Inked Armor

by Helena Hunting

  “I want to give you a present before we go,” I said as a distraction, tucking a loose tendril of hair behind her ear.

  That got a real smile out of her. “I have one I want to give you now, too.”

  I followed her out to the living room. TK was rolling on the floor, batting around her catnip mouse. More gifts for her were coming tomorrow, such as the cupcake kitty bed. Tenley couldn’t get over how cute it was, or that I’d bought the damn thing. There had been a lot of laughter over that.

  Some of the presents were packed in a tote box to take to Cassie’s, but quite a few were still under the tree. I dug around in the back, where I’d hidden the gift bag. Tenley dragged a large box out from under the tree and sat on the couch, propping the box against the coffee table.

  “You go first.” I handed her the bag with the white, springy ribbon.

  Her eyes widened. “This is from Tiffany’s.”

  I wasn’t surprised she knew where the bag was from just by looking at it. It seemed to be a girl thing. Tenley reached inside and withdrew the small blue box. Removing the lid, she took out the black box inside. She looked at me, then opened it, inhaling with a soft gasp. “Oh, Hayden.”

  “Do you like it?” I asked, unable to read her reaction.

  “This is really”—she hesitated—“extravagant.”

  “Isn’t that what the holidays are supposed to be about? It reminded me of you, so I wanted you to have it.”

  The tears she’d been holding back since she woke up this morning slipped free, which wasn’t quite the reaction I’d been going for.

  “If you don’t like it, I can take it back and get you something else.”

  “No, no. It’s beautiful. Too much, but beautiful.”

  “You’re sure you like it?”

  “Absolutely.” She swiped the tears away with the back of her hand. “I love it,” she whispered.

  With gentle fingers, she lifted the chain and cradled the tiny cupcake in her palm.

  “Can I put it on for you?” I took the chain from her and unclasped it. Tenley lifted her hair and I carefully fastened it around her neck. Then I pressed a kiss against her nape.

  Paired with the pale pink dress and her long, dark hair, the tiny cupcake looked perfect. I adjusted it, mostly to feel the warmth of her skin. I just wanted to be close to her.

  “I don’t deserve this.” She touched the charm and looked up at me through wet lashes. Grabbing hold of my tie, she tugged me forward, kissing me with lips that quivered. “I don’t deserve you.”

  “That’s not true,” I whispered, hating how pained she sounded. Wishing I could make it better, knowing I couldn’t. Today was going to hurt for both of us.

  18

  TENLEY

  I wanted so badly to let Hayden know how much I loved the necklace. Though Connor had given me plenty of jewelry, none of it reflected me as much as the charm hanging around my neck did. Which was exactly why I was falling apart.

  The absence of my family made the holiday celebrations overwhelming. Add to that the ever-heightening awareness of my feelings for Hayden, and I was a ticking time bomb. The anxiety made it hard to think, so I just climbed into his lap and fused my mouth to his.

  His phone buzzed in his pocket and he ignored it, but when mine went off a few seconds later, he sighed and pulled away. “That’ll be Lisa calling to see if we’ve left yet.”

  “What happens if I don’t answer it?”

  “She’ll call until you do.”

  He was right. My phone stopped ringing and Hayden’s started up again. He moved me over to the cushion beside his and dug around in his pocket.

  “We’re leaving in five minutes,” he said by way of greeting.

  I couldn’t hear Lisa’s response, but Hayden’s frown told me some admonishing might have been going on. I checked the time. We were supposed to be at Cassie’s already. Hayden was rarely late for anything; I’d been the one to procrastinate.

  We had fallen into old habits over the past few days, isolating ourselves, blowing off offers to get together for drinks in lieu of spending time alone. Mostly in his bed. Not sleeping. The physical connection helped keep me out of my head.

  “We’ll get there when we get there,” Hayden said a little more forcefully. “Yeah. . . . No. . . . Fine. I won’t forget the salad. . . . No, it’s not from a bag. I’m offended. See you in a bit.” He hung up the phone with an irritated sigh.

