by Emery Rose
“How many times a day do you jerk off?”
“Today? Three. I might knock out another one before I go to sleep.”
“Seriously?”
I smothered a laugh. “Too much? Not enough? What’s the recommended daily allowance?”
“I’m sure there’s no limit—”
“To my imagination.”
“What do you imagine?”
You. “I don’t need to use my imagination. I let the porn stars do all the work.”
I envisioned her rolling her eyes at that one. “You watch porn now?”
No. “You have a dirty mind. You shouldn’t be thinking about my dick or what I do with it.”
She was silent for a few seconds, probably thinking about exactly what I told her not to. I smiled into the darkness. What game were we playing?
Ava changed the game again. She was good at turning the tables. “I blamed you… for everything. For the drugs and for disappearing without a word. And then those men… they were going to kill you after they beat you up and carved your chest...”
Eden must have told her that because I never had. I’d tried to tell Ava as little as possible about what had happened that night. Eden thought I’d been unconscious when that guy had carved my chest. I let her think that, even though it wasn’t true. I’d felt every dig of the blade as it cut into my skin, branding me with a word that would forever scar me no matter how much ink covered the letters. “But they didn’t kill me.”
“I never want to imagine a world without you in it. It would be such a sad and lonely place. But I’m still trying to get over…”
I let out a breath and flicked ash out the window. “Get over what?”
“The way you left. I didn’t know if you were dead or alive.”
Not alive. Surviving but wishing I was dead. I was tempted to tell her everything. About rehab and how I felt like I was crawling out of my skin. The intense cravings. The way it exhausted me, left me wishing I was dead. Those long days riding a Greyhound down to Miami, deluding myself into thinking that I was on my way to something good, that I could somehow make things right.
I wanted to tell her how the reality had kicked me in the ass, leaving me disillusioned and feeling hopeless. I wanted to tell her about Ronan and Keira, about the mother I didn’t remember who had spent the past twenty years pretending Killian and I had never existed. And about the night I walked into the ocean, thinking it would be so much easier to sink into oblivion and let the water cover me. Steal all the breath from my lungs. But I’d imagined her face. Heard her voice in my head. I’d swam back to the shore and lay on the beach. Watched the stars reel in the sky and prayed to God for strength and the serenity to accept all the shitty things I couldn’t change.
I wanted to dump all my excess baggage at her feet and lighten my load. But I couldn’t do that to her, so I kept my mouth shut about all of it.
Silence stretched out between us, but I heard Ava’s soft breathing on the other end of the line, so I knew she was still there.
“I’m sorry,” I said. What else could I say? “I can’t do a damn thing to change what happened in the past.”
“I know. I’m trying to let go of the past. I’m working on it. Just… it’s hard, you know?”
“Preaching to the choir, babe.”
“Did you blame me for leaving you?” she asked.
“Why are you going down this road?”
“It’s important to get it all out there.”
She left me when I needed her most. Twice. The first time I pushed her away because I was no good for her. Part of her must have been relieved to be free of me. Otherwise, she would have fought to stay. She didn’t. She went on with her life, without me. Occasionally, she’d call to see how I was doing. Those calls were hard, our conversation stilted. What do you say to your ex-girlfriend who was living the college life, so far removed from my world she might as well have been living on another planet?
The second time she left me because she couldn’t handle what I’d done to put my life and other peoples’ lives in jeopardy. She couldn’t handle that I’d disappeared without contacting her. Before I left for Miami, we hadn’t been lovers or friends. We’d been two people with a history, who had kept tabs on each other. Sometimes she’d get drunk or lonely and call me for sex only to regret it the next morning. So yeah, I understood all about trying to let go of the past. But did I blame her? I wasn’t sure. She did the best thing she could do for herself.
“I understand why you did it,” I said.
“Don’t chicken out. Be honest. Did you hate me for it? Because there have been plenty of times I’ve hated you.”
“A part of me blamed you. A part of me hated you for giving up on me. You’d always been a fighter… fearless. But what girl in their right mind could love a junkie? I didn’t want to drag you down with me.” If it hadn’t been for her mother, I probably would have. Addicts are selfish. They take, and they take, and they take, and they give very little of themselves in return. She’d been left with the dregs of me and she’d deserved so much more.
“I never really got over you though. I tried… so hard. But something always held me back.”
“What was that something?” I asked.
“My beautiful memories. I want to make more with you. Someday. Maybe.”
Someday. Maybe.
Tate was right. Trying to win back Ava was fucking with my head. Would there ever come a day when we could get through a conversation without playing the blame game? Without dredging up the past?
“I didn’t know, Connor. I didn’t know that my mom was involved in our break-up. When you pushed me away, I thought it was because you chose drugs over me. That’s why I walked away. But I always felt…so ashamed. Like I’d given up on you.”
I squeezed my eyes shut as if that would block out the pain of that memory.
“It’s easier to be honest in the dark,” she said. “Over the phone.”
“Guess so.”
“Connor?”
“Hmm?”
“Maybe I’m bad for you. Maybe that’s why you… turned to drugs.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and took deep breaths. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It was all on me.”
