora’s station in the corner and shooed people away. Because everything had to be sterile, Pandora couldn’t prepare anything for this job—not with a hundred or more of their closest friends touching everything in sight. Kellie tugged on a pair of gloves and set about getting the equipment ready to be used.
Quin stepped into her line of sight. “Need a hand?”
“If you can get people back a little, I need some open room here. That would be great.”
“You got it.”
She didn’t watch to make sure Quin did as she asked but went back to her prep work. She set out a Sharpie and a small reservoir of black ink. The power source was stored in the bottom drawer and Pandora’s collection of tattoo machines in the top.
Quin actually managed to keep the whole corner clear. At least he was good for something besides his rippling muscles and cute smile. She finished in just enough time for Carly’s tour of the new digs to bring her to this corner of the shop. Kellie stripped off the gloves and got out of the way. This moment had nothing to do with her, but she still wanted to be close enough to see Carly’s face.
Pandora beamed as Carly was wheeled over. Brian mouthed, “Thank you,” to Kellie, very much part of the inner circle on this whole part of the surprise.
“This is my new station.” Pandora waved at her corner and faced Carly. Pandora’s smile threatened to split her face in two. “So we were thinking. The last time we were at So Inked, you were supposed to get a tattoo. I think it’s only fair that you’re our first client after the grand opening. What do you say?”
Kellie had to blink rapidly to keep the moisture in her eyes from turning into tears. The thought o
f what had been stolen from Carly and how much pain she’d been put through had haunted all of them, but none more than Pandora and Brian, who had become something like surrogate parents to her.
Carly pushed herself upright, looking between Pandora and Brian. She appeared a bit dazed, but more like her old self than the shell she had been. “Are you serious?”
Quin leaned toward her. “Did you know about this?”
Kellie nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak yet, plus the lump in her throat would make it exceedingly difficult.
Brian grabbed the Sharpie marker from the tray Kellie had laid out. “Asked the doctors myself.”
Carly’s eyes had the bright, enthusiastic glint that characterized her before her accident. “Can we do it right now?”
Pandora nodded. “Right now.”
That was her cue. Kellie clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention. They’d rehearsed this a little before the party. “Ladies and gentlemen, if you would please take a few steps back, we’re going to pull the curtain to give Pandora a little privacy.”
Carly’s back was to the crowd, so they missed the crestfallen expression on her face, how her shoulders slumped and she sucked on her bottom lip. Sure the tattoo was something Carly would really want, but she didn’t have the ability to sit forward or move from the bed to the tattoo chair they’d packed away. She was completely and embarrassingly dependent on others.
Kellie knew Carly wanted to work toward being more independent, even with her new limitations, but it was a long, hard road.
Grabbing the edge of the curtain, which was tucked away in the lee of the hall, Kellie pulled it around Pandora’s station on a track hung from the ceiling. She didn’t look behind her, but she could hear the murmured counts of the nurses as they prepared to turn Carly on the bed and make her comfortable for the quick tattoo.
Kellie had grown up with an active childhood. Her adult life was just as busy between work, family and her own workout routine. Or the workout routine she’d had before the last six months. Brian’s history, and now watching Carly, killed her and made her feel guilty for not being the one to get hurt instead. She’d sprained her shoulder and had a few bruises from that night, but nothing as bad as the others.
After a few minutes, the curtain slid back and a paramedic poked his head out. “They’re ready.”
She nodded and pulled the curtain back slowly, giving them enough time to tell her to stop. Carly lay on her stomach, propped up on her elbows, grin firmly in place.
Kellie took up her spot next to Quin, strangely glad for his stoic show of support. There were enough people watching with pity etched on their faces.
“Hungry?” he asked.
As if in answer, her stomach rumbled. “Maybe.”
“Do you have to stay around after? Want to grab some food?”
She peered at him from the corner of her eye. It was odd. She towered over most men when she wore heels. With Quin, she looked him straight in the eye.
“Maybe.” She wasn’t ready to say yes to anything that wasn’t strictly business with this man. Not yet.
They watched as Pandora prepped Carly’s shoulder above her original tattoo, a picture taken from one of Brian’s band’s albums. Brian stepped in when she was ready and added his John Hancock to finish up the piece, and then Pandora began to go over his signature with ink of the permanent kind.
No one knew whether Carly would walk again, but her life wasn’t over. She wasn’t done experiencing things, and at the shop she had a family that was here for her.
“I’m hungry,” she said loud enough for Quin’s ears alone.
He turned slowly to gaze at her.
Carly wasn’t the only one who needed to live again.
* * * * *
Kellie shifted on the wooden bench, still restless. The evening breeze was cooler than normal thanks to a cold front blowing in. It was ridiculous that dropping into the nineties was considered a cool spell, but in the height of Texas summer, you took what you got. She swept her hair up into a knot and tipped her head back. The slight dampness of her skin, courtesy of the ever-present humidity, was a small price to pay for being able to sit outside. She’d shed the formfitting dress for jeans and a tank top and felt more like herself for it.