  “We should probably get going, huh?” I felt bad that people were waiting on us.

  “Cassie doesn’t serve dinner until five. We have plenty of time. Lisa just wants us to get there so she can start on the cocktails.”

  “And she can’t do that until we arrive?”

  “She can. She’s just being a pain in the ass.” He lifted the box propped against the coffee table into his lap. “I’m opening this before we go.”

  Hayden was careful as he slid his finger under the taped edge. He managed to remove it without tearing the paper. I fidgeted impatiently as he lifted the lid from the box and removed the foam padding that buffered the edges. Then he turned over the canvas print.

  “Holy mother of fuck.”

  His eyes moved over the black-and-white image that started at my neck and ended at my hip. The body was angled slightly so the swell of my breast was visible, but the focus was my unfinished tattoo. Lisa would do another shoot in full color when it was completed.

  “This is you.”

  “Do you like it?” I asked, worried about his dark expression.

  “I’m going to ask you something, and I don’t want you to get upset with me.” When I didn’t say anything, he continued. “Who took this?”

  “Lisa took all of them.”

  “Them?”

  “There are three.”

  “Are you naked in all of them?”

  “In two, yes.”

  He wet his bottom lip. “When do I get to see the rest?”

  “You get one at Cassie’s, and one tomorrow morning. The one at Cassie’s is the least revealing.”

  “Will I want to gouge out someone’s eyes if they see it?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe we should leave it here. Just in case,” Hayden suggested.

  “It’s sensual, not pornographic. Like the ones in your bedroom.”

  He pried his eyes away from the image. “Hm. It looks like those will have to come down, won’t they?”

  “Looks like.” I dropped my head, hiding my smile of triumph.

  It was almost three in the afternoon by the time we arrived at Cassie’s. I was jittery, despite taking meds before we left. Hayden suggested I bring extra, just in case.

  The meds made me loopy, and I’d been quiet on the trip to Cassie and Nate’s, fiddling constantly with the charm around my neck. Hayden pulled into the driveway, parking beside Lisa’s Beetle. I took a deep breath as I unlatched my seat belt.

  Before I could reach for the door handle Hayden put his hand on my arm. “If it gets to be too much, say the word and we can go home.”

  “I’m not going to take you away from your family on the holidays, Hayden. I’ll be fine.”

  “They’re your family, too.” When I shook my head, he said, “Maybe not in the usual sense, but all of them understand this is hard on you. No one expects you to power through, okay?”

  I nodded, unable to speak through the sudden flood of emotion. They were like a family. Lisa and Chris and Jamie were just as much a part of Cassie’s life as Hayden was. They were like surrogate adult children to her.

  “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” I said, leaning across the console to kiss him.

  “You don’t have to. You have me and I’m not going anywhere.”

  He spoke with such conviction, as if any other option weren’t possible. Truly, there was no other way to get through this, not for me. That I had walked away from him in the first place to sort through a past full of ghosts seemed untenable now. Rogue tears leaked out and I brushed them aw
ay, but more followed.

  “I’m so sorry I left you.”

  “What?” Hayden asked, confused.

  “I shouldn’t have gone back to Arden Hills without explaining. I shouldn’t have done that to you, and I’m so, so sorry. I wanted to stay here. I wanted to be with you but I didn’t think I could, and I wish it had been different.” I could feel my hysteria rising.

  “Hey.” Hayden held my face between his hands, forcing me to look at him. “Calm down, kitten. It’s all right. Everything is okay now. You’re back with me where you belong, and that’s all that matters.” His thumbs swept away the tears beneath my eyes. “We’ll get through this together. You and me. Just remember, you’ve survived worse things than this. Whatever’s going on in your head right now, you’ve made it through worse.”

  “Sometimes I feel guilty for having you,” I whispered.

