by Stacy Gail
“Scout,” Mads said as evenly as she could as she headed for the door, “I’ve literally had no sleep for over twenty-four hours, so please just tell me what you need to tell me before I start screaming.”
Scout’s perfectly lined brows drew together, more out of concern than irritation. “Do you need the day off?”
“No. But thank you,” she couldn’t help but add. Scout was a ballbuster of the highest order, but when she showed her marshmallow side it made Mads want to cry. Then again, that was probably just sleep deprivation and heartbreak. “What was it you needed to tell me?”
“I’ve sent everyone an email on when and where they need to drop off their art pieces for the auction. All paintings need to be completely dry and wrapped in some sort of protective but breathable covering, such as fabric or paper wrapping. We prefer that you don’t crate your work, though if you feel your project needs that amount of protection, then so be it. Friday is the hard deadline, though you can drop off your donated art piece in my office at any time during this week. All the specifics are in the email, so don’t ignore it, okay?”
“Got it.” She had already bought a massive roll of brown packing paper and twine to do the job. “Anything else?”
“Nope, other than me re-upping the offer of a day off. I’d take it if I were you. Usually I’m a stone-cold bitch when it comes to scheduling, because it’s a pain for both me and your clients to reschedule their appointments. But today I’m offering an out, just because I’m in a good mood.”
That made Mads pause, as the call of simply crawling away to lick her wounds grew to a siren’s song. But just as she drew breath to accept the offer Sage topped the stairs, spotted them in the middle of the mezzanine, and headed for them like a heat-seeking missile.
“There you are.” Other than an absent nod Scout’s way, he didn’t look at anything but Mads as he grabbed her hand mid-stride and headed toward the frosted glass tattoo booths. “We need to talk.”
“I was just in the middle of something with Scout.” Horrified by his lack of manners—and ridiculously thrilled to see him despite the fact that he’d walked out on her like she meant less than nothing to him—she managed to wave a farewell to Scout before Sage tugged her into her booth. “What the hell’s the matter with you?”
“You are. You’re the matter with me.” Once he had her safely inside her booth, he practically flung her into the chair by the tattooing table, closed the door and flipped on the “Occupied” light outside. When he turned back to glower at her, she had to admit he looked as rough as she felt. “We need to hammer this shit out and get to a place where we’re okay, because I can’t take another night like I had last night.”
“You’re the one who bailed,” she couldn’t help but snarl at him, because damn it, it was true. He’d given up on her the moment he’d chosen to walk out the door. “You showed me you didn’t think that what we had was worth fighting for, so there’s nothing left to—how did you put it?—hammer out. I got your message loud and clear.”
“Yeah, well, you got the wrong message. I wasn’t even trying to send a fucking message. I don’t talk in code, so don’t read shit into things I do when there’s nothing there to read.”
“Believe me, there’s plenty to read into the fact that you left in the middle of the night because you were fucking done.” Her voice began to rise, and she put a hand to her mouth when she realized she was in danger of sharing their screwed-up crap with her fellow tattooists. “Look,” she went on in a much quieter tone, “I don’t know what happened last night. What I do know is that last night felt like a breakup. When someone walks away as if I mean nothing to them, I understand what that says. It says that I actually am nothing to them.”
“Fuck that,” he muttered, and he didn’t seem to have any desire to follow her lead in keeping his voice down. “I left so that I wouldn’t pop off with anything that would end us on a permanent basis. But it sucked being away from you, and I can see now that leaving was the wrong move. I get that and I own that fuckup, okay? I’ll even admit that in the past, if shit went sideways with a woman I’d just bounce and that’d be the end of it. Life’s too short for that kind of trouble.”
Hearing him say it out loud was like a knife in the heart. “Yeah, exactly. That’s exactly what happened last night.”
“Wrong,” came the immediate response. “I might’ve bounced—”
“Might have?”
