Chapter 21

Istill can’t believe you fucking cuddled Roan all night,” Declan said—for the third time, might I fucking add. I groaned and threw an arm over my head. He made it sound like it was intentional, but it wasn’t. Pissed off at fucking everything, I’d taken my anti-anxiety pill. While the medication worked great, it worked a little too well considering. I’d been dead to the world when Nolan came in. I’d been dead to the world when Sam’s wolf came in with Axel in tow. And I’d been fucking dead to the world when Roan in all his drunk-ass glory put himself to bed in my bed.

“I didn’t fucking cuddle him,” I growled.

“Yeah, but did Roan mean to cuddle you?” Raven asked. I peeked out from under my arm to see her staring at me, head cocked. The judgment on her face.

The three of us were in Beatrice Stone’s tattoo shop, Stone Gallery, waiting for Bea to come out from the back. While I was no stranger to being in one of Bea’s tattoo chairs, this time, I used it as a bed. We were there because Declan wanted a tattoo—a surprising fact, considering how fucking hard we’d worked to get him to do the Byrne tattoo. I needed out of the clubhouse chaos.

Really, I just needed away from all the drinking for a bit. My limits were being tested, and I refused to relapse over the fucking Fall Games. I hauled ass to an early AA meeting to help and planned to avoid the clubhouse for a good portion of the day, even if it meant playing third wheel to my brother and his fiancé. Fourth wheel? Did I come before Holly in this equation?

“No.”

“I think yes.” She hummed a little sound before returning to her sketchpad.

“Why are women allowed to cuddle and men aren’t?” I demanded instead. Jesus fuck, why was I going down this road? There was nothing to win here.

“I think men should be allowed to cuddle,” she replied. “But he smacked your ass and called it his, you smacked his balls and asked him who owns who, and now cuddling. Combined that becomes questionably adorable relationship behavior.”

I scowled, Raven shrugged, Declan laughed.

“For the record,” I began loudly, “I didn’t know he came in! I didn’t know any of them came in! And Jesus fuck, who let Sam as a wolf in the clubhouse?”

“That’s pretty normal these days,” he commented quietly, giving me pause from my rant. Wait, really? Sam had always been a little feral at heart. It wasn’t uncommon for him to take a few days off here and there to disappear into the woods.

“More than he used to?”

“Significantly.” Fuck. That wasn’t good.

“How often?”

“Any time he’s not working at this point,” Declan admitted. “It’s gotten worse since we took over the pack. I’m keeping an eye on it.”

“He’s happier the last few days than he’s been in a while,” Raven chimed in. That bothered me. But before I could say anything about it, Bea came breezing back into the room. Watching Bea was like stepping back in time if pinup models were tattooed goddesses. The woman was tall with long legs, creamy skin covered in tattoos, and a style to make even the most renowned pinup models jealous.

“Tired, Killian?” As she passed, she offered me a wink.

“Always,” I replied with a grin. Bea and I had become something of kindred spirits—misunderstood outcasts with issues. She was a wolf, but she was also a witch. Her wolf was rooted in her anger. The less she catered to giving her wolf space, the more at peace she was. But that also meant embracing her witchy side. Unfortunately, magic was misunderstood amongst wolves—a fucking spook for some of us. Good? Bad? Indifferent? Who fucking knew?

Either way, Bea didn’t have a fucking place in the Stone pack even though her siblings ran it. Instead, she did her own thing, and she was goddamn good at it. Instead of being some froo-froo fucking witch, the woman crafted a solid business off of catering to shifters for tattoos that took minutes rather than hours, piercings that healed in hours instead of days, and cultivated a magical jewelry line that worked with shifts.

I cocked my head as I thought about it. Had she done Genevieve’s piercing? Where else had she pierced my wife?

Fuck, fuck, no. I buried my face in the crook of my elbow again. I wasn’t going down that road. I’d jerked off not once but twice to those damn thoughts, and from the way my dick thickened behind my zipper, I’d end up doing so a third fucking time if I didn’t stop those damn thoughts. God, I needed to get laid.

“All right, darlin’,” Bea said. “I sure do appreciate your patience, and you workin’ with me to do your design before y’all got here. I always end up swamped at the Fall Games. I ain’t slept much since it all started up.”

That didn’t surprise me in the least. I bet she was counting down the minutes until we all left for the Ironwoods.

“I’m just glad you managed to squeeze me in,” Declan replied. “I know I emailed you last minute.”

“We appreciate you, Bea,” I chimed in, even though I was just the tagalong.