  “I get that. And I wish I could make that feeling go away for you. You know your family wouldn’t want you to be alone, right? They’d want you to have people in your life to love you and take care of you. I don’t know that they would have chosen me to be that person, but I want to be if you’ll let me.”

  I would never understand why I had to lose so much to find him. “I don’t know what would have happened to me if I hadn’t met you.”

  “Well, you’ll never have to know.”

  He kissed me, his lips soft and lingering. In that moment I knew there was never going to be another person like him in my life. No one who would make me feel the way he did.

  Hayden pulled away and looked at me with determined intent. “I want to tell you something important.”

  In my peripheral vision, the front door swung open. I tried to ignore it, but Chris’s loud voice boomed out across the driveway, his crass comment barely muffled by the rumble of the engine.

  Hayden sighed. “Ruin my fucking moment, why don’t you.”

  “If you close your eyes, you can pretend he’s not there.”

  “I can hear him though, so it’s pointless.”

  “I thought you had something important to tell me.”

  “It can wait until later. We should go in.” He planted a chaste kiss on the corner of my mouth and turned off the car.

  My stomach knotted as we approached the entourage waiting for us at the door. Cassie pushed her way to the front, her arm came around my shoulder, and she ushered me into the foyer. “I’m so glad you came.”

  “Me, too.”

  There was a burst of chatter as Hayden helped me out of my coat, then he went back to the car to retrieve the presents and the food. The foyer was a large, open space with hardwood floors and modern décor. In front of me a staircase led to the second floor, and to the right was a living room with a wood-burning fireplace.

  The air of excitement overwhelmed me, and I excused myself to the bathroom. I locked the door and turned on the tap, rooting around in my bag for my bottle of meds. I rolled it between my palms, reluctant to take more, even though the artificial calm would help.

  I closed my eyes and focused on breathing. Eventually the rapid beat of my heart slowed. Although that anxiety attack had been thwarted, I didn’t want to risk being unprepared for another. I shook a couple of pills out of the bottle and stuffed them in the hidden pocket in my dress, in case I couldn’t get to my purse later.

  Hayden was waiting in the hall when I came out, his arms crossed over his chest. He pushed away from the wall and ran his hands down my bare arms. I didn’t want him to know how much I was already struggling. He’d internalize it as a failure on his part, as unreasonable as that might be.

  “Everything all right?” he asked, his hands sifting through my hair, fanning it out over my shoulders.

  “I just needed a minute to collect myself.”

  He put a finger under my chin and tilted my head up to kiss me tenderly. “I could show you around the house before they bombard you again, if you’d like.”

  “That would be good.”

  He took my hand and led me away from the laughter filtering down the hall. Nate’s office had a therapist’s vibe. A massive cherry desk was at the back of the room, and the shelves against the wall matched. In the middle of the room were two comfy-looking chairs with footstools set on a lush carpet. Each chair had a side table with a coaster perched on it.

  “Does Nate work from home?”

  “Occasionally. His patients come through that side entrance.” Hayden pointed across the room to a door nestled between two bookshelves. “He does some work for the hospital’s inpatient unit, too. He’s got some big title.”

  “He’s a busy man.”

  “Yeah. He’s a lot like my dad in that respect.” A hint of disapproval was in Hayden’s tone. “Nate’s a bit of a workaholic. It’s why Cassie opened up Serendipity. She wanted something meaningful to do with her time.”

  I’d wondered about that. Cassie drove a Mercedes and was always impeccably dressed. She almost looked out of place in Serendipity, like polished silver among tarnished brass.

  “She doesn’t have to work?”

  Hayden shook his head. “Nope. Nate’s got more than enough assets and equity. It probably costs them money to run that store, but she loves it and that’s all Nate cares about. Cassie hates being idle as much as I do. If she had to sit around this house all day, she’d go nuts.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Midthirties. There was a big age gap between her and my mom, like fifteen years. They were tight, though. Cassie was always around when I was a kid. It was almost like having an older sister, but she didn’t annoy me, which I thought was cool back then. She even lived with us for a bit before my teens.”

