Under Locke (6 page)

When I was in the hospital, any of the times—all of the times—I'd met so many people who just couldn't let go of the anger. The resentment. Frustration with the hand they got dealt. I mean, I got it. I did. If anyone understood what it was like to think that life was unfair, I'd probably won the award a few years in a row.

But at some point, you had to get over it. I didn't want to be a bitter old lady the rest of my life.

Now I was stuck working for a bitter, mean, happiness-sucking leech.

"It's not a big deal, Son. Whatever. I don't care what he thinks."

Liar. Liar. Big, fat liar.

Sonny's lips twisted in a way I'd only seen once before. Barely restrained anger hid beneath the thick layer of his red-brown beard. "That fucking dumbass," he ground out. He cocked his head to one side, and then the other. A deep breath blew out from between his lips. "I'm gonna knock his teeth in."

He was being completely serious. So, so serious about defending my honor, I couldn't help it.

I started laughing.

"It's fine." I snorted. "Son, it's really fine. Knock his teeth in another day." I laughed again. "Or maybe once I find another job, okay? Then you can bust all his teeth and his kneecaps for all I care."

Those hazel eyes that were an exact replica of mine, narrowed. And then he quirked a little smile. "His kneecaps too?"

I shrugged. "Why not? Call him a friggin' idiot wh
ile
you do it."

Sonny shook his head, full out grinning by that point. "To think I used to call you a good girl. My little sis telling me to break someone's kneecaps. You might make me cry, Ris." He leaned forward across the armchair I was sitting in and ruffled my hair. "Th
a
tta girl."

I s
norted and batted his hand away.

His face sobered a moment later, his gaze serious. "Nobody talks to you like that, you hear me? I don't care if it's another member of the MC or some asshole on the street. If somebody takes their anger
out
on you, I'll beat the shit out of them."

Lord. Where had he been when I was fifteen and got made fun of? I pushed the thought out of my mind and nodded, settling in just to make him feel better.

"Yes, father." I gave him a little smile. "Quit stressing, would you?"

By the way his jaw clenched, you could tell he wasn't exactly happy with staying quiet but he didn't argue against me.

"Fine, but wear whatever the fuck you want, kid. Wear a three-piece suit just to piss him off," he grunted. Sonny leaned forward again to
mess with
my hair until I swatted at him.

He stood up, grabbed his phone out of his pocket and disappeared down the hall that led toward his bedroom, silently.

Wait
...

Sonny wasn't the silent type.

"What are you doing?" I yelled out after him.

His answer, "
Nothin
g
!"

A minute later, from the confines of his bedroom, he started yelling.

What did I do? I tip-toed into the hallway that led toward his bedroom and tried to listen in. Just for a minute. That
was
it.

"—the fuck is wrong with you?...She's shy with strangers, Dex. Shy. You think your attitude helps that any?....No. No. Imagine if she was your sister. How the hell would you feel if somebody called her a bitch....Well, that's Lisa. That's not Ris. Imagine if it was Marie...Did you hear me? What if—no. Fuck you, Dex. If something crawls up your ass, don't take it out on her. You act like a bitch—"

I might have smiled. Big.

Chapter Five

I wore my usual clothes the next day. Khaki pants and a white, long-sleeved button-up shirt were my big "fuck you" to Dex. Throwing all those "fuck you" comments around sort of made me feel
empowered
. Just a little, at least.

He'd taken a long look at me when I showed up at the door fifteen minutes until four and didn't say anything. Neither did I.

My silent treatment—and eye aversion—lasted exactly eight work hours. For eight hours, I managed to dodge Dex during business hours by bothering Blake. We'd only spoken when he needed me to schedule something and when a customer came in for him.

Each and every single time, I’d feel this incredibly nauseating pressure on my neck. It was my body’s wordless reminder of how carelessly mean he'd been, and how he'd made me feel like I needed a tetanus shot afterward. I'd stayed up the night before wondering why it bothered me so much that he thought I was stupid. It was really his fault I didn't understand what I was supposed to do, wasn't it?

Such a beautiful man, and he was a complete friggin’ asshole. Go figure.

Only a very small part of me wanted to drop the issue. Pretend that he hadn't lost his mind briefly and said something that I'm sure Sonny and the rest of the Widowmakers
more than likely
said casually. But I couldn't. I just couldn't. When had I become the type of person who couldn't let things go, I had no idea.

Even when Lanie had taken my car without permission and wrecked it, I hadn't stayed mad for more than a couple of hours. When Will lost my cell phone, I think I'd gotten mad for all of an hour. And when I'd gotten fired, I'd been more sad than mad. Stuff was replaceable, so I didn't bother holding onto my frustrations.

Except every time I saw him, Dex, something ugly churned inside my chest.

I only let myself look at him below the face when he’d walk by, and by that I mean that regardless of whether he was a dick or not, I considered looking at his tattoos—and body—as a lesson in learning about body ink. You know, occupational research and all. After occasional and close observation, I was able to figure out that his sleeves were complete opposites.

