Believe: (Intermix) (True Believers) (15 page)

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Robin asked, and I heard the shrill irritation in her voice.

So maybe I wasn’t the only one having a bad reaction to this group.

“Do you have any tattoos?” I asked Harper.

But she shook her head. “No, I don’t think it’s very professional looking. Trashy, you know? But they’re so yummy on guys.”

Did she have any idea how rude she sounded? Obviously not. Or maybe she knew full well how she sounded, she just didn’t give a shit.

I turned to Robin. “You want me to get you a coffee or anything?” Please, spring me from this hell, was what I was really thinking.

“Sure, I’ll have a latte.”

“Anyone else need anything?” I was already standing up.

They all shook their heads no and I was able to escape. Regroup. Trying to ignore the fact that a latte cost five bucks—seriously?—I figured with me gone maybe the conversation could take a different direction and be more natural.

Except it didn’t really work that way. When I got back with Robin’s coffee, or whatever the hell it was called, Harper was blasting her former roommate, who wasn’t there to defend herself. “I mean, it was like every weekend, a different guy after drinking herself to oblivion. How did she look herself in the mirror, you know?” Harper tossed her hair back. “But the final straw was when she slept with her best friend’s boyfriend. I mean, really? Who does that?”

The blood had drained from Robin’s face, and I knew without a doubt what exactly had gone down between her and Nathan.

Shit.

It was one thing to suspect, another to get confirmation. The thought of Nathan taking advantage of Robin . . . it made me sick. Furious. But those emotions had to wait. Right now I had to get her out of here.

“People make mistakes,” I told Harper. “I’m sure you have too, despite your good intentions.”

“Yeah, except I’m not a whore or a drunk.”

“My mother is an addict,” I told her. “And my aunt was an alcoholic before she died. But they are still human beings who deserve respect.” With that, I stood up, Robin’s drink still in my hand, and reached for her with the other one. “Maybe you should rethink your career choice, Harper. Otherwise, good luck.” I gave them all a nod. “Wonderful meeting you.” The sarcasm crept into my voice and I didn’t even regret it.

Robin just gave a weak smile and waved. When we were at the front door, she mumbled, “God, I’m sorry. I guess this club didn’t work out as well as the digital arts one did. I really liked the people I met there.”

“These guys were assholes,” I said, shoving open the door. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin the night or your chance to hang out with them.”

“I don’t want to hang out with them.”

We had walked from her apartment, and as we started down the sidewalk, I burned with the need to ask her about Nathan. I didn’t know what her response was going to be, but I needed to ask. It was picking at me, and I needed the truth. I needed to know she trusted me with the truth.

“Baby.” I pulled her to a stop and took her cheeks in my hands. “What happened with Nathan?”

She jerked, her face still pale, eyes wide with fear. “What do you mean?” Her voice was uneven, breath hitched and nervous.

Making my voice as gentle as possible, I kissed her forehead and said, “I know something happened. I don’t know what. But you can tell me. You can trust me.”

She started crying and my heart sank. “I don’t know what happened. I mean, I
know
what happened, but the thing is, I don’t remember it.”

“You had sex with him?” I asked, wanting clarity. “It’s okay, I won’t get angry.” I didn’t think. I mean, I was angry, yeah, definitely. Mad at Nathan, mad that alcohol existed, mad that I hadn’t been there to stop her from doing something she didn’t really want to do, but I wasn’t mad at her. And if I wanted her to trust me, love me, I had to stay calm, not let her see that anger and think it was in any way directed at her.

She bit her lip and looked away. Then she looked up at me and whispered, “Yes. I guess. He seems to think we did, but I blacked out. And I woke up at his place.”

There were spots in front of my vision, I was so disgusted by a guy who would have sex with an almost unconscious girl, but I had learned how to hold it all back, to build the levee against the flood of anger. “So it was consensual, as far as you can tell? He didn’t hurt you in any way?”

