Page 96 of Midnight Ink

“Stop brushing all my fears away.” He glares back at me. “I’m being realistic.”

“You’re being a buzzkill.” I snap a kiss onto his forehead. “I already have clients lined up. I’m done tattooing out of my bedroom.”

“We had good times in that bedroom.” Jamie sighs.

My second-best friend is an asshole. “We absolutely did not.”

Ian and I moved upstairs a couple of months ago, and somehow he’s still in love with me. Even if I leave my towels on the bathroom floor or forget to wash all my dishes right away. “Hey, Ian.” He looks up from his sketchbook. “I love you, baby.”

“Barf.” Jamie shakes his head.

He digs through more of the pieces I plan to hang on the wall. We open next month and we’re nearly there. Everyone says I have bad taste in art, but I like weird things. I like imagining what the artist is carrying while they paint. It feels important. How did that vampiress end up here with me? What happened to it before? Who painted it and why? Why does she look angry? What led the painter to make her this way? I love the mystery.

The bell on the front door rattles violently as Luci launches herself inside, her black hair spilling down her back.

“Holy fucking shit.” She spins, taking it all in. “You guys have done so much in a week.” Luci’s girlfriend joined them last weekend and that’s where all her attention has been.

Luci tucks herself against Jamie’s body, hugging him around the waist. “No more shithole, huh?” He beams down at her.

“Shithole adjacent,” Ian murmurs from his chair.

I glare at my man then look at Luci. “I’m going to finish Jamie’s tattoo today. Want to watch him cry?” I grin at her.

Jamie flips me off. “Uh, not today, but . . .” She smiles wide. “There’s a party tonight at Gilbert Lake, and since it’s my birthday I say we go and pretend they’re throwing the party for me.” She does this horrible little dance, shaking her ass. “Come on, guys, it’ll be fun.”

“And watch you get blackout drunk?” I say. “Tempting, but no.”

Luci pouts and her brown eyes widen, her brows upturned in the perfect begging face. That may work on Jamie, but it’s not doing shit for me. “Please,” she whines. “Please, Maddy, please! Porfa. Porfa, Maddy. Please please please⁠—”

Or maybe it will.

“Okay, okay, holy shit. Enough. Fine, we’ll go.” I look back at Ian. “You want to go, babe?”

I’ve got so much to do. We only have another month left until we open for good. I want to get another station, but I have a budget that’s working against me at the moment. I’m actively avoiding the debt I’m in because I know this will work. We will be successful. I refuse to believe anything else.

“Sure,” Ian says and I want to talk to him alone. We’ve both been a little stressed lately. I know he believes in me, but Ian is also realistic. We are two broke guys in our early twenties with no fucking clue how to run a business. I’ll take care of everything. He won’t have to worry about a thing.

“I’ll call Ali, see if she wants to go.”

“Ugh, no!” Luci whines. “Why?”

“If I go to that party and people she knows are there and I didn’t tell her, she’s going to have my ass.”

“Or you could break up with her. Who said that? Not me.” I blink innocently.

“If it’s a party at the lake, she’s probably going anyway. Would look real fucked up if I showed up there and didn’t tell her.”

Luci sighs. “Madd, tell Jamie to break up with her.”

I throw my hands up. “I’m not touching hetero business.”

“I’m queer.” Jamie rolls his eyes. “You were going to do my tattoo, though,” he says to me.

“Tomorrow. I’ll stab you in the neck tomorrow.”

Jamie rubs his neck, looking at Luci. “If I die, delete my browser history.”

“I don’t want to know what’s in your phone.” She shakes her head. “I’ll let Mom deal with knowing her son’s a pervert.”