by Rhys Ford
But God, at that moment, the thought of getting his first hit of coffee off of Rob’s lips was something Mace couldn’t shake.
He couldn’t figure it out. Rob was nothing like any of the men he sought out to hook up with. He didn’t want complications. He didn’t want to know somebody’s phone number beyond a couple of weeks or get a text at three o’clock in the afternoon wondering if he wanted to try a new restaurant at the piers. Even as much as he avoided the vivacious artist, he knew Rob was a social creature who squeezed every last bit out of the day and then licked its remains off of his hands. There were no boundaries Rob respected. He was in everyone’s space, asking questions or prying out secrets.
He talked with his hands—his graceful and strong fingers sketched out flurries of ideas in the air as his words danced in and out of Mace’s thoughts. Rob couldn’t stop moving, even when tattooing. He tapped at the floor with his free foot as he rattled on to his clients about everything under the sun.
And damn it if Mace didn’t want to shut him up with a kiss.
Rob’s mouth wasn’t moving now. Instead he was chewing on his lower lip and tilting his chin up slightly, his intense gaze fixed on Mace’s face. The summer had left its burnished kiss on Rob’s body and deepened his golden skin, and there was a faint spray of freckles across his nose and cheeks. Under the shop’s bright lights, his lashes threw down long shadows when he blinked and were so thick and black they looked fake. Mace knew better. He’d seen Rob bolting past the shop’s front door after a downpour, rubbing at his face to sluice away the dribbles of water that ran down from his hair.
He was the kind of guy who needed taking care of, someone who liked to wake up on Sunday mornings to a blueberry-pancake breakfast, then a leisurely walk down to a coffee shop to meet up with friends. Despite his bohemian nature, Rob was a seeker of domestic bliss, with occasional stops at a club or two just to dance off his nervous energy.
The wicked parts of Mace’s brain had more than one suggestion on how to work off Rob’s energy.
“What do you want?” Mace didn’t care much for society’s games. One of them was a form of chicken, the question of who was going to move to get by in a narrow hallway. He was bigger and taller than Rob, but ducking around the inker meant giving way, and Mace wasn’t willing to do that. “Do you need something?”
“I need a lot of things, but the first thing that comes to mind is maybe you trying to be a little nicer to me.” Rob couldn’t help but purr when he spoke. His voice had a hint of a lingual influence Mace couldn’t identify, but whatever it was, it rolled Rob’s consonants around his vowels in an erratic river of sound that ran over the jagged rocks lodged in Mace’s belly. “I was serious when I offered to do your touchup. Your brother doesn’t hire shitty artists. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t deserve it.”
“Bear put it on me. Bear touches it up.” Mace gave Rob a little smile and hoped the conversation would be over soon. Rob had some muscle on him, a denseness that came with whatever ethnic blend went into creating a golden-skinned, amber-eyed, pretty-mouthed artist, but Mace figured he had enough power in his body to pin Rob up against the wall and do things to him until Rob was breathless and couldn’t think. Since that way led to madness and Bear kicking his ass, Mace shoved his hands into his pockets and forced himself to concentrate on getting past the man he wanted to fuck every time he saw him. “If he doesn’t have time today, it can wait. I just caught my shoulder on some gear. Scratch went down deep, so it just needs a little saturation.”
Mace figured it was time to toss his ego aside and say to hell with the chicken game, so he nudged past Rob to get to the front of the shop before he lost whatever willpower he had left. He hated feeling drunk and out of control every time he got close to Rob, and he didn’t know what was worse, the frustration of not having him or knowing that even if he lost his mind and gave in to his desire, it would be a one-way street and a ticket to heartbreak.
Rob’s hand burned on his bare arm, and Mace sucked in a sharp breath and forced down the raging fire that Rob’s touch stoked in the embers Mace had banked not a moment before. He’d worn a thin T-shirt, thinking he could roll up the short sleeves to give Bear access to the spot he needed re-inked. But once he felt Rob’s fingers—imagined those fingers elsewhere on his body—Mace wondered if he shouldn’t have worn a suit of armor so he could survive the battle brewing inside of him.
