by L. L. Ash
He huffed a sardonic chuckle before reaching inside his wallet and pulling out a bill.
Picking up the boxes, he flopped the bill on the counter and left without another word.
Tears started streaming down my face as I watched him leave.
Going to the bill, I stared down at the money he left in exchange for the desserts and felt my heart give out all over again.
That was his way of confirming that no, we weren’t friends, and no, he didn’t forgive me. He said all that with a one hundred dollar bill.
Ice cream.
I might have been a baker, but ice cream solved all the world’s hurts. Especially heartbreak.
That big paper package he brought was still sitting in the wrapper, hidden from view because I was a coward and hadn’t gotten up the courage to open it.
But after one really big glass of wine and half a pint of ice cream, my curiosity set in and I made my way to the package.
I tore a little paper away and saw streaks of bright red.
Another painting.
Ripping away the rest in a hurry, I saw a picture of me.
Most of the canvas was filled with the red of my hair, in long silky waves, while nestled inside was my face, pale, and riddled with the freckles I hated so much. But other than the dark lashes that definitely weren’t my natural lashes, I was makeup-less in the painting, fresh faced and pure looking.
Beautiful.
It wasn’t how I saw myself when I looked in the mirror.
This was how he saw me.
A thin, pale hand rested against my freckled cheek, lips open and eyes wide and innocent, staring back at me.
This was the view of me from the man who loved me.
No wonder he couldn’t look at it anymore…
I started bawling instantly. Angry and frustrated, I covered the painting back up before my heart fell out of my chest for the second time in one day.
Finally, I understood just how much I had broken his heart. Broken him.
“He made this?” Josie asked with a slack jaw as she stared down at the painting.
“Yeah, that’s what he said.” I nodded, still feeling weird and heartbroken every time I looked at the picture.
“Why did he give it to you?”
“He said he didn’t want it. That he couldn’t look at it anymore,” I whispered.
“Yeah, I can see that,” Josie nodded. “My God, this is gorgeous. He’s really talented.”
I scoffed.
“You only just figured that out?” I asked back.
“Hey, save that sass for someone else. You called me in tears, baby girl. I’m the rescue squad, here.”
Properly cowed, I sat on the stool behind the counter at my bakery in the mid morning hump between my rush of customers.
The door opened and the bell jingled as Cambria walked in.
“Everyone wants more cupcakes and cookies,” she said, leaning on the counter before catching sight of the painting we’d been staring at.
“He’s good, isn’t he?” Cambria asked, lifting one eyebrow as if saying ‘I told you so’.
“I know, Cam...”
“No, I really don’t think you do.” She started shaking her head vehemently. “What you did to him was... I seriously considered not being your friend anymore, Fae. He’s a good man, and he deserves a good woman, and he fell for you because you’re a good woman, too. I honestly don’t understand why you haven’t just apologized to him and gotten your man back. You love him and he loves you… This whole having shops next to each other but not being with each other is absolutely stupid. You guys were made for each other, and you’re just blowing time off like it’s nothing.”
“He didn’t seem like he missed me very much,” I admitted. “He just came in and got some cookies, dropping these off… then he put cash on the counter and left.”
“And is that normal Roman behavior?” She looked at me deadpan.
“How am I supposed to know how he treats his exes!”
She laughed bitterly, coming around the counter to make another box of things for the office.
“You’re ridiculous, Fae. He’s just protecting himself after you ripped his fucking heart out.”
Taking a few more cupcakes and stacking a few cookies in a bag, she handed me another hundred dollar bill and walked out the door.
Had to have been an errand from Roman.
“She’s not wrong.” Josie looked at me.
“Oh, so you’re turning on me, too?”
She bit her lip and sighed.
“I might have talked to Ryan a little bit and...”
“You talked to my ex’s best friend about us?” I asked her, feeling absolutely horrified.
“Are you kidding? I’ve been texting with Ryan since we met. Of course you guys have come up. So many times.”
“And let me guess, he’s mad at me, too.”
“Let me think...” She tapped her lip with a pretend thinking face. “Duh!”
“Thanks for coming, Jo,” I said finally, incredibly over all the lectures.
“Fine, fine, I’m going,” she said, picking up her purse. “But you had better bribe me with one of those chocolate cherry cupcakes...”
I smiled, going over to the case and plucking one for my friend.
She snatched it from my fingers and headed to the door.
“And Fae, just one last thing,” she hummed as she was halfway out the door. “You’re so sad now, you miss him… But have you ever asked yourself why you won’t just go to him? Why are you putting both of you through this?”
And just like that she was gone, leaving me alone in my bakery.
Roman
“Your four o’clock is here, Rome,” Cambria called from the doorframe of my office.
“Thanks, Cam.” I nodded up at her and tried to smile for her.
“Oh my God… Don’t do that ever again, Rome. Please, save the world the agony.”
A real smirk graced my lips as I chuckled.
“Duly noted, boss,” I called as she made her way out.
She just flipped me off on her way.