His right arm was a matting of solid black ink, broken up by a sp
iral of rectangular tiles surrounded by an inch of the most beautiful black, gray, and skin tone flower outlines. Outside of the flowers it was flat, almost shiny black ink that made my arm hurt to look at.             

Dex’s other arm was as colorful as I figured a guy who wore black shirts three days in a row could be. Trying to be discreet wasn’t exactly a strength of mine, so what I was able to distinguish were the tracings of what seemed to be a black wing that wrapped around his bicep and the upper part of his forearm, with the brightest red, blue, and gray triangles that clustered together at the shoulder and eventually faded out toward his wrist.

I’m not going to lie. The tattoos on his arms, the only ones I was able to see but had a feeling were only the beginning, were really hot. And I mean really hot.

But it didn’t matter how attractive his ink was or how corded and ripped his biceps were when he had his tattoo gun to someone’s flesh, or even when he was just standing with his arms over his chest while I tried my best to ignore him—Dex, my boss, was a prick. And I wasn’t going to pretend like his douche-baggery didn’t bother me. I hadn't seen him crack a single smile or say something nice to anyone but his clients. It was like Blake and I didn't exist, but me especially.

In front of clients, he was relaxed and easygoing. A completely different person. If I wouldn’t have been on such a one-way track with thinking I disliked everything about him, the things he said randomly would
ha
ve made me laugh.

But I didn’t let myself.

So in my head it made sense that my work day had been spent A) ignoring Dex, B) avoiding Dex, and C) getting to know my coworkers slowly.

On the brief occasion that we’d speak to each other, I’d look at his right ear. Another time I looked at his left. Then I’d focus on the tiny, barely noticeable
scab
he had on his
eyebrow
, because I couldn’t bear to look at his face without my heartbeat accelerating. The traitor.

I blamed my period. It was coming and it made my hormones get all out of whack. It’s true. It had nothing to do with his jaw or the fact that I could see the outline of his lateral muscles through his t-shirt when he bent over my desk to type something on the computer. It was my crazy ass hormones. I swear.

Maybe it was childish, but I couldn’t help it. I had hope that in time, I’d forget what I overheard. But obviously, it was going to take some time to let it go and I wasn’t in the mood to rush things with my PMS on the way and all.

And by some time, I estimated it would probably be closer to my retirement age before I purged that moment from my brain.

Instead, I focused on trying to find another job. Which had been useless. Everything I found was too far away or didn't pay enough. All that meant was that I needed to look harder to find somewhere else to work.

What I didn’t expect was how much I liked the two other tattoo artists that worked alongside Blake and The Dick. Slim was a cute, lanky, tall redhead who greeted me warmly. He seemed super sweet and outgoing. Blue, the other artist, was a woman a few years older than me with pink-highlighted hair, so soft spoken I had a feeling I was going to learn to read lips before I quit to understand what she was saying.

The only thing I let myself stew on was Dex The Dick and the fact that I was bumbling around trying to figure things out so that I wouldn't ask him for help.

Friggin’ asswipe.

It was easy to pretend he didn’t exist during the day before work. I’d kept busy cleaning up Sonny’s house slowly, carefully and thoroughly. I think the last time someone had
dusted
his place had been before he bought it. The dust, unorganized DVDs, and randomly strewn
laundry
nipped at my borderline obsessive cleaning tendencies.

My day at Pins had at least, while embarrassing the shit out of me, warmed me up to the people I’d be working with until I found another job. Slim had finished up with a customer and sat down on the edge of my desk, crossing one leg over the other like I’d seen him do while sitting at his station alone. I liked this crossing-his-leg thing he had going on.

“Iris, right?” he asked.

I nodded, smiling just a little. “Yeah.”

“First time working at a tattoo place?” He’d smoothed his hand over the longish red hair that curled at the ends.

For some strange reason, I felt comfortable around this guy from the get-go and it might have been his crazy natural red hair, the Harry Potter lightning bolt he had tattooed right smack behind his ear, or the fact that he crossed his legs, but I’m not positive so I blabbed. “My fourth time in a tattoo parlor, but don’t tell anyone.” I bugged my eyes out.

He sucked in a sharp intake of breath and if it wouldn’t have been for the amused grin on his face, I would’ve worried he thought I sucked as a human being or something. “No shit?”

“No shit.”

Slim had shifted his hips to face me more comfortably, one leg still tossed over the other, the coy fish tattoo on his forearm right in front of my face. “No tats?”

I shook my head, a little embarrassed.

“Piercings?”

My face flamed, but I shook my head anyway. “Do my earlobes and cartilage count?”

The grin on his face spread so wide I thought it’d be painful. “You’re kidding.”

“I’m not.” The infectious grin contaminated me. "How many do you have?"

"Not that many." Slim pointed at the wide gauges stretching his earlobes. "Two." He stuck his tongue out. "Three." Luckily, he just pointed at the right side of his chest. "Four."

My eyes went wide.