18. Sage

You learn a lot inking people for a living. What a person chooses to put on their body permanently says something about them—whether it's a random tat they picked off the wall at eighteen or a full back-piece that's been planned and tweaked for months.

Every drop of ink marks a person. It tells a story about what they like or don't. What moments meant something.

Who they've loved and lost.

What matters.

Guess that's why my own body is covered in chaos.

I've seen it all. Heard it all. Some days I wonder if I'm a tattoo artist or a fucking therapist. At least if I'm listening to other people, I don't have to deal with the shit going on in my own head.

Tattooing is calming.

It centers me in a way nothing else can.

And that's why I pass it on. After all, it's the only good thing I've got to offer people.

Art always came naturally to me, and when Blaze learned that, he brought me on at Twisted Roses. Since I was only fourteen at the time, he'd make me practice on pig skin. I'd sweep up and sterilize. And I learned everything I could until he thought I was ready to start working on people.

Tattooing came easier to me than anything else when most of the shit in my life didn't make sense.

Which is why, when Blaze sold the shop and the four of us bought it, I wanted to pass on what Blaze had done for me through mentoring others. And nothing is better than working with talent like Mason. Raw ability that just needs a little direction.

"That's fucking beautiful." I glance over his shoulder at the skull he's inking on his client's calf.

The eye sockets are perfectly shaded, and the snake wrapping around the dagger has 3-D scales. He's almost as good as Crew with realism, but like every artist, he has his own unique signature.

Mason leans back, wiping the tat clean. "We were talking about a pop of color in the flowers."

"Whatever you think." I smack his shoulder and walk away.

The key to mentoring isn't micromanaging them. I have to let them become their own artists. Which is why, slowly, I've been backing off and letting Mason make his own decisions. It's one thing to teach a skill or give pointers on a design. But at the end of the day, art is personal. And he's more talented than any other artist I've mentored in the past couple of years.

And twice as cocky.

If anyone thinks I'm bad with women, he's worse. The thin apartment walls pay homage to his one-night stands. He has an aversion to commitment, which I could relate to, so it never bothered me. But Lyla didn't seem to appreciate it when she moved in.

I make my way down the hall to the office and find Jude already waiting for me.

Jude's wife, Fel, circled the shop a few minutes ago to let me know Lyla had made her way downstairs, and she was going to show her around the scheduling system. So I knew it was only a matter of time before Jude gave me shit about it.

At least if I'm stuck listening to Jude's judgement, I can avoid Lyla a little longer. Because now that she's living in my apartment and working at the shop, there's no escape, and it's driving me mad.

Those violet eyes are already fucking with my head just like they did years ago. They watch my every movement around the apartment. They haunt the back of my eyelids.

I thought I'd gotten over it—gotten over her.

Clearly, I'm just really good at burying shit.

I spent years trying to erase the feeling of her off me. Trying to forget that being with Lyla was the last time I felt anything close to good. I don't know if she realizes she ruined me because I waited for her well beyond what was considered normal for a guy in their early twenties before finally giving up and trying to move on.

I gave her the last good part of me and then she fucking left. And I've spent years trying to replace that feeling. Even if nothing comes close.

I hate her, and at the same time, I don't blame her. She was always too good for the club and way too good for me.

It's something I had to remind myself when I walked into the kitchen this morning and saw her all grown up in a paper-thin T-shirt that showed off the full length of her legs. She was always pretty, but now she's the fucking apple in Eden.

I might hate her for scorching my heart to ashes, but it doesn't mean I can't still imagine sinking my teeth into her soft flesh. What I wouldn't give to hear her moan for me again.

Dropping into my chair in the office, I lean back and drag my hands down my face. It was so much easier thinking I'd never see her again. It was easier believing fate didn't actually exist.

That girl is a master at making me question everything.

"Why do I get the feeling you're sitting here waiting for me like my own personal stalker?"

"Don't know what you're talking about." Jude smirks. "Why? Worried? After all, you had so many questions when Fel first showed back up. You scared I'm going to ask you how you're feeling now that the girl who broke you is back in town?"

"She didn't break me."

Jude leans forward. "You sure about that? Because the guy you were before she left, and the guy who decided not to patch in are total fucking opposites."

"You didn't seem to mind." I glare at him. "I remember you being fucking pleased I was a better wingman."

"It was better than letting you wallow."

"I wasn't wallowing."

"Sage—"

"Let it go, Jude." I shake my head. "It's the fucking past. I'm just doing Kane a favor."

"She's staying at your apartment."

"So?"

Jude stares me down, looking like he's about to make me face everything I don't want to when Crew comes in.

"Kane's daughter?" Crew laughs, walking into the office and dropping onto the couch. "Did you finally realize you have a problem fucking front desk girls, so you put someone up there who you can't fuck without getting your dick chopped off?"

"It's not like that." Anymore.

Been there, done that. Should have been six feet under years ago.

Crew scratches his tattooed neck and grins at me like he's not believing a word out of my mouth.

"Go easy on him." Echo drops into Crew's lap, and he wraps his arms around her. "I like her. And I think I'm not the only one."

Echo winks at me and smiles so big it brightens the whole room. Her half-black half-blonde hair is tied up in a ponytail and it bounces around with her excitement. Crew looks up at her like he's making a wish and she's the only one who can grant it. And I can't figure out how he spent so long in denial about what was right in front of him. Because it was obvious he was obsessed from the moment those two started working together. And now they've finally admitted it to themselves and each other.