The poor girl had absorbed so much of the coarseness that went on inside the shop. She cussed more and flipped the bird about a thousand times more than she did when she started working here, and I loved that she just settled right in and felt free to be herself, whichever version of herself she chose to be.
No joke though, Cambria had kind of become the mini boss. Even Tanner listened to her.
I got up from my chair and made my way to the front, greeting my customer for the day, a man that had come in the week before for a consultation about a piece he wanted.
After mocking it up on the trace paper, I pressed the paper over his thigh and he looked in the mirror.
“Holy shit, this is beautiful,” he commented, looking down at the large compass on his leg, realistic with shadows and everything.
One little spindle pointed up, to North, and the other to his nether region. His idea, not mine.
“Ok, let’s get started!” I told him, anticipating the feel of the vibrations in my hand already.
He sat and I razored his leg hair off, cleaned the skin and applied the trace lines, then got going, my station having already been prepped.
God it felt good to be leaving my mark again.
Chapter Sixteen
Fae
“Are you sure it’s ok if I go in?” I asked Cambria at the door of the shop.
It was one thing for Roman to come visit my shop, but for me to go back into that parlor?
Something about it felt weird and wrong. And like I was returning home.
“Roman’s busy, don’t worry. Besides, he’s cool. There’s just a couple more things I have to do before I can leave,” she told me, going back behind the counter.
I wandered over to the velvet couch and sat, hoping nobody would notice me.
“Fae!” a voice practically screamed across the shop. “What’re you doing here?”
“It’s been a while,” he added, plopping down next to me.
A second later Roman appeared, flicking his gloves off and looking around the waiting area.
His eyes landed on me like blazing hot irons.
He wanted to know what I was doing in his shop, too.
“Cam needed a ride home,” I said in a shaky voice.
“My Mom borrowed my car today while hers is in the shop. And she’ll be gone all evening,” Cambria folded her arms in front of her chest, suggesting toughness I never knew she had.
“C’mon, you know I could’ve driven you home,” Roman told her.
“Or me. You know, your boyfriend.” Freddie gave her a stink eye.
“First of all, I’m not stepping foot on that bike Rome, and Freddie, you’re staying ‘til closing tonight. No thank you.”
They looked at each other, then all turned back to me.
I felt so freaking weird being back in the midst of the life I’d wished I could have.
What I could have had if I hadn’t screwed it all up and listened to my selfish, greedy father instead of my heart.
If I’d have listened to my heart, I would have been able to run to Roman and be taken into his strong arms, feeling the world disappear away into blissful comfort and safety.
“Whatever,” Roman flopped his hand at me. “If you need a ride tomorrow, I’ll bring my car, ok, Cam?” he told my friend before heading off again without another look my way.
It hurt.
It really kinda hurt to be dismissed by him.
Cambria frowned at his retreating back and I stood, ready to pace until she said we could leave.
Freddie went over to Cambria and they stood there, flirting while I was extremely uncomfortable, feeling like a fish out of water. An unwanted fish out of water.
Suddenly they were making out and I quickly turned away from them, roaming my eyes around the busy shop.
Several artists were taking up the stations along the wall with chairs and buzzing machines, and Roman was one of them, head dipped over a man’s thigh as he scratched on the ink and wiped off the leftovers.
Watching him work was...magical. The man talked and talked as Roman periodically smiled and nodded, looking the man in the eye as he murmured about something before going back to his work. I actually got to watch him finish before Cambria was ready.
“So, what do you think?” Roman asked the man, just as he’d asked me when he put ink on my skin.
My fingers pressed against my sternum where he’d left his mark on me.
“This is… Just wow. This is amazing, Roman! You’re so talented!”
Roman smiled and looked at the tattoo in the mirror the man was standing in front of.
“Glad you like it, Jake. Let’s go ahead and get you greased and covered up, then we’ll get you on out of here.”
The man nodded, taking one last look at his thigh before Roman rubbed on some ointment and covered it in plastic.
They breezed past me on their way to the front counter, where Cambria and Freddie were no longer making out, and Cambria rang him up.
“I’ll see you later,” Roman told him, shaking his hand and leaving him there, heading back toward his office.
“Three hours,” Cambria said to herself as she typed into the computer. “That’s twelve hundred.”
Twelve hundred?
I thought his rate was a hundred an hour? Had he given me a low rate?
Warmth filled me at the thought.
“The man is expensive, but damn, he’s so good, he’s worth it,” the guy said, handing over a bank card to Cambria, who ran it for him in the machine.
“That’s what everyone keeps telling me.” She smiled at him. “My friend got a sternum tat from him and it’s just ah-maze-ing.”
“Oh yeah? A buddy of mine sees him too, and we won’t go to anybody else, now.”
“Even me?” Freddie chirped, and they guy smiled nicely.
“When you got someone you like, you can’t let them go.”
“Amen to that,” Freddie agreed while Cambria nodded.
“We’ll see you later, Jake,” they said to the man as he left the shop, taking his new work of art with him.
“Alright, I’m ready,” my friend told me, gathering her purse and coming around the counter.