“Tell me what I did to piss you off, because I have to work here, and like you really love to remind me, you’re one of the owners.” He tightened his fingers, and Mace choked on the hot air he was holding in. “Every time you see me, you act like I’m a piece of shit you have to scrape off your shoe. I just—”
“Did you ever think the reason I keep reminding you I’m one of the owners is because we’re not allowed to hook up with anyone who works here?” Mace growled as he reluctantly pulled himself free of Rob’s grip. “So maybe—just fucking maybe—I’m not reminding you. I’m fucking reminding me.”
MACE STILL felt Rob’s fingers on his skin even five minutes after he’d pulled free. He sat in Bear’s chair, cautious of its wonky wheel and mindful of Earl’s tail, not more than a foot away. The dog looked up when he came in, and his ears perked up enough to say hello, but the shaggy mutt didn’t move from his sprawl, and his long legs were hooked over a pillow Ivo normally used to support his back. Technically Earl should have been on his dog bed in the reception area, but the shop wasn’t open yet, and Bear let Earl have the run of the place right up until the first client walked through the door.
“I sent Rob to the store to get some creamer.” Bear came down the hall from the back room holding a plastic bin full of ink bottles and wrapped needles. “Behind you over there. That’s the letter I told you about.”
If there was anyone Mace revered more than the firemen who pulled him out of his old life, it was Barrett Jackson. The couple who gave Bear shelter had decided they could take in one more child at the exact same moment when Mace’s foster family was done with him. Whoever was manning the karmic wheel that morning was a god in Mace’s eyes. He’d spent six months being shoved and beaten for every little slight, caught between two adults who should’ve known better than to stay married and their children who were pawns in a battlefield they had no control over. Mace couldn’t even remember their names, but he knew the man’s face in his nightmares. He was a florid, spitting scarecrow with iron fists and a hair-trigger temper.
It had gotten so bad that Mace slipped up. His brain short-circuited, and the echoes of violence were so familiar, he’d called the man Dad.
Mace was dropped off at CPS within the hour, gripping a paper bag filled with only the meager things he could grab in the few minutes he was given.
Coerced by his social worker, a tired woman with a smoker’s cough and a sad smile, the Johnsons took him in. That was where he met Bear, a long-lost brother he didn’t know he had.
They weren’t related, but something between them clicked. Bear understood Mace’s needs before he tipped over into frustrated rage, and he was willing to share a cramped room with a clock radio set at an empty AM number. He was the one to shatter the brittle silence around Mace, the one to stoke Mace’s interest in homework, and then the first one to promise Mace he would have a family to call his own.
Bear left the Johnsons first, but he remained a firm presence in Mace’s life. It didn’t take long for Mace to emancipate himself from the system and move into the ramshackle Craftsman Bear purchased so they could make it a home.
There was always another project, and the house seemed more Winchester with its never-ending list of broken things, but Mace wouldn’t trade it for the largest mansion in the world—any more than he would ever give up any of the men who’d become the family Bear promised him.
“Did you see Gus and Chris before they left?” Bear began refilling Ivo’s stall, probably preparing for their younger brother’s appointments later in the day. “They were going to the zoo.”
/> “Yeah, he told me. I’ve got to get the storage room cleaned out a bit to make room for some lumber.” Mace wrinkled his nose at the thought of digging through what Rey brought with him. “I can’t wait for Rey to tell Gus about the house. I know it’s not a done deal yet, but it’s kind of hard to wait.”
“I know he’s going to be just over the hill, but is it stupid to be sad that he won’t be crashing at the house anymore?” Bear looked up with a wistful expression on his bearded face.
It wasn’t strange for Bear to grow sentimental. Of all of them, he was the gentlest. He was a large man who looked as though he could fell a forest with a few swings of an ax or punch through a mountain to get to the other side. There was a steadiness to his demeanor, a rumble to his deep voice, and a bit of silver in his dark brown hair, but the light in his deep blue eyes sometimes bordered on mischievous, and a bit of his enthusiasm for life shone through.
Usually that meant Mace or one of the others would find themselves being volunteered for something they didn’t want to do, but if it was Bear who asked, they wouldn’t complain.