I don't know what it's like to feel that kind of contentment—to be that at ease about anything. But for the first time in my life, I might be a little jealous.

"Wait." Echo's eyes widen as she looks at me. "What was that?"

"What was what?"

"That face. You just thought something when Crew looked at me." She smiles, popping a bubble with her gum, being way too observant. "What exactly is your history with that girl?"

"She's Kane's daughter." I shrug. "We practically grew up together."

"We know that." Crew shakes his head like my answer is ridiculous.

"Is she the reason you're such a man-slut, Sage?"

"I am not a man-slut." Or, at least, I refuse to admit it when it doesn't mean anything.

Echo rolls her eyes.

"You're making something out of nothing." I stand up. "She's just some girl I used to know."

"Mm-hmm. Good song. But even better lies you're telling yourself."

Echo whispers something to Crew, but I'm already halfway out the door. I don't need this shit, and I don't need them getting any ideas in their heads.

If Lyla and I were going to be anything, that was ruined along with anything else when she walked away.

There's a reason I don't do relationships. They're bullshit. I opened my chest up once and Lyla took a butcher knife to it.

Walking up front, I swear I can smell her before I even enter the lobby. And when I turn the corner, I know why because she's burning incense and making herself at home. Lyla's sitting on the stool behind the front counter flipping through her tarot cards, talking with Fel, who's stocking one of the cases with new body jewelry.

"You remember Jude from when he was eighteen?" Fel asks her.

"In general, yes. We weren't friends, but we coexisted." Lyla shuffles her cards. "I remember when he started working at the shop, but I didn't see him much since he was busy learning how to pierce at the time."

Fel focuses on her jewelry, listening to Lyla tell her about when Jude first came to Twisted Roses. She's smiling, but it's a little sad, and I imagine it's because he came here shortly after he walked away from her all those years ago.

Fel laughs at something Lyla said, pulling her long red hair off her face. But I might have lost my hearing because the moment Lyla looks up at me standing in the doorway, everything goes silent.

She absorbs sound, drains the universe. She empties me. And there she sits, looking at me like she doesn't understand the man I am when she's the one who made me like this.

Lyla leans back, not taking her eyes off me. She's trouble, and I'm a step away from being knee-deep in it.

Her fingers graze over the black leather choker that wraps her throat as she watches, toying with it like she can sense what it makes me picture in my head.

The choker was the best I could think of last minute to ensure she wouldn't slip away again. But watching her fingers glide back and forth over the black band, I know I should have taken the time to figure out how to inject her instead.

She traces the path, hypnotizing me with how it matches her midnight hair but stands out against her pale skin. I'm tempted to never let her take it off.

"Something wrong, Sage?" Her eyebrows crinkle in forced concern, even if the start of a smile in the corner of her mouth tells me she's reading what's written all over my face.

Lyla is a lot of things—mischievous, unexpected, tempting as fuck—but she's not sweet. And she's not concerned about me.

"What are you doing?" I ask, ignoring her question.

She glances around. "Working."

"I'm talking about the incense. You can't burn that shit in here."

"Why not?"

Because it's fucking haunting me.

"Because it's a sterile environment and that shit isn't."

Lyla frowns. "You're joking."

I cross my arms over my chest, not taking my eyes off her until she rolls her eyes and puts it out. Who knows, maybe I'm right. After all, that shit fills the room—the halls. It can't be good for one reason or another. If not for the tats, then for my sanity.

"So…" Fel cuts into the silence when Lyla and I are glaring at each other like we're teenagers again because that's what she reduces me to. "I think I'll go say bye to Jude before I take off."

Fel shuffles down the hall, and I don't blame her. I wouldn't want to be around us either.

Lyla leans forward, once more messing with her cards. "Is this how it's going to be then?"

She flicks her violet eyes up at me, and I swear they should be considered weapons with how they hit me in the chest.

"What do you mean?"

"This cold war between us." She pushes the cards into a stack, resting her hand over them like she's gathering their strength. "I know you're not happy about how I left—"

"It's not just that."

I'm angry that she left at all. But worse, I'm pissed any of that happened in the first place. Maybe if I'd tracked her down after we got in that fight at the clubhouse, she wouldn't have been taken. I should have protected her, and I didn't.

Hating her is easier than focusing on the fact that I hate myself more.

I still don't know what happened to Lyla, but if it's anything close to what happened to Ellie, it makes me almost double over and heave just thinking about it.

"I'm looking out for you, okay?" I rake my fingers through my hair. "I don't know what else you want."

"I don't know what I want." Her gaze drifts out the window.

For a minute I think she'll say something else. That she'll fight me until I'm nice to her like she used to do when I was pissing her off when we were kids. Instead, she sits there and lets her mind drift. There's nothing in her eyes but the vacant stare that's so unlike her, she almost reminds me of her sister.

"Well, let me know if you need anything." Turning, I walk away, even if my body revolts at every step.

For years, all I wanted was to find her to shake some sense into her, to make her realize the mess she left inside me. I fought the urge to hunt her down and drowned myself in booze, drugs, women. I've been numb for so long; I didn't realize I was smiling through it.

But one look in Lyla's eyes was a reminder of someone I forgot—myself. And I don't know if I'm ready to face him yet.