  “She did?” Hayden’s life hadn’t been much different from mine. He’d had loving parents, a solid family, although from the sound of it, Hayden’s father hadn’t been around much.

  “Yeah, I was like her shadow. I think it’s part of the reason she took me in when my parents died. She wanted to return the favor or whatever.” He tugged on my hand. “Come on, let me show you the rest of the house.”

  I didn’t press for more information, aware he was sharing these pieces of himself to distract me. We stopped in several more rooms on the main floor. The equipment in the home gym looked as if it was frequently used, and the game room was complete with a pool table and a dartboard.

  We took a set of stairs at the back of the house to the second floor. The five bedrooms were decorated in various modern themes. One was being refurbished. Drop cloths covered the furniture and cans of paint were stacked in the center of the room.

  “This was my room.” Hayden opened the door closest to the stairs. “It’s been redecorated, though.”

  I went in, taking in the elegant lines of the space. The cream and black and raspberry color scheme was a fusion of masculine and feminine energies.

  “Cassie painted it dark blue for me. It was a waste, though, since I didn’t stay very long.”

  “How long were you here?” I asked, running my hand over the raspberry comforter, gorgeous against the black bed frame. Though the room looked different, I imagined the memories would still be difficult. The love and care from Cassie and Nate would have been overshadowed by the trauma he’d been through.

  “Only a couple of months. I was too self-destructive. Nate had this savior-complex thing going on. He wanted me to talk to someone. I refused. Cassie didn’t think he should push it right away, and I was a hard kid to handle. I would have fucked up their marriage if I’d stayed.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Hayden shrugged. “Cassie and Nate hadn’t been married long when my parents died. It shook her up, and I was just too much to deal with. I didn’t follow rules. I snuck out at night all the time; came home all fucked up on drugs because I couldn’t cope. Cassie didn’t know what to do with me; she was just as lost as I was. I could see the strain I was putting on them. I’d seen what the crap I pulled did to my parents. I figured it would be better for everyone if I los
t my shit without Cassie watching it happen.”

  “That’s pretty selfless, for someone so young and in such a bad place.”

  He shook his head. “I left because dealing was too hard.”

  “We can agree to disagree, then. You were just a boy.”

  It was at the core of his makeup to save people from pain, even if it meant distancing himself from them. So it made sense that he’d want to be with me, because as close as we’d become, walls were still between us. Thinner than before, but still there.

  He said, “I used to wonder what my life would’ve been like if my parents weren’t dead, how it would’ve been different. But I don’t do that as much anymore.”

  “What changed?”

  “I met you. I figured all the shit had to be for a reason, right? If I hadn’t gone through it, I’d never get where you’re coming from, and this thing we have.” He traced the line of my jaw with a fingertip. “It wouldn’t be the same.”

  Hayden was right. Without our pasts, our connection might have been very different.

  19

  TENLEY

  Everyone was in the kitchen when we came back downstairs. A glass of wine was put in my hand. Hayden grabbed a beer and Nate tossed an apron at him. Hayden grumbled as he pulled it over his head.

  “That’s what you get for being late, bro,” Chris said, running his hand over the front of his apron, which showcased the ripped abs of a tattooed male body.

  Nate’s was a tuxedo print, Jamie’s a cowboy. Hayden wasn’t so lucky; his had pink and white flowers with ruffles around the edges. I giggled as he fumbled with the strings. He was too broad to be able to tie a bow.

  He grabbed a whisk and pointed it at me. “What are you laughing at? I can totally pull off this look.”

  I raised my hands. “I’m not arguing with you. I think you look pretty.”

  He smacked his palm with the whisk. “Don’t think for a second I’ll forget you said that.”

  I played with the chain around my neck and grinned. If the rest of the day could be like this, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.