Or at least none muttered where anyone else could hear.
“I’d think you’d be glad to get rid of them.” Mace leaned over to scratch the dog’s belly when Earl rolled over and looked up at him with mournful eyes. “I can hear them from across the hall, and God knows my walls are thicker than yours.”
“They’re not so bad,” his brother replied with a grin. “Rey does dishes. I like coming home to a clean kitchen. Ivo is like a tsunami and can’t even drink water without dirtying every glass in the cupboards. All he has to do is put them in the dishwasher.”
“If you recall, I was the one who had to go through the house on the great cup hunt two years ago. I know exactly how he is.” As he reached for the envelope, Mace endured a grumbling sigh from the dog at his feet. “Get over yourself, Earl. I’ve got human things to do now.”
When he turned over the letter, Mace understood why Bear had him come in. He’d had other envelopes emblazoned with official seals and embossed letters, just like the one he held now and none of which he wanted to see. Someone had gone to the trouble of handwriting his name and the address of the brothers’ house in a flowing cursive that wouldn’t have been out of place on a wedding invitation.
It was an invitation of sorts, just not to a party Mace ever wanted to attend. But he forced himself to go every time he got one of the letters.
Bear’s shadow filtered out some of the light, but Mace welcomed his brother’s presence. He tried to tell himself his fingers were only shaking because he hadn’t had enough coffee, but the lie didn’t sit well in his stomach.
“These fucking things are always hard to open,” Mace joked when he couldn’t get his thumb under the corner of the flap.
“You want me to help you?” Bear laid a large hand on Mace’s shoulder, anchoring Mace before he spun into the terrors that lurked in his mind.
He appreciated Bear asking. It would’ve been an easy way out of everything to let Bear handle what lay inside of the envelope, but Mace didn’t want to admit he wasn’t strong enough this time around. The flap gave, and he felt the bite of paper slicing the tender flesh under the edge of his thumbnail. He hissed and sucked at it for a moment and then blew on his hand to ease the burn as he shook the letter’s contents onto his lap.
His brother took the envelope from him, letting Mace unfold the paper that had fallen out. It took him nearly a full minute to realize the words he’d expected to read weren’t there. There would be no party this time. It was an invitation to dance with words and broken hearts and horrific memories. This time he was being invited to a nightmare.
“What’s wrong, Mason?” Bear filled the space in front of Mace, crouching at his knee, and rubbed Mace’s back. “Are you okay? Do they want you to go in?”
“Never.” Mace swallowed around the sick rising from his belly, but it kept coming in a sea of panic and disbelief.
Bear stilled his hand and drew even closer, until his warmth was all Mace could feel… other than the spreading cold that gripped his spine and heart. “What do you mean never? Are they saying you don’t have to go back anymore?”
“No. They’re…,” Mace whispered, and suddenly the nightmare became real. “They’re letting my father out of prison, Bear. Fucking hell. After everything he’s done, they’re just letting him go.”
Five
MACE DIDN’T come back.
And neither did Bear after he finished up his noon-thirty appointment, told Ivo to watch the shop, and took off with Earl without giving so much as a backward glance.
Something was going on, and it was driving Rob nuts.
“Just… grab anyone who walks in,” Ivo told him when he asked about Bear. “Let’s just get through the day and see how it goes.”
Walk-ins were hot and heavy and nearly overwhelmed them until Gus dropped by with his kid and spent an hour knocking out bits and pieces of flash that a group of middle-aged women picked out from the books. Rob ended up doing a butterfly and then a spray of shooting stars while Gus took care of most of the others in the couple of hours he could spare. Then he had a phone call from Bear, made his apologies, and left. Assuring his brother he would take care of the rest, Ivo wrapped up an appointment and moved on to a pair of redheaded twins who asked for a delicate filigree compass to be put on their hips.
“God, I hate it when we get groups like that,” Dave, the shop’s apprentice, groused not more than five minutes after the group laughed and chattered their way out of the door, every single one of them sporting a clear covering of breathable film to protect their new tattoos while they healed. “They always make a mess, and it’s not like they’re serious about the ink. It’s shitty they spotted a tattoo shop and think it’s cool to just drop in and get something done. We shouldn’t even agree to ink them. It just makes us look bad. Like we’ll slap a tattoo on anyone.”