“—but I’ve never wanted to make a U-turn so bad in my life. Thing is, I meant what I said. I didn’t want to make shit worse between us by saying something I’d regret later.”
“I don’t see how it could get any worse than breaking up.”
“Goddamn it,” he gritted out, looking like he wanted to bite something. Probably her. “We didn’t fucking break up, Daniels.”
“And I still don’t understand why you got so pissed off in the first place,” she went on, while the tension tying her stomach in knots was enough to make her feel sick. “FYI, when someone gets so angry with me they walk the hell out, I take that to mean that person’s had it with me. Like, forever. That’s a lesson my dad should’ve learned when my mom had finally had enough and walked out on him, but he just couldn’t let her go.”
“Why am I not surprised,” he muttered.
She ignored him. “That decision kicked off almost a decade of war that fucked up everyone around them, especially me and Rena. That was when I made a promise to myself to never hold on to anyone who didn’t want to be with me. So here I am, owning that promise now. I know I can’t make a person want to be with me no matter how much I might want to try, so I’m not going to beg that person to stay. Watching my parents fuck up their lives the way they did, I know there’s no point in begging someone to stay when they clearly want out. Either a person stays because they want to, or they don’t. Simple as that.”
His expression grew darker with every word she said. “You’re saying you wouldn’t say a word to fight for me?”
Jesus Christ. “Not when the person I’d have to fight is you, for God’s sake. Anyone else would get my boot up their ass if they tried to come between us, and I won’t apologize for that. But there’s nothing I can do if you’re looking for an exit. Which is what happened last night, Sage. The moment you walked out the door, I figured we were kaput. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“You’re wrong.”
She sucked in a calming breath and inwardly counted to ten. “I guess I asked for that. Literally.”
“We’re not done, Daniels. You hear me? We had a fight, but that’s all it was, okay? No big deal.”
It didn’t seem like no big deal when he’d left, but she’d circle back around to that later. “I don’t even understand why everything blew up so badly between us.”
He was silent for so long she began to think he wasn’t going to answer. Then he crossed his arms and regarded her with brooding eyes. “I’ve never been this deep in a relationship before, so my usual way of operating—like walking away when shit gets real—obviously isn’t going to fly. I didn’t sleep a wink last night, because walking away from you made me discover a new level of misery I didn’t even know existed. I can’t even begin to explain how goddamn awful it was. It’s like I was going fucking crazy.”
Despite her tension, a glimmer of wild hope bloomed. If he’d been that miserable without her, maybe that meant he cared more than he realized. “You don’t have to explain it, because I didn’t sleep, either. Scout was on the verge of giving me the day off when you rolled up, because apparently I look like roadkill.”
“You look magnificent,” came the immediate response, and was so emphatic she couldn’t help but believe he meant it. “Though it shits me that I put you through the same kind of night I had. That’s one hundred percent on me, and it’s never going to happen again, you have my word on that. I won’t forgive myself for making you think I don’t give a damn about you, so you can bet I’ll never walk away from you again.”
That wa
s nice, but he’d done it so easily, it was hard to pin all her hopes on a promise. “I just don’t get why you walked in the first place. Why won’t you explain that to me?”
“Because…” His brooding expression turned into a scowl, and a muscle jumped in his jaw. Never before had she seen a more perfect example of a man who was thoroughly done with communicating. “It was that painting. My painting.”
His painting? “I know Darkness, Vanquished was what sparked the argument,” she said cautiously, because as far as she saw it, this was still a live landmine they were dancing around. “I just need to know why it upset you so much. Was it because you didn’t want the world to see what’s going on between us? Are you ashamed of how you make me feel?”
“What the actual fuck, Mads.” The words shot from him, cutting her off cleanly. “Don’t you ever say that crazy shit again.”
She took a calming breath so she wouldn’t snap back. Now was the time for answers, not pissiness. “That was how it seemed to me, which was why I pointed out that no one is going to know that the male depicted in the painting was inspired by you.”