“Y’all know I’d do anythin’ for you Byrne boys.” She paused in front of Raven, staring down at whatever Raven was working on. “You’ve got some fuckin’ talent there, girl. Hell, I bought two of your paintin’s to hang in the studio.”

“You should’ve told me!” Raven exclaimed. “I would’ve delivered them and given you a discount.”

“No fuckin’ way.” Bea waved her off. “That family discount stuff is shit when you work as hard as you do. I’m happy to pay full price. Though, I ain’t sure why you ain’t doin’ his tattoo yourself.”

Over the top of Raven’s head, I caught the wink Bea tossed in Declan’s direction, and he grinned. Conniving little shits.

“I’m not trained to do tattoos.” She laughed and looked at Declan. “Besides, the last thing he wants is me going near him with a sharp needle.”

“I’m magic, baby!”

“I’m not.”

“My tools are magic, baby girl,” Bea told her. “You don’t need magic to use them. Hell, I sell magic sets here and there to shifter tattoo artists. Can you imagine gettin’ a Woods Art original inked on you? Fuckin’ magic, I tell you.”

I loved how she used magic so readily to describe things. It was fun. She was a fucking riot in the best way. Ultimate hype girl right there.

Before Bea could say more, Raven dug through her purse and came out with a handful of paintbrushes. What the fuck?

“Can you magic these for tattoos?” she asked with excitement.

“Do you carry fucking paintbrushes around with you?” I demanded.

“We have eight small canvases in the truck,” Declan said casually as if unfazed by the unnecessary travel items. The look on his fucking face as he said it was as if he adored carrying around all that shit for her. “And a pile of sketchbooks. And paints in the room.”

A sketchbook I could see, sure. But the rest? That was fucking excessive. But I wasn’t Declan, and I didn’t look at her the way he did. Fuck, if Genevieve asked me to cart around her books, I’d do it in a heartbeat.

“You want her to do your tattoo, darlin’?” Bea glanced at Declan. “If you do, I need… maybe like fifteen minutes to make all these work for her. I’ll give you a copy of my swatch pads too.”

“Of course, I do,” Declan answered without hesitation.

“Then that’s for you, baby girl,” she said and handed Raven the tattoo sketch, trading it off for the stack of paintbrushes. I tried to catch a peek at it. Okay, my nosy fucking ass wanted to know what the hell Declan was getting tattooed and where. “I’m goin’ to add a nice pen in here for you. You know, somethin’ you can do the outlinin’ with. These’ll be good for colors and such. Oh, I’m so damn excited to see what you do to him.”

I stifled a laugh as she hurried away. I’d been around the two of them for all of two days. It wasn’t hard to figure out the list of things Raven would do to my brother was fucking long as shit. And there were no boundaries on where she’d do it either. Damn horny fucks.

We fucked around, shooting the shit, while we waited for Bea to get back. Raven barely contributed to the conversation as she fussed around with the sketch of Declan’s tattoo. I watched with mild fascination as she transferred the design into her notebook, scribbling notes and making it her own. By the time Bea returned to set her up, Raven was completely gone. Declan got comfortable, left forearm resting outward for her to do her thing.

“So, you want to tell me why you’re following me around like a fucking puppy?” Declan asked, giving me his full attention. I glanced around him at Raven, who hadn’t flinched from her spot. Her earbuds were in, her hands were occupied, and shit, her brows couldn’t get any fucking closer in concentration. “Oh, she won’t hear you. Once those headphones are in and she’s in the zone, nothing on God’s green earth can disturb her. I once had a whole conversation with her only to find out she hadn’t heard a fucking word I’d said. We’ll be here for a while.”

“I can leave you two if you want,” I offered. “I know she doesn’t like me.”

“It’s not that she doesn’t like you,” he said. “It’s that she doesn’t like being forced to choose. She wanted to get to know you, she wanted to spend time with me, and she wanted to be there for Ginny. Raven’s not good with people telling her what she can and cannot do.”

“Makes sense.” I mean, I fucking fought back like a motherfucker when anyone told me what to do.

“So, you want to talk about it?” Declan prompted once more.

“Fuck me.” I ran my hands over my face. “I just need to get away from it all.”

“The drinking or Ginny?”

“All of it?” I muttered. “Definitely all of it. They don’t drink that fucking much usually, you know? Fuck, I even fill in at the bar for Roan and Maverick when they need it. I can be around alcohol. I’m damn good at being around alcohol. But this…”

“… is hard,” he finished for me. I nodded. So fucking hard. I worried about how the hell I would make it through two more stops on this trip, especially with the added stress of returning to Cedar Harbor. “Would a sober buddy help?”

I fucking grinned. Declan had been reading again. I liked that about him. If someone he cared about was struggling, the man deep-dove the fucking internet until he figured it all out.

“You don’t have to do that, Dec. I can fucking do this.” Maybe.

“Please,” he scoffed. “You’ll be doing me a fucking favor. I’m too old for this shit. Do you know why we took today off?”

“For the tattoo?”

“Well, that, but shit. I can’t keep up with everyone else,” he admitted. “I feel like fucking crap. I want a relaxing day of seeing the town, eating food, finding something to do, and then go back and fucking my fiancé.”

“Too much information,” I cut in with a smile.

“Don’t even care. I’m still doing it.” He laughed. “My point is, I have no problem staying sober with you. And if it gets too much, please save me from these young assholes.”

“God, you’re fucking old,” I said. And the best big brother a fucking idiot like me could ask for. But I kept that part to myself.

“You have no fucking idea,” he agreed. “Want to talk about you and Ginny?”

“What part?” I asked tentatively. We’d kept a lot of fucking secrets from my brothers—a fact that fucking wrecked me. Maybe if they’d known, I could’ve handled the situation better. Or at least not completely lost my fucking shit and left. Who fucking knew what I would’ve done if everything hadn’t been a secret?

“Any of it? All of it? I don’t know. You tell me what you want me to know. That’s how this has always worked.”

“I had divorce papers drawn up,” I admitted. Fuck, I even hated saying the words out loud. I glanced at Raven just to double-check. If she heard a thing, she showed no sign of it. The woman was deeply immersed in tattooing his forearm with what looked like a bird. Probably a raven. “Oh, it’s a raven. That makes fucking sense.”

“The tattoo?” He followed my gaze. “Yeah, call me a sentimental asshole, but I don’t care. I don’t like the idea of tattooing her name on me, but I like this.”

“God, you’re in fucking deep.”

“Happily,” Declan agreed with a dumbass grin. Giving him shit or not, I was happy for him. “Back to divorce papers.”

I’d rather talk about him tattooing a bird in honor of his fiancé on his fucking forearm.

“Yeah, I just… don’t want to give them to her,” I said. “God, I’m fucking pathetic. Two days of seeing her and I’m ready to go back on years of figuring my shit out.”

“Have you talked to her?”

“Define talked.”

“Did you try talking to her about the state of your marriage?” he elaborated. “Have you told her you’re not ready to be divorced?”

“That ship has fucking sailed. That ship is so far gone it’s not even on the fucking horizon. We crashed and burned so fucking hard. There’s nothing left to save,” I muttered. There wasn’t a damn thing left to save—except maybe sexual attraction. Fuck, I couldn’t get that goddamn kiss out of my head. We’d never kissed like that. Granted, we had three years’ worth of pent-up rage to back it up.

“Do you remember how you were when we were kids?”

“Devilishly handsome?” I flashed him a cocky grin. Nah, I was still that. “Brilliantly daring? The best of us?”

“A fucking moron,” he retorted. “No, you were a fucking bulldozer.”

“I’m not a fucking bulldozer!” I exclaimed. My gaze dropped to Raven. I wasn’t sure why I expected her to react. The woman was so lost in her creative world that I could probably walk past her naked and she wouldn’t bat an eye. Declan would fucking kill me and she still wouldn’t notice.

“You were,” Declan said. “You’ve always been a fighter. You’d argue with anyone over fucking everything, but you wouldn’t fucking listen. You’d end up stuck in your own anger and thoughts. Not a damn thing mattered otherwise. And if someone wouldn’t bend, instead of trying to talk it out, you’d run.”

“I didn’t fucking run!”

“You did. You were an unreasonable fucking bulldozer,” he repeated. Jesus fuck, he wasn’t holding his punches. “It’s the whole reason I never engaged you in those moods. It was like arguing with a brick wall if a brick wall was an angry asshole.”

“You could’ve just said angry asshole,” I grumbled. I wasn’t that way, was I? Fuck.

“You’ve mellowed out a bit, but that part of you will always be there,” he continued. “Hell, it’s probably why you got so into fight nights and shit. It’s easier to hit things than it is to argue your way out of shit.”

“You’re really not holding back, are you?” I snapped.

“My point is, Ginny is also an immovable force of nature,” Declan said over me. “The two of you have that same fight in you. Together, you could probably take over the world if you wanted. But fighting each other? You have a childhood full of memories as to why that doesn’t fucking work. So, did you talk to her, or did you fight with her? Because only one is going to get you anywhere, Killian.”

I hated it when he was right.