Rob braced for Ivo’s lecture.
When he first met the youngest of 415 Ink’s brothers, Rob learned to throw out any preconceptions about gender or masculinity where Ivo Rogers was concerned. His introduction to the mercurial wild child of the bunch was colored by the talk among other tattoo artists. Ivo had a reputation for being a diva, slightly arrogant about his art and his skills and with a flagrant disregard for social niceties. Rob’s only reservations about working in 415 Ink stemmed from having to work shoulder to shoulder with Ivo. He was torn between how much he could learn from someone who’d grown up in a tattoo shop and his fear of setting off a hot-tempered, unstable young owner.
Rob quickly discovered that any diva behavior Ivo might throw would’ve been deserved. Despite being younger than most shop apprentices, Ivo could blow away most artists in the business with what he could do with some ink and a machine.
The only thing Rob really had to adjust to was getting used to seeing a gorgeous, masculine, six-foot-one man with long, powerful legs stride confidently across the shop in deadly three-inch heels.
Ivo was fearless, wore what he wanted to when he wanted to, and boldly mingled gender roles with his wardrobe and look. Some days were T-shirt, jeans, and Converses, while others were kilts, thigh-high stiletto boots, and a smoky eye makeup Lilith ached to learn how to do. Ivo was… experimental. He wasn’t androgynous per se—there was always a defined maleness about him, a leonine presence in the way he moved and walked. He wrapped a shimmer of femininity around himself, picked and chose bits he liked, usually eyeliner or a flare of glitter nail polish on his fingers, and more than a few times, he gave Rob advice on how to get the most vibrant colors from a particular brand of hair dye.
But the rumors were right about one thing. Ivo had no time for bullshit or social head games, and judging by the quick jerk of Ivo’s head and the narrowing of his ocean-blue eyes, he’d definitely heard Dave’s complaint and was not pleased.
“Didn’t Bear talk to you about that before?” Ivo didn’t stop cleaning his machine, but his gaze was fi
xed on Dave. “We’re here to ink. Not judge.”
“It’s not like we’re going to see them again. They come in because they think it’s some kind of rebellion on their part. A chick gets a small little heart or daisy on her ankle, and suddenly she’s a badass.” From the look of things, Dave didn’t realize he was cutting the carrots for the hot water he was in, adding to the stew Ivo was about to make out of him. “I mean, we get, what? A couple hundred dollars? Maybe three? We should just get one of those machines that make temporary tattoos on paper for those kinds of people to pick up instead of wasting our time inking them. They can pick out what they want, you can charge them ten bucks extra for the sponge and water, and then they’re gone.”
Ivo’s gaze flicked toward Rob, and the hard fire he saw in their depths made Rob flinch. There were moments when lines were drawn, and where someone stood, what side they were on, meant everything. It seemed silly to be caught in one of those moments over little dots of ink and a group of laughing women, but in that particular moment, that’s where he was.
“Nuh-uh.” Rob shook his head at Ivo and gathered up the used plastic pots of ink he had on his station. “Day one of working here, Bear told me exactly where he stood and said if I didn’t like it, I could walk. Notice I still work here.”
“Yeah, but Dave doesn’t,” Ivo replied softly. “Grab your stuff out of the back room and go. I hate to do this, dude, but we can’t have you here if you don’t respect everyone who comes through the door.”
“You can’t tell me to leave. I’m Bear’s apprentice, not yours.” Dave dropped the broom he’d been using, outrage churning on his face with a red flush. “They’re just a bunch of stupid bitches—”
“That’s your problem. That, right there.” This time Ivo put down his half-cleaned machine and walked out to the middle of the floor where Dave stood with his fists on his hips. There was about three feet between them, and Rob didn’t like the twitch of Dave’s nostrils when Ivo drew near. “Bear might be your mentor, but this is our shop. You are everyone’s responsibility. If you can’t understand the shop’s—this family’s—fundamental philosophy, then you need to find someplace else to be.