“I don’t give a damn if everyone on the planet knows that’s me and you. Holy hell, I’m proud of the fact that my woman sees me as a light that can chase away all her storms. I had no idea how much I wanted to be that for you until I saw that painting last night. Now that’s all I want to be.”
That glimmer of hope grew to a steady, glowing light, but she still didn’t have an answer. “Then… why? Why did you get so upset? I need to know what triggered you so bad you had to leave, because I don’t want to walk on eggshells with you, waiting for that trigger—whatever the hell it was—to happen again.”
“I told you,” he said gruffly, “that painting is us. It’s us, Mads, and you’re just giving us away like we don’t mean shit to you. That’s what has me so pissed off. I don’t want you to give us away, don’t you get that? That painting won’t mean as much to whatever asshole that bids on it as it does to me.”
“Oh.” The light in her chest burst into every cell, and at last that terrible tension began to drain away, only to be replaced by a quiet, beautiful joy. “That’s it? That’s why you got so mad?”
If anything, his scowl worsened. “Yeah. So?”
It was amazing, how adorable he was when he was being defensive. “So, I wish you’d just said so in the first place.”
“I did.”
Dear God, was he kidding? “Not like that. What you did last night was tell me what to do with my art, and no one gets to do that. Not even you.”
“Yeah,” he drawled. “The message on that particular boundary came through loud and clear.”
“And I should have made it clear that I thought you didn’t want the public to know we’re together, which led me to think you were ashamed of me.”
He snorted. “Holy hell, Daniels, take out a full-page ad in the paper to announce we’re together, for all I care.”
“So we really are together, then?” She heard the words come out of her mouth without any conscious will, and for a moment her heart stopped. But she had to know. “This isn’t just some rando hook-up that’s been happening between us, because we’re bored and have nothing better to do?”
“You were up all night because of me. I was up all night because of you.” Slowly he uncrossed his arms and reached for her, pulling her to her feet. “You tell me. Are we together, Skittish?”
“Yes.” She heard the wobble in her voice, and had to clear her throat before she tried again. “Yes, I think we are.”
“Don’t think it,” he advised, giving her a hard squeeze as he began to lower his head. “Know it.”
“I must know it, because I’m not going to donate Darkness, Vanquished to the auction. I want you to have it.”
He froze with his mouth a fraction away from hers. “What?”
“I love that it means something to you,” she said, while her lips pulsed and ached for his. “After growing up with my dad teasing me about whatever I tried putting down on canvas, I practically stopped painting altogether, instead relying on things I could hide or take with me, like my sketchpad or a digital tablet. You’re actually the first person who’s ever even wanted one of my paintings, so I could never give it away now. I want you to have it.”
A flash of fierce emotion lit his eyes before he seemed to think it through. “I can’t let you flake out on this auction, not when I pushed you so hard to do it in the first place.”
“I’ll donate the painting I did that’s hanging in my foyer,” she decided at once. “It might be one of my older works, but it’s an original and I’m proud of it, so it’ll be perfect for the auction. I guess that means I have to name it now, though. What do you think of Caged Freedom?”
“Great.” He studied her for so long she wondered if he was trying to memorize her. “Daniels, look me in the eye and tell me straight. You’re really willing to do that for me?”
Her brows quirked. She was surprised he had to ask. “Of course. I’d always thought of that older painting as a backup for the auction, anyway, in case I wasn’t able to come up with anything. I just can’t believe what a pain in the ass this auction has become,” she added, and gave him what she hoped was a spectacular side-eye. “I must have had rocks in my head, allowing you to talk me into doing it.”
“How else was I supposed to get my foot in the door with you? The auction was as good an excuse as any to get in your face and bug you until you woke the fuck up and noticed me standing right in front of you.”
That stopped her dead in her tracks. “What?”