“Why? Why did you need them so much?”
God, how could I make a non-addict understand what it’s like? There was a hole inside me I couldn’t seem to fill no matter what I did. Drugs had filled that hole, made me feel less empty. When I did heroin, it felt like I was injecting sunshine into my bloodstream. After the initial rush, the whole world took on a soft, warm glow. And I kept chasing that sunshine… chasing the light and the warmth…
“Connor?” she prompted.
“I don’t know what to tell you. Except that it was never your fault. Don’t ever think it was. You gave me everything and I gave you what was left of the broken pieces of myself.”
“Are you still broken?”
Probably. Maybe I always would be. Just like I’d always be an addict, no matter how long I went without doing drugs. But I was getting my life together and every morning, I tried to remind myself to be grateful for the good things in my life. “I’m gluing the pieces back together. With superglue.”
After a beat, she said, “My boyfriend gave me a tattoo when I was eighteen… bluebirds… but I messed it up with barbed wire. I regret that now.”
“Regrets are hard to live with.”
“Yeah, they are. I thought maybe you could help me out. I booked an appointment with you tomorrow night. Maybe you can work your magic.”
I woke up in a cold sweat, my heart racing. Deep breaths. In. Out. In. Out.
“I expected better of you,” Marco said. “You let me down, Dylan Connelly… or whoever you are… and this kind of betrayal… it will haunt you, just like my ghost.”
Those were his final words. It had been him or me, and I’d chosen me. They shot him three times as I stood in front of him, my arms tied behind my back, a gun pressed to
my head. I had watched him die, his words echoing in my head as the life drained out of him. He’d been right.
It haunted me, just like his ghost.
15
Ava
“Surprise me,” I said when Connor tried to show me the sketch he’d done last night after we hung up.
“You sure about that?”
“I trust you,” I said, walking over to his tattoo station.
“Ink is for life,” he reminded me.
I stripped down to my black tank top and set my army jacket and purse on the shelf behind the chair. “Unless you find an awesome tattoo artist who can cover up a bad decision.”
“I’m awesome and you trust me now?” he asked, trying to figure out if there was a catch.
“I’m taking a leap of faith.”
I climbed into the black leather chair and offered him my right arm. He grimaced at my current tattoo. He’d already told me, on numerous occasions, that barbed wire was so 1990s and every time he looked at my tattoo, it made him nauseous.
“If you don’t like it,” he said, prepping my skin. “will I get kicked in the balls again?”
“She kicked you in the balls?” Gavin asked, aghast. He looked over from his station, his tattoo needle poised above a guy’s shoulder. Strands of blond hair escaped the elastic holding his hair back.
“Maybe he deserved it,” AJ chimed in from her station.
Which started a debate with the customers in Gavin and AJ’s chairs, both of which happened to be guys. Unfortunately, half-walls divided the four stations, so everyone could chime in with their opinions and be heard.
You kick a guy in the balls once and you never live it down. While they talked, Connor applied the transfer, and I studiously avoided looking at my arm.
“Dude, I hope you’re wearing a cup,” Gavin said.
“I’m taking a leap of faith,” Connor said, winking at me. “Ready?” he asked, the machine buzzing in his hand.
I took a few deep breaths and nodded. “Go for it.” I grimaced before the needles even touched my skin.
“Babe.”
“Ignore my facial expressions.”
He chuckled as I attempted to smooth out my features without success. “It’s kind of hard.”
“I’m ready. Just do it.” I closed my eyes and took deep, calming breaths as the needles dug into my skin. It would be over before I knew it. This wouldn’t take long. After a few minutes, I got used to it. Sort of.
Enough to open my eyes, at least. I focused on the opposite wall—moody grey with a concrete paint effect. Connor had painted it for Jared last year, or so I’d heard from Eden, my font of information when Connor and I hadn’t been speaking. My gaze wandered to the windows facing the street, lit up with neon Forever Ink signs. I couldn’t believe Connor owned this place now. I remember the first time we came in here. After visiting a dozen other shops all over Brooklyn, Connor said this was the one as soon as we’d walked in the door. He loved that it was artist-run and that the designs were original. He loved the feel of the place. Cool, but not sterile, with plenty of character. It wasn’t gritty or seedy like some of the other places we’d visited.
“Is it turning out okay?” I asked.
“We’ll see.”
“That doesn’t sound very promising.”
He grunted. Again, not very promising.
“I have inker’s remorse.”
“It happens.”
“I was too hasty. I mean, why punish those beautiful birds?”
No answer. It was a rhetorical question anyway.
“Will you be able to cover the barbed wire without ruining the bird design?”
“Nope.”
Maybe I’d suspected that, and it was why I’d chosen not to look at the new design. I tapped out the beat of Led Zeppelin’s “Going to California” with my free hand. Such a wistful ballad. “You used to love Led Zeppelin.”
“Still do.”
“I could picture you in a rock band,” I said. “You’d be the drummer.”
“Sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll. Perfect lifestyle for me.”
“I would have been one of your groupies.”
“You would have been the lead singer.”
We fell silent again. “This seems to be taking a long time.”