“You’re the sexiest,” Freddie told Cambria as they kissed again, a gentle one this time.
It almost looked like they were in love.
“I know,” she whispered back to him and grinned before taking my arm and leading us out.
As I took one last look back in the shop, I kept thinking about what Josie said.
Why was I avoiding him? Why didn’t I just at least try to say I was sorry? Wasn’t the chance of being with him again worth the risk of rejection? It wasn’t like my heart could break any more than it already was, anyway.
Roman
What the hell was she doing in my shop? Seriously, I wasn’t ready to see her, and it tore me up a little bit more to see the distance between us.
I wasn’t ready when my eyes landed on her hair, skin. Luckily I’d managed to avoid her eyes completely, otherwise I might have gotten my heart broken all over again.
Seeing her at her new bakery was one thing. I had built up the wall around me so that her rejection didn’t hurt so much, and I was ready for anything she could throw at me, whether she was mad or sad or happy, even. I was prepared.
But looking into her eyes? That was just stupid. Her eyes were my weakness, and if I met them, I would probably fall on my knees and beg her to take me back, to love me like I loved her.
I would lose any last shred of self-respect I had left and destroy the past four months of healing I’d tried to do.
So seeing her in my space had caught me off guard, and all those feelings flooded through me again. I wanted to take her into my arms and whisper in her ear. Pressing kisses on her lips and feeling her skin on my skin.
Instead of making a fool of myself, I went as cold as I could, ignoring her presence and got back to work as quickly as possible.
But that didn’t mean I couldn’t feel her eyes burning into me.
She watched as I worked, and the sensation was heady.
I fucking missed her.
But yet, I’d never have her.
“Hey Rome, I got a call from one of your previous clients. She wants some more work done,” Cambria told me as I opened the shop for the day.
“Yeah, sure,” I agreed. “Get her on the schedule.”
“Only problem is she wants to see you tonight. Like, before closing.”
What?
“Who is it?” I asked her. “Anything I should remember?”
“She’s just a normal person.” She shrugged. “I guess she’s really eager to get in and see you.”
“She seem stalker-ish?” I half joked.
“No, just a big fan of your work.”
“Well, do I have anything tonight?”
“Tanner was supposed to close, so you’re scheduled to go home at about six.”
“You mean I’ll have to work with just Tanner in the shop?”
“Oh, poor baby. Pretty sure you’ll get over it.” She grinned.
“Fine. Get her on. If it’s too big though, I’m sending her home.”
“She sent in a picture, if you want it.”
“Yeah, I’ll look at it in my office.”
Leaving her to the front and settling in my nice, comfortable chair, I opened my new-ish laptop and looked through the company email.
There it was, a new email from Sweets.
I opened the email and it was just a rough sketch of a simple heart with an I and the little boot of Italy.
I thought about it for a minute of which one of my clients would want something like that, but honestly, I’d been tattooing for so long, I couldn’t remember all my clients.
So I made a better sketch of it and traced it al
l up with some color before setting it aside.
Everyone had left by the time my appointment was supposed to show up.
Including Tanner.
Because, according to him, he wasn’t scheduled.
And when I checked? He wasn’t scheduled.
So the shop was up to me, and luckily my appointment was later, and any chance of walk-ins were minimal.
I was just finishing up with prepping my station when the door opened, bell tinkling to let me know my client had arrived.
Really fucking curious as to who it was, I moved quickly over to the door.
Fae?
“Hi,” she said with a weak smile, lifting a hand nervously.
“Uh, can I help you?” I asked, immediately trying to build up me defensive walls at the sight of her.
“I’m sure you can.” She nodded. “I’m your nine o’clock.”
What?
Fucking Cambria…
“I-uh...That’s a bad idea,” I told her. “I know some other folks you can see at another shop if you want something.”
“No. I only want you,” she said sternly. “I don’t want anybody but you, Roman.”
Uh...were we talking about tattoos or…?
“Did you look at the design?”
“Of course I did… Why do you want Italy on you? It’s cheesy as fuck.”
“I don’t want Italy on me. I couldn’t think of a better way of saying I heart Italian.”
“Wh-what?”
I was so friggin’ confused.
“I. Love. Italian.”
The words hung in the air, whispered from her mouth like a prayer.
“Is this some sort of sick joke?” I whispered back, not daring to trust what my ears were hearing.
She frowned and shook her head, looking at her feet as she brushed newly fallen tears off her face.
“C’mon, Italian… You know me better than that.”
“All I know is we’ve been broken up twice as long as we were together,” I ground out. “And you dumped me, on the tails of me saying...”
I couldn’t finish the sentence. It was too fucking painful.
“I know, Roman. I know I screwed up,” she rushed out, her hand pressed to her upper belly where her tattoo sat. “God I know I screwed up. I should have… I shouldn’t have let Daddy tell me what to do. I shouldn’t have let him dictate what I got to do with my life. And I don’t anymore. I run my own life, and I’m following my dream, just like you taught me...”