“The auction’s cool, and it’s a good tradition to have this time of year,” he added, raising a careless shoulder. “But it was just an excuse to break the ice with you. And admit it—you had one helluva lot of ice around you to break.”
Holy crap. “I’m not admitting anything, and a man like you would never need an excuse to talk to a woman.”
“Normally I’d say you’re right about that, but you’re not most women. You’d been working here for months, yet you’d hardly said ten words to anyone, much less glanced my way. The night your car died was the first in I had with you, so I went for it and hammered at every possible weakness from that point on, including throwing you into the deep end when it came to the auction. I’m not even sorry.”
She waited a heartbeat as his words sank in. “You talked me into doing this auction… because you wanted to get in my pants?”
“Yeah.” He nodded like this wasn’t completely insane. “I took advantage of the opportunity that dead battery gave me, but once it was fixed I needed something else. The auction came up, and—bam. Perfect excuse. What’s more, getting you to open up worked better than I’d planned. You’ve opened up not just to me, but to your new life here at the House as well. Though,” he added while she chewed on that, “your booth still looks like you just got here.”
“Christmas is less than two weeks away,” she said, looking around the barren cubicle, noting for the first time how cold and lonely it felt. “Maybe I’ll drag in a tabletop tree or something.”
“Which you’ll get rid of the second Christmas is over. No, you need something more permanent.”
“Like what, a cactus?” She was fairly certain that even she could keep a cactus alive, at least for a while.
“I was thinking of something like this.” He reached into his jacket’s inner pocket, pulled out a small, flat package wrapped in bubble-wrap, and handed it to her. “I also want to do another portrait of you that you can hang in here as well. A real one, not a caricature.”
“I love my caricature drawing.” It was true. She’d loved it so much she’d hung it opposite the painting she had hanging in the foyer so that everyone who came through her door would see it first thing. Then all thought came to a screeching halt when she removed the bubble wrap and found herself looking at the ornately framed selfie Sage had taken of them right outside her tattooing booth. “Oh, Sage. It’s us.”
“Apparently that’s a thing for me. Us.” He loosened his hold on her long enough to pop the stand on the back of the frame, then placed it on the bare surface of the stainless-steel worktable. “There. Your first photo.”
“Looks lonely.”
“We need to take more pictures together.” He caught her back up against him and lowered his head to draw his lips along the line of her neck. “I want to take you home to my place after work. We can start then.”
“Taking pictures?”
“Among other things.”
She laughed, both thrilled at the prospect of seeing where Sage lived and amazed at how beautiful the world was now that she was back in his arms. If she’d had any doubts about whether or not she had real feelings for him, she didn’t now. He had become her world without her even noticing, and now…
Now she had to figure out what to do if and when he decided to once again walk away when life got too real.
Damn it.
Chapter Fifteen
“I’d never really been anywhere other than Vegas, so when I pulled up stakes and moved to Chicago, I couldn’t get enough of all this water you had up here. So, naturally, I looked for a place that was close to the lake.” Keeping his eyes trained on Mads, Sage let her into the glass and ironwork door to his place, turning on lights the moment they were inside. “Place used to be where they built all those fancy wooden yachts back in the day before fiberglass was a thing. That whole wall of windows looking out onto the lake used to be doors, and the concrete floors we’re standing on now used to be part of the marina before it was filled in after World War II.”
Shit, he was babbling. Never in his life had he babbled. But the woman before him now turned him into a babbling idiot just by breathing.
Out-fucking-standing.
“It’s beautiful.” Eyes on the frozen magnificence that was Lake Michigan, Mads shrugged out of her coat and laid it neatly on one of the two mismatched chairs flanking the couch in the living area. With the exception of the bathroom, there were no actual rooms separated by walls, though the kitchen space was clearly marked by a diner-style counter. Even his bedroom was out in the open, with his bed up on a platform to the far right of the large, open area. “So, lapsed Catholics aren’t big on Christmas decorations, are they?”