AllFreeNovel
Share Us
On the rare occasion that Johnny isn’t breathing down their necks whenever Mica and Kelly try to talk to her, the camaraderie between my brothers and Belle is fun to witness. Johnny should have been the glue that brought us all together, but he actually seems like the outsider here; the one that’s desperately wanting to fit in, but trying too hard. They should be trading childhood stories, embarrassing and trying to one-up each other, but whenever Mica asks Belle about their childhood, Johnny shuts the conversation down. He’s so cagey about his past, keeping his own damn sister a secret until a few days ago, that I know the others are intrigued to learn what they can from Belle. There’s definitely a turbulent relationship there.
“So, where are you from, Belle?” Mica asks. Given that we’ve known Johnny since he was a teenager, it was a massive shock to discover he had a sister. They obviously didn’t grow up together for whatever reason.
“Technically? England, but my dad was in the Navy, so I’ve been traveling here, there, and everywhere my whole life.”
“Well, you look amazing for someone who just stepped off a nine-hour flight.” Mica throws her a flirty wink, and she laughs loudly.
“I didn’t fly in from the U.K. today. I came from L.A. so just five hours.”
“Oh, do you live there now?” Johnny asks, defensively. Belle shrugs easily.
“For now. I’m between trips at the moment, and a friend hooked me up with a decent temp job in L.A. It pays the bills.”
“Dude, how did you not know that your sister was in L.A.?” Mica asks, slapping Johnny on the back.
“Well, she didn’t know I was in Miami until recently.” He shifts uncomfortably in his seat then adds, “We’re not that close,” at the same time as Belle says, “We’ve both been busy.” She hears him, though, and her eyes flash with hurt.
“Where are you guys all from then, and how do you know Johnny?” she asks brightly to change the conversation.
“You won’t believe this.” Mica laughs. “But L.A.”
“How the hell did you come to be in Miami together then?”
“Johnny,” we all deadpan at the same time.
“We all grew up in L.A. together. Johnny, Mica, and I went to the same school,” Kelly adds. “Linc’s a little older.”
“Considerably older,” Mica teases.
“Fuck off.” I grin at him and take a sip of my drink. He chuckles, and Kelly continues, “Mica and I were best friends growing up, Johnny was—”
“Annoying as fuck,” I growl.
“A total bellend, I’ll bet.” Belle laughs.
“Well, it wasn’t until we were teenagers, and I got myself a Saturday job at the local tattoo shop that I really got to know Johnny,” Kelly explains. “Back when he was cool.”
“Fuck off,” Johnny moans. “You started hanging around me because my designs were better than yours, and you wanted to learn from the best.”
“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that,” Kelly snickers.
“Long story short, we worked together, he was semi-cool, so we started to hang out a bit with Mica, and I guess he wore us down until we became friends.”
“How do you fit into this little bromance then, Linc?” Belle asks, turning her big brown eyes on me.
“I don’t,” I say gruffly, taken aback by her sudden focus on me.
“Later, when we were all trained up and working as artists, Johnny had an idea for a string of franchised tattoo shops. But we needed a backer. We bumped into Linc at a tattoo convention when he was fresh out of the military, and Johnny decided Linc would be the perfect backer,” Kelly tells Belle.
He makes it sound so simple, but it wasn’t. I wasn’t in a good place after leaving the special forces, and the last thing I was interested in was handing over my hard-earned cash to some punk kid with big ideas. But they wore me down with a sound business plan, smart ideas, and talent. And I discovered that I loved tattooing people and designing almost as much as I loved getting inked myself.
“Linc didn’t just want to be a backer though, he wanted to tattoo, so the four of us set up shop together and everything else grew from there,” Kelly finishes.
And somewhere along the line we all became friends.
Until the success went to Johnny’s head, and he started drinking, whoring, and then using, jeopardizing everything we worked our assess off for. There’s a reason why I have ‘strength through loyalty’ tattooed across my collarbones. It’s always been my mantra and has served me well, saving my life in the military many times. Kelly and Mica are like brothers to me, but Johnny isn’t loyal, and that threatens to destroy us.
“So why Miami if you’re all from L.A.?”
