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Who the fuck knows? The moment she steps around the desk, seemingly intent on coming to talk to me, I throw in the towel and head for the men’s changing rooms to avoid her.
Don’t get me wrong, I like Cassie. I like her even more since she apologized to Jesse for kissing him against his will and since she moved into Shane’s life and turned it about. She’s a nice girl with a talent for making Shane smile.
Good enough for me.
Not in the mood to talk right now, though, and especially not about me.
And what if she wasn’t gonna talk about you, asshole? a voice that sounds a lot like mine mutters in the back of my mind. What if she wanted to talk about Shane, or about herself? What if she needs your help with something? Not everything is about you.
Did I say the voice sounds like mine? Scratch that. It sounds just like Raine’s.
You think everything’s about you, Shun. Well, it fucking ain’t. Fuck you, Shun. Don’t call me ever again. Go to hell. You’re dead to me. You—
“Ocean, watch out!” Someone crashes into me, and I see red as pain explodes in my side.
Ow, dammit. What the hell?
“Sorry, man.” I see the guy lift his hands through blurry eyes. He’s one of the co-owners of the gym, Derrick. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing.” I straighten. Shit. “Wasn’t looking where I was going. I’m good.”
Am I, though? I wonder as he nods and turns away. The ribs will heal. They’re just bruised. But my head’s not here. I’m so fucking worried. About Mom. About Raine.
The good news is my truck is still running. The dented bumper seems to be the only issue—although the engine clunks when I slow down or accelerate. Don’t know what’s up with that.
Probably it’s just that the engine’s rusty and banged-up, like me.
But we’ve both made it through worse. We go some way back, my Chevy and I. Three years at least. Lasted more than any girl I’ve been with—not hard to beat that record, though, seeing as I’ve never been with a girl for longer than a night.
My Chevy’s nothing like the powerful, streamlined cars I used to race with back in Milwaukee. But she’s like an old dog—my faithful, trusted friend, not letting me down when everyone else does.
And that in my book is what counts the most.
***
“How’re the ribs?” Seth asks me as I prepare for my first appointment of the day, preparing my station and checking my tattoo gun.
“I’ll live,” I inform him, an echo of my reply to Kayla this morning.
Only she’d looked sad and worried. Not convinced at all.
And also cute and sweet and sexy, and shit, I need to fucking stop this, like, yesterday.
I grab my customer list for the day and stare at it blindly, struggling to focus.
Tired. So fucking tired. It’s the back and forth between Madison and Milwaukee, I think. Not the distance as much as the whiplash I get between my two lives.
Why do I do it? Why do I feel this obligation to take care of my old folks when they never took care of me?
They’re my parents, but they don’t love me. This is sick. I’m every bit as sick as they are for doing this, for checking on them, making sure they have food, that they’re okay.
Checking Mom’s still alive.
Seth mutters something about sucking it up and ambles away, presumably returning to his own cubicle.
Both he and Shane officially graduated as Zane’s trainees and were offered full-time jobs as inkers. It’s taken some of the customer load off of our backs—mine, Jesse’s and Micah’s. Even though they are new, they come with Zane Madden’s recommendation, and they’re so damn good nobody has ever complained.
“The hot cousins,” chicks call them. They’re like twins, even more so now that Shane’s hair is shorter than he used to have it.