“I’m using more real estate.”
“You’re making my tattoo bigger? Ugh. No wonder.”
“Maybe you should have looked at the design.”
“That’s women for you,” Gavin chimed in. “Always bitching about something.” I glanced over at him. All the customers were gone now, the shop was closed, and Gavin and AJ were cleaning their stations.
“And you wonder why you don’t have a girlfriend,” AJ said.
“When you gonna invite me and Connor over to check out the girl on girl action with you and your girlfriend?” Gavin asked.
I raised my brows. Connor snorted.
“Never,” AJ said.
“Is that the kind of porn you watch?” I asked Connor in a low voice.
“I don’t watch porn,” he said.
“Last night you said you did.”
“I was just winding you up.”
“Your favorite pastime.”
He gave me a wicked grin. “Not my favorite.”
I didn’t ask him to expand on that. I kept venturing into forbidden territory. No matter how many times I told myself I shouldn’t say certain things, it seemed I couldn’t catch the words before they flew out of my mouth. Really, I should think before I speak. I should think before I do a lot of things. The barbed wire tattoo was the perfect example of that.
“Invite Ava,” Gavin said. “Three chicks, two guys. How hot would that be?”
“Sizzling,” I said sarcastically.
AJ laughed as she and Gavin came over to check out my tattoo, still a work in progress.
“Nice work, Con,” AJ said with approval. “I like the way you—”
I held up my left hand. “Don’t say it. It’s a surprise.”
Her brows arched. “Brave girl.”
“You just said it was nice.”
Gavin removed the elastic from his hair and ran a hand through it. “Bold choice, Vincent. I wouldn’t have pegged Ava for a snake lover.”
My eyes widened. Snake? I cleared my throat. “You tattooed a snake on my arm?”
“That’s what you get for trusting me,” Connor said, his head bent over my arm.
AJ shook her head no. We smiled at each other in solidarity. Gavin did a double-take and waggled his eyebrows. “Something going on with you two?”
She shrugged, and I caught the teasing gleam in her eye. “Why not? Ava’s hot.”
“Right back at you,” I said.
“You’d do each other?” Gavin asked, intrigued.
AJ winked at me.
“The most I ever did was kiss a girl,” I said. “But with AJ, I might be tempted to try more.” It was total bullshit, but we were just having fun with it, and AJ knew that.
“Connor, did you know about your ex-girlfriend’s bi-curious ways?” Gavin asked.
He shook his head a little. “Ava never fails to surprise me.”
“Keeps it fresh,” AJ said.
“Absolutely,” I said.
Gavin gave me a sly look. “Are you two exes with benefits or—”
“You done here?” Connor asked, lifting his head, and shooting Gavin a look. Gavin was obviously fishing for information, but if he thought he’d get it from Connor, he was mistaken. When it came to his personal life, Connor was a vault.
Gavin held up his hands and backed away. “Out of here. See you tomorrow.”
We said our goodbyes and the door closed behind AJ and Gavin, leaving me alone with Connor in an empty shop. Even though the music was still piping from the sound system and the machine in Connor’s hand was buzzing, a hush settled over us.
“You kissed a girl?” he asked a little while later.
“Once.”
“To
ngue?”
“Yeah.”
“When was this?”
I leaned my head against the back of the seat and closed my eyes, remembering. “Valentine’s Day. I was supposed to spend it with my boyfriend, but he forgot. It was his twentieth birthday.” I wasn’t sure why I was referring to Connor as if he’d been someone else. Maybe that made it easier. “I kept calling him and texting, but he never answered his phone. So, I ended up going to a party. It was at Scott’s apartment. I smoked a joint with him and Megan.” Megan had been my roommate and Scott had been her boyfriend at the time. Now, Megan lived in Boston and worked for a consulting company. She worked sixty to seventy hours a week, wore suits to work, and aspired to climb the corporate ladder.
“You smoked a joint?” Connor asked, surprised.
First and last time. It made me nauseous and paranoid, proving that drugs and I were not a good match. As if I needed proof. “I didn’t really like it.”
I thought about that night. House music was shaking the walls, and it felt like everything was going on around me in slow motion, like I wasn’t part of it. I was dancing, the bass thrumming through my body, my head in a hazy funk, and all I’d wanted was to forget. Just like Connor had done. The girl had raven hair and big brown eyes and I never even caught her name. “When she started kissing me, I went along with it just to see how it would feel.”
“And how did it feel?” he asked quietly.
“Strange. Interesting. Not bad but not good either. I just felt… like I was someone else. Maybe that’s how I wanted to feel.”
Connor lifted the tattoo needle and sat back on his stool. “I need to lock up.” I nodded, and he gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Almost there. You’re doing great.”
I watched him stride across the black-and-white tiled floor, his shoulders squared, the lines of his torso forming a perfect V-shape. I didn’t notice how good his ass looked in those faded Levi’s. Nope, didn’t notice.
Connor changed the music and Lana Del Rey’s “Pretty When You Cry” piped over the speakers. Connor didn’t play fair. He knew how to break down my defenses and he was using it to his advantage.