“He didn’t hurt me, no. And I guess I was on board with it. Tyler saw us kissing in Nathan’s car.” She was crying harder now. “How could I do that? Why would I do that? It’s horrible, awful!”

I wasn’t sure I even wanted to think about it. Pulling her into my arms, I held her while she cried, trying to process exactly how I felt, swallowing hard. Did it thrill me that Nathan had tapped my girlfriend? Fuck no. Was I glad she’d told me? Yes. I was also just a little bit glad that she didn’t remember it, which made me an asshole. But I couldn’t help the reaction. I obviously didn’t like that she’d blacked out, because that was scary shit, but I didn’t want her to have had good sex with Nathan, even drunk. Which was selfish and stupid, so I shoved that thought aside and focused on her, what she needed, not me, what I needed.

That’s what you do when you love someone.

You put them first, even when your insides were boiling like lava.

Now I knew why she was afraid to be around her friends, why she had stopped drinking, why she no longer wanted to party.

I figured while the catalyst was shit, the end result was a good thing, right?

“It’s okay,” I told her, kissing the top of her head. It wasn’t, not exactly, but I’d get over it. It was more important she knew I had her back, that she could trust me enough to tell me the truth, no matter what. That there were no secrets between us, ever.

“You don’t hate me?” She sobbed into my chest. “You don’t think I’m a drunken whore like Harper and everyone else on the planet?”

The phrase “drunken whore” made my nostrils flare. No one had the right to call her that. No one. “No. I think you made a mistake that you’ve regretted ever since, and you made changes to make sure it doesn’t happen again. I think that makes you mature.”

She pulled back and looked up at me, her gaze searching. “Really? You’re not going to break up with me?”

“Of course not. Jesus.” The thought was unimaginable. Every day was Robin, and Robin was every day. “I’m glad you told me. That’s an awful secret to keep inside, baby. Let me share your pain.” I wasn’t sure how to explain it to her, but I tried. “I’m like that bird, you know . . . I can hold up the sky for you, Robin.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, eyes shining. She went up on her tiptoes and kissed me. “You are the most amazing man I’ve ever known.”

That made me feel a little self-conscious. “You’re still young,” I told her.

She gave a watery laugh. “No, I’m serious.”

I laughed, too, relieved that she seemed okay. Relieved that I seemed okay. “So am I.” I took her hand and started walking again.

“You’re really not mad? I mean, what I did to Kylie . . .”

That was a complicated question because it was a complicated situation. Would I want it to have never happened? Hell, yeah. But I didn’t want her to feel any upset from me at all, so I glanced at her, reminding myself she could never be the source of my anger.

Keeping my tone neutral, I asked, “If you were sober, would you have done that?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“So it was the alcohol, which you’re not touching anymore. I can live with that. Lesson learned, right?”

“Oh, God, yes.” Her voice was emphatic. “I don’t even know who that person was. It’s so damn scary to realize that you basically go to a place that isn’t even in line with who you are inside . . . I mean, it’s one thing if alcohol loosens you up, makes you go for something you secretly wanted, or you get flirty or aggressive or whatever, but this was like against everything I possibly believe in. It makes no sense. It’s like it wasn’t even me, and that is terrifying.”

The night was warm but breezy, and I held her hand tightly as we went back all the shops on Clifton, most of them closed for the night. Only the pizza parlor was still open, the tables all full of customers. I stroked her fingers and thought about what she’d said. It was why I had never touched booze or drugs. “I would be terrified, too. But you know, I’ve seen it over and over with my mom and my aunt. You become, I don’t know, the id to the ego, or whatever that theory was. It’s like drugs and alcohol push you into a pure selfishness.”

“Or recklessness.” Robin shuddered. “Thanks for what you said in there. I appreciate it. And not every social drinker has a problem. I just know I don’t know when to stop and that
is
a problem.”

“I’m proud of you for stepping away from what you know is bad for you.” She was the first person close to me who really had.

“It’s been so awful . . . I want to tell Kylie, because I feel so horrible, but I know it will just hurt her.”