“How hot does it get here?” Quin plunked down their dinner and sat on his side of the picnic table. Behind him the food truck was starting to pack up.
“Can’t handle the heat?” It was too much to ask that the man be able to cope with everything. He’d sat through the tattoo yesterday without complaint, being a heat weenie wasn’t terrible.
His brilliant blue eyes stood out in the dim illumination of the parking lot light. “When you have A/C, why should you?”
“You do realize that it’s going to get at least ten degrees hotter and stay there, don’t you?” She unwrapped the tacos and inhaled the spicy aroma of peppers and onions mixed with tender beef.
Quin made a show of wiping his forehead with a napkin. “I’m going to melt.”
“Why the hell are you still here then?”
He hefted his burrito and wrapped the tortilla tighter. “Family.”
She nodded, understanding that reason above all others.
They descended into companionable silence while they ate. The garbled sounds of a Tejano station melded with the distant sounds of Highway 75 and the light street traffic up and down Greenville Avenue.
“What are you so wound up about, doll?”
Her head snapped around. Quin watched her with one brow arched.
“What?” she asked.
“Your knees are bouncing and you keep looking around. Are you expecting someone I don’t know about?” He glanced over each shoulder.
The bubble of anger swelling in her breast burst. It wasn’t Quin’s fault she was suffering from a case of bitchitis.
Instead of snapping at him, she put her taco down and massaged her temples. “No, I’m just sitting on too much energy and not enough time to expend it.”
“Ah.” He nodded as if he understood. “We used to call that the fight or fuck stage.”
It was her turn to quirk a brow at him. She shivered despite the heat. He had a point; one or the other would help. “Fight or fuck stage? What did you used to do?”
“First I was in the Marines, then I used to fight MMA, semipro.”
Her eyebrows crept upward. Mixed martial arts? She saw Quin in a whole new light, and when she looked at him in this proverbial light, he looked damn good. Fighters came with their own set of issues, but as an MMA hobbyist herself, Kellie had to admit that her bad boy draw was sitting across from her. Growing up around the gym meant she’d become more than competent in a few martial art forms. As an adult, branching out into the grappling, wrestling and more violent aspects had given her a much needed outlet.
Kellie grabbed her drink, the cup covered in condensation, and gulped it down to get moisture back in her dry mouth.
“Why’d you stop?”
“I got hurt. Fractured a few vertebrae. Everyone was amazed I could walk after that. Realized there was little to no chance of me coming back from the injury, so I switched over to training. I like it.”
“Do you train around here?” An invisible fist clenched her heart. There had been a time when she would have known the different gyms, who trained where, which ones were worth going to and so forth.
Quin didn’t answer immediately. He chewed his food without haste and took a drink before replying. “I’m transitioning locations. Parting with someone. It’s a little messy.”
Her nose wrinkled. “Yeah, I’ve been there. I’m lucky to have Mary as my co-owner. The guy I worked with before her was a man-child.”
He snorted. “Man-child?”
“Yeah, you know. Frat boy types.”
He tilted his head back and laughed. “That’s a good one, doll. Man-child. I’ll have to remember that.”
The pet name slid over her nerves as if it were sandpaper. “Do you
have to call me that?”
“What?” He blinked as if he had no clue what she was talking about.
“Lay off the doll crap already.”
He shrugged. “You look like a doll.”
Her scalp itched and her hand balled into a fist. “You think I look like a whore?” she growled. Moments like these she felt as if she were a passenger in her own body. The urge to do something, or even the man across from her, had her muscles too tense and her nerves strung too tight.
Quin jerked his face away from his cup. “What? No. That’s not what I meant. You’re attractive and exotic-looking. You look more like a doll than a real person.”
Heat crawled up her neck and she was thankful the parking light was their only illumination. It was the most convoluted compliment anyone had ever paid her, and it turned her on even more. She folded her taco wrapper into a neat square.
“You realize the term china doll is what men called Asian prostitutes and war brides?”
“The fuck—no. No, that’s definitely not what I meant. Hey, guys probably hit on you all the time. I figured I had to be a little creative.”
She rolled her eyes. “At least you don’t talk to my boobs.”
His gaze dipped to her chest and her nipples perked up at his inspection. She squeezed her thighs together. This was ridiculous. She was not an animal in heat ready to throw herself at some random guy.
“Well, in their defense, most guys probably only come up to your chest, so it’s not entirely their fault.” One side of his mouth kicked up in a roguish smile.
She chuckled and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, blame it on me because I’m tall.”
“It’s not your fault you’re tall. It’s their fault they’re short.”
Her phone buzzed against her hip. Conversation forgotten, Kellie dug it out of her pocket and unlocked the screen. The home-care provider always texted her when Grandma finally went to bed. She breathed a sigh of relief when nothing else was mentioned, which meant the day had passed without incident. She had all night before she would need to go home and face those troubles. For now she was her own woman.
The Harder He Falls: 2 (So Inked) Page 5