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  Tonight was one hundred and ten percent acting. I headed outside to the party, I put on that same fucking smile, and I approached the world. I just wished I had my damn hat.

  ~ CHAPTER 10 ~

  AMANDA

  “Another person wants one of your sketch tattoos.” John announced, stepping into my station. “She drove four hours just for you, halfway across the state. She said she found you on Instagram. She’s practically freaking out in the waiting area.”

  “Okay,” I answered. “That’s good, right?”

  “That’s great, Amanda. Really great.”

  I gave him a small smile. “Could you give me a couple minutes before you send her back? I just need to use the bathroom really quickly.”

  “Sure thing.”

  John walked off.

  Since my embarrassing little ‘incident’ where John caught me buck naked with a man between my legs, not once had he brought it up. Thank God! In fact, John was so good at ignoring it, that it was almost as if it never happened.

  Finn, who I’d confessed to a few days after the ‘incident,’ knew too. I’d found it impossible to keep it all to myself. Finn teased me about it for almost two weeks. I think it gave him something to talk about, a distraction, since he’d broken up with Julie that same night. Strangely though, Finn had yet to find a Julie replacement. Or at least, not one I knew of.

  But even Finn had stopped talking about the incident. It had been almost six weeks now. By this point nobody cared or, hopefully, remembered. Only, I did. I still had the guy’s ugly old beanie sitting on my desk. It was a knit hat that should be in the lost-and-found box, but instead remained on my desk. I knew it was his because the inside tag had the name ‘Nick’ written on it. It was faded and worn, but still legible.

  I kept wondering if Nick came back later that night, all soaking wet from the rain, only for the hat. What if he hadn’t come back for me at all? What if our time together had been more of an afterthought on his part that meant nothing?

  I stepped away from my station, down the hall, and slipped into the bathroom. My heart was racing like mad, practically giving me chest palpitations, because I had something more important to do right now than any tattoo.

  From the back pocket of my jean skirt, I pulled out the pregnancy test I’d stashed there earlier. I’d picked it up from the pharmacy on my lunch break. I’d picked it up because it had been enough time since my night with Nick and I had yet to get my period.

  We were stupid. We hadn’t used a condom. I was on birth control, at the time, but I’d been horrible the past month about taking my pill regularly. That night with Nick was just so unexpected. I hadn’t had sex with anyone in months, so taking my pill regularly wasn’t at the top of my priority list. Now here I was, peeing on a stick, wondering what the hell I’d do if the test came back positive.

  I finished using the bathroom, put the lid on the test, set it on the sink, and set a timer on my phone.

  Three minutes.

  Three fucking minutes.

  It felt like an eternity.

  I squealed when, suddenly, the door to the bathroom opened.

  “Hello! I’m in here!” I yelled at the intruder.

  It was Finn.

  “I’m sorry. So sorry—” He looked mortified for having barged in on me in the bathroom. But then he paused. He didn’t move to leave the bathroom. He must have seen the test on the sink because he asked, “What the hell is that?”

  Perfect. “Nothing,” I tried to lie.

  “That doesn’t look like nothing.” He quickly opened the door wider, squeezed himself into the bathroom which was no bigger than a closet, and closed the door behind him. “Seriously?” he asked, looking at me like he’d never been more shocked by anything in his life. “Turtle-ass guy? No fucking way?”

  I closed my eyes, breathing in through my nose. “Yeah, I’m aware of how stupid this is. But, yes, turtle-ass guy!”

  “What’s it say?”

  “I don’t know yet!”

  “Are you gonna keep it?”

  “I don’t even know yet if I have to make that decision!”

  “Well freaking look! The suspense is killing me!”

  “Killing you?!” I breathed, reaching for the test. “Think how I feel!” I accidentally bumped it with my arm and the test flew across the room, hitting the tile floor. It was impossibly small in the bathroom. I bent over, looking for it, when someone else opened the door.

  It was John this time.

  “Jesus Christ!” He shielded his blue eyes with his tattooed knuckles. “Not again!”

  I understood how this looked... me down on my knees. Finn, who slept with everyone, standing there, looking guilty as hell. But whatever John assumed we were doing, wasn’t what was happening at all. “It’s not what you think,” I muttered.

  I found the test. I stood back up to my feet. John uncovered his eyes. He saw what was in my hand. He saw I wasn’t doing anything with Finn, that we were both fully clothed. But now John knew I might be pregnant too. The more the merrier, I guess. Whatever.

  I read the test.

  Fuckity-fuck.

  Positive.

  “Whose?” John asked. “Sorry,” he quickly corrected. “It’s not my business. I shouldn’t have asked that.”

  Well, it was about to be all my colleagues’ business. I was pregnant. Maybe I didn’t look so pregnant right this moment. But they’d all know in a couple months when my stomach grew, so what did it matter? I felt defeated. That night, that mistake, was turning cruddier and cruddier.

  “The turtle guy. Nick or whatever his name was.” I remembered his name perfectly fine even if I acted like I didn’t. “But for now, both of you, please swear to me you won’t tell anyone.”

  Both guys agreed.

  Huffing under my breath, pretending like I was merely inconvenienced by all this, I left the bathroom. Off to start my eighth tattoo in my new ‘sketch’ style. People had been starting to request these specific tattoos from me. This sort of attention at work—it was unusual and unexpected. It was always John’s work people came for. Never mine.

  I tried to keep breathing steadily as I spoke with the girl who had driven four hours to see me. I tried to keep my hands from shaking. I tried to focus on her, and not on my stomach. But my stomach, or more accurately my uterus, soon became all I could think about. Underneath the surface of my skin—inside me!—there was a little life beginning to take shape and form.

  Holy shit.

  I almost felt excited. I don’t know why. This wasn’t a good thing. But some small piece of me liked the idea of having a baby. Weirder still—I think I liked the idea of having Nick’s baby. I mean, the man was gorgeous. Imagine what his kids might look like. For six weeks now, I’d been thinking our night together meant absolutely nothing. He didn’t come back for me. He didn’t call the shop, not even about his lost hat. He probably forgot about me the moment he walked away.

  But having his baby. I kind of liked the idea of it. I wouldn’t track him down or anything. At least not anytime soon. But for a small fleeting moment, I liked that I had this little piece of him with me.

  The moment lasted only a second.

  The next thought was pure hatred for the man.

  ~ CHAPTER 11 ~

  NICK

  Lou lived in my parent’s attic. I guess it was a small upgrade from the attic of the old library down the street from my brother’s house. Lou had agoraphobia. Which meant she was basically afraid of everything—stepping outside, being around people, experiencing the unknown.

  I met her years ago, in middle school, when I’d been working on this project with some of my classmates at the same old library where she lived.

  My whole life, at that point in time, was this huge charade of fitting in. It was important for me to act like the other kids at my private school, talk like them and behave like them. We all came from money. We all exuded confidence. We all excelled at sports, at school, at life. Basically, I was an a
dult in a kid’s body. That year I lost my grandfather and gained a brother.

  My brother, who came from a trailer park, who was my father’s bastard son from some random hookup that happened long before he even met my mom, was suddenly in my life. I don’t know how Mick did it—yes, his name is Mick, coincidence—but he came into our lives and was perfect.

  Mick looked the part, acted the part, and was insanely good at baseball when I seemed to have been born with two left feet. And he didn’t even seem phased by the sudden change. In fact, unlike me, I doubt he was acting at all. Basically, my new half-brother was the better version of myself.

  Something happened during that group project. Out of nowhere, this tightness in my chest started. I felt a constriction in my lungs. I was dying. Literally dying. Or maybe having a heart attack. I didn’t want to draw attention, so I slipped away from the group and snuck up the stairs that led into the dome of this old library. There was a warning sign and a chain I shouldn’t have crossed, but I did it anyway, and I moved up the stairs, higher and higher. At the top level, between two very tall shelves of books, I lay on the floor.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  I couldn’t see—but maybe that was from all the tears in my eyes.

  I felt pathetic.

  I felt like a coward.

  I felt a little like jumping from the top level of that tall dome. I hated the world. I hated my new, perfect, trailer-park brother. I hated that my grandfather had been taken way before his time.

  I didn’t jump. I didn’t move. Eventually the feeling dissipated. The worst of it passed. I noticed a small girl there with me, looking at me from the floor. She looked homeless. Her clothes were dirty and worn and two sizes too big for her. “I have panic attacks sometimes too,” she whispered.

  I might have been terrified by her; maybe thought she was a ghost at first. But she had the kindest eyes.

  That was the start of our friendship. I’d been coming to Lou with my problems ever since. One of the librarians at the library took care of Lou, allowed her to live there. But with the new renovations, Lou had been forced to leave and face the world. At twenty-three, same age as me, she’d left for the first time in almost ten years.

  Trust me, in the past I’d tried many times to get her to leave, live with us, go to school. She never would. I still couldn’t believe she was in my house. It was the craziest thing.

  “You’re miserable here,” she said to me today at breakfast time. Well, maybe it was past one in the afternoon, but breakfast time for me since I’d just gotten up for the day. My parents were long gone—at work or out shopping, whatever it was they normally did on a Friday morning.

  “What? I’m fine,” I said through a giant bite of cereal. I slurped milk everywhere, trying to act like she hadn’t just pegged me down in a second flat.

  “You’re not fine. You’re back to being you. Being all fake and weird and sleeping all the time. Only, you’re minus your hat.”

  I swallowed. I still missed my hat. In some ways, that hat had been my guard against the world. When I wore it, I could be whomever I wanted.

  “I heard you last night.”

  Fuck. I’d had a panic attack of my own last night. Mine were random, I think, coming on mostly without warning. Lou’s were always triggered. I guess she’d heard me. Heard all the heavy breathing. It only lasted a few minutes, but those few minutes had been hell. At least, it hadn’t been a nightmare. When I was younger, I had those too. Now it was just the occasional, debilitating, horrifying, panic attack.

  “I’m okay,” I lied.

  “You told me—you said they weren’t happening in North Carolina.” Lou sat beside me, her elbows on the table. “Was that a lie?”

  “No. Mine were better there.” Not really. Especially after Emma dumped me.

  “You told me you loved your job. That you loved the people there. That it was nothing like here. No pressure there. Nick, why are you back?”

  Tears burned in my eyes. “It didn’t work out with Emma. Everywhere I went, I kept running into her or her friends or someone she’s connected to.” Hell, even Amanda, and that one tiny, great second of time with the pink-haired girl—even that too had its connection to Emma.

  Lou took a breath, giving me a look, pursing her lips. She seemed angry with me, but still managed to seem pure and innocent. “You said, when I was ready, I could come live with you. I could take that step and leave Maine, too.”

  I had said that. I’d said that to her a million times over. Throughout college. When I first got the job in North Carolina. I was constantly suggesting it. That offer was always on the table.

  “But up until recently, Lou, you couldn’t even leave the library. What changed?”

  “I’m ready now. Something inside me is different. I left the library. Your mom helped me do it. She even took me shopping once. I did it. I got in her car, and I rode to the store. We went at six in the morning, she arranged it with the manager, and we went before anyone else was there. It was amazing. So I think I’m ready. I think I’m ready to start doing more. I want to go to North Carolina.”

  I think she was viewing North Carolina as this magical, mystical place. Where anything was possible. Where the birds sang, the sun shined, and the waves crashed upon the beach. But newsflash: Maine had just as many birds, just as much sunshine, excellent beaches. So there was clearly nothing magical about it. North Carolina was just far from my family. And despite my issues, I really loved my family. Especially my brother Mick. Turned out, he wasn’t as bad I used to think he was at thirteen.

  “What are you asking?”

  “I’m asking you to take me to North Carolina. I’m asking you to get your rental house back and try again. To get your animal job back.”

  “Marine Biologist. Sea Turtle Specialist.”

  “That’s the one. You love those turtles. They don’t have turtles in Maine. Those little guys need you.”

  I stared at my soggy cereal. She had a point—they didn’t have sea turtles here. Or jobs as exceptional as my job there. I’d moved to North Carolina for that specific job.

  “They’ve probably already filled my position.”

  “But you could call and see if they haven’t.”

  “I could.”

  “C’mon on, Nick. You were happy there. Happy before you met Emma. I’m sorry it didn’t work out and she left you for some silly Rockstar.” She had. Emma had literally left me for a Rockstar. Fuck him. Fuck her. “But one small breakup shouldn’t have to be the end of something that was otherwise great for you. Please, for me, try North Carolina just one more time. And this time, I’m ready to go with you.”

  Why did she have to be such an optimist all of a sudden? Where was my normal pessimistic friend? One shopping trip to the mall outside of business hours and she was ready to change her whole world. Or maybe this push wasn’t for her benefit, but for mine. Maybe she thought I was better in North Carolina, and this was her doing whatever she could to try to help me get better. I really don’t think the location made much of a difference for me. I’d really cared for Emma. But I’d lied about my panic attacks. They’d never lessened when we dated. Actually, they were probably worse each night while I was with her.

  “Okay. Let’s do it. Let’s move to North Carolina. Let’s be roommates. Let’s get my old job back. Let’s try this.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really.”

  I said it for her benefit, not my own. Because the day that library finished its renovations, she might move back into the safety of her dome and never leave again. As her friend, I had to try to help her take this giant leap. It might be the only time she ever tried. I would do anything for her. Including move back to the town where my ex-girlfriend and her Rockstar boyfriend lived.

  .

  ~ CHAPTER 12~

  AMANDA

  “This is beautiful,” Ellie said—my current customer. She had her sleeve rolled up, and in the mirror at my station she admired the new ink on her
arm.

  This tattoo made number twenty-three. I couldn’t believe it. Twenty-three tattoos in my signature sketch design! Each better than the last, I thought, except for maybe the first, the original that started it all, which was somewhere, who knows where, in the world.

  “Thanks, girl,” Ellie said, giving me a hug. She was a regular, one of the shop’s best customers. The type of person who didn’t have many spots left for ink. “I love it. I’ll bandage it up on my own. At this point, I know what I’m doing.” She gave me a wink, then left me, heading down the hall for the breakroom. Ellie was so regular, she practically lived here. She and John were close friends.

  “No,” said a voice. A voice that was almost familiar to me. A voice that made me stop still. “No, it’s gray. Old looking. Well worn. It’s been about two months since I was here.”

  “I don’t know, man,” Patrick, the new guy, responded. I could hear his loud voice from my station. “I haven’t seen it. If it’s not in the box, I don’t know what to tell you. We don’t keep things forever. Eventually we donate them.”

  “Well, is Amanda here? I’d like to speak with her about it. She did my tattoo that night.”

  Fuck. I nearly tripped over my own feet. I realized right then and there it was him. Oh God, it was him!

  “She’s with a customer,” Patrick said.

  “Yeah, she’s with a customer,” another voice echoed. Finn’s voice. Not his regular voice either. He used his ‘guard-dog, I-will-break-you-in-half’ voice. He must have noticed Nick or something and gone over thinking he was ‘handling’ the situation. “Why don’t you write your name and phone number down on a piece of paper? We’ll give you a call if it turns up. If Amanda remembers what happened to it. But I think it’s unlikely she’d remember you from two months ago.”

  I swallowed, feeling jittery. Nick’s hat was here, right inside the top drawer of my desk, right where it had been since that night he got me pregnant. I’d spent the last three weeks vomiting my guts out because of this guy. I thought for sure I would never see him again. At least not anytime soon. At least not without me having to track him down. Now he was back? Was his hat the only reason he was back? Would he have just picked it up and left already had it been in the lost-and-found box?