“I don’t think you should tell her. What’s the point?” I tossed my hair out of my eyes. “But I’m not going to lie. I want to punch Nathan in his pretty face.”

“I don’t want you to do that,” she said quietly. “I want to move on.”

My throat tightened. If that’s what she wanted, that’s what I would do. Hell, I would do anything she asked, because when she looked at me, I saw love . . . for the first time in my life, I saw pure, sweet love. Not sneering, not wheedling, not irritation, not guilt or exasperation, but just love from someone who didn’t even have to love me.

She just did.

I nodded. “I do, too. You don’t throw my conviction in my face, and I will never throw this in yours. We’re moving forward. Together.”

“Together,” she whispered.

Chapter Twelve

Robin

Pulling the door open of the tattoo shop, I dropped my keys into my cross-body bag and glanced around for Phoenix. His text had been vague and suspicious, a request that I meet him at work to see something important. I was a little nervous, because I suspected he had gotten that cobra tattoo done and I wasn’t sure there was anywhere on his body I really wanted to see that every day. Then again, while I wasn’t up on tattoo pricing, I also knew he was dead broke still and a piece like that had to be at least a few hundred bucks for the outline, and more for the shading.

I was also nervous because I had his surprise birthday party planned for when he got off work, and I still needed to pick up the cake, prep the food, and wrap the gifts I’d gotten him. I wanted his birthday to be perfect.

In the week since I’d told him about Nathan, we had only gotten closer, because I wasn’t holding anything back at all. He spent every night with me, but I still had plenty of time to study when he was at work, and he was totally fine with me going to the ACT and digital arts clubs. I had met Helen-Marie for coffee a couple of times between classes and I really liked her. Phoenix was spending time with Jayden and Easton when Tyler and Riley were working and he was enjoying doing that. They looked up to him, and he needed that purpose, whether or not he knew it.

Phoenix had spent too much of his life alone and I didn’t want another birthday to go by where he was solo at Dairy Queen. I didn’t have anything big planned, just the usual group at our apartment, which fortunately did not include Nathan because he was working, but I wanted Phoenix to see how much he mattered to me. How he mattered just in general.

This was the first time I’d been to the shop and I felt a little naked with my bare skin next to all the heavily inked artists and customers waiting in the lobby. It was mostly a big, open room with lots of tattoo art displayed on all the walls, cubicles to one side where the artists worked. The buzz of the needles filled the room, along with heavy metal music. Phoenix fit here, I could see that. A year ago, I would have felt uncomfortable walking in, and I would have attempted to dress the part to fit in, but now it didn’t bother me that I wasn’t rock star enough for this crowd. Being comfortable with who I was, in my own skin, was an awesome feeling.

What I found when I didn’t think about my clothes, about dressing to impress, was that I gravitated toward patterns and texture, comfortable clothes with something funky about them. I guess it was the artist in me, but I was definitely morphing into Boho Girl, and it felt right. It felt like me.

“Can I help you?” a guy with a shaved head and ear gauges asked me.

“I’m looking for Phoenix. Is he available right now?”

“You’re Robin, aren’t you?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Hey, I’m Bob.” He stuck his hand out over the counter. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too.” So this was the owner, the one who hadn’t cared that Phoenix was fresh out of jail. I wanted to hug him but restrained myself.

“I could tell it was you. He’s in the third room on the right there. Go ahead on over. It looks fucking unreal. Almost as beautiful as the real thing,” he said with a wink.

That confused me a little. How beautiful was a cobra? But then again, art was art, and it all brought its own particular beauty.

Phoenix was lying on his side on a table, arms over his head, another guy bent over him with the needle. “Hey, baby, perfect timing. He’s just about finished.”

“Doesn’t that hurt?” I asked, the sound making my teeth rattle and my stomach turn just a little. It looked like the guy was working on Phoenix’s flank, below his ribs, the paper towel in his hand smeared with black ink and blood. Ugh.

“It’s not that bad.” Phoenix smiled at me, that smile that made my heart squeeze.

“There you go.” The artist sat back on his chair and surveyed his work. He spritzed it down and wiped it again. “Looks badass.” Then he finally turned around and looked at me. “Hey, Robin. I’m Paul.”

“Hi. Nice to meet you.” I gave him a big smile. It made me girly happy that Phoenix had obviously been talking about me at work, given that both Paul and Bob knew who I was.

But then Phoenix stood up, his hands behind his head, skin red and raised from the needle, and he turned to look in the mirror. There wasn’t a snake inked on his skin. There was me.

I gasped. “Phoenix . . .”

“You like it?” he asked, turning left and right to admire it in the mirror. “It looks amazing. Paul, you rock.”

It was my portrait. It was me, not smiling, but looking out solemnly, head tilted, hair tousled like I was outdoors, eyes peering up from under my lashes.

“Dude, that was a killer sketch of her,” Paul said. “You really captured her.” He peeled his gloves off and told me, “I’m not big on tattooing someone else’s sketch, but in this case it made sense for Phoenix to do the drawing, and he can’t ink his own side, so I said I’d do it. Glad I did. You look fantastic.”

I did. I looked . . . pretty. And I was on Phoenix’s body. Forever. Tears filled my eyes. I had thought that he had abandoned the sketch he had started of me because he had never shown it to me. I had asked once, but he’d said it wasn’t finished. But now here it was, and it was beautiful.

It wasn’t a massive tattoo. It fit well in the spot, and it wasn’t the kind of portrait tattoo that is basically someone’s round head slapped onto them with a circle enclosing it. The way my hair was done, windblown and loose, the edges of the tattoo looked natural as they spread out. I was wearing a necklace that I didn’t own, that didn’t exist. It was a thin chain with a tiny bluebird charm.

“What do you think?” Phoenix asked when I still didn’t say anything, my lip starting to tremble.

I just nodded. Then finally I managed to force out, “You are really talented, Phoenix. It looks fantastic.”

“Good subject matter.” The corner of his mouth turned up. “I thought about a kitten but decided on this instead.”

Giving a watery laugh, I bent forward to study it closer, amazed. “No one has ever sketched me before.” Let alone put me on their flesh permanently. The fact that he didn’t seem concerned that we would ever break up made me even more in love with him. This was more forever than even marriage.

He couldn’t have given me a better gift, especially after telling him about Nathan.

“It’s my birthday present to myself,” he told me.

I reached out, like I could touch it, intrigued by all the individual lines raised on his skin, at the intricate shading that had gone on to make my hair, my eyes, all with a needle. As an artist, I was fascinated. As his girlfriend, I was stunned.

“Now you’ll always be with me,” he said.

“Seriously, dude?” Paul asked, busy cleaning up his equipment, still on his rolling stool. “I’m gagging.”

“Fuck you. We’re having a moment.”

We were. I stood back up and kissed him quickly, before whispering in his ear, “I love you. Thank you.”

“For what?” he asked, his eyes dark with desire and emotion.

“For this. For you. For everything.” That wasn’t exactly what I wanted to say, because I was struggling with words.

Paul wasn’t. “Let’s get a picture, then I need to bandage it.”

As Paul used Phoenix’s phone to take a few shots, and I did, too, with my own phone, I suddenly knew what I wanted. Phoenix had been wanting to practice his own tattoo skills but hadn’t been able to. Now was his chance.

“Phoenix, I want that little bluebird on me.” I wanted a visual reminder of him on my body, just like I was on his. “Can you do it?”

“What?” he asked, looking startled. “Are you sure? Where?”

My first thought was over my heart, but then I would never be able to see it. “Here.” I pointed to the inside of my wrist. “Tiny, like the charm on the necklace. Quarter size.”

He nodded. “Okay. If it’s okay with Paul. Can I borrow your equipment?”

“Sure, Birthday Boy. Since you won’t let any of us buy you a beer or a shot.” Paul shook his head at me in mock sorrow. “Who ever heard of anyone turning down a free drink on his twenty-first birthday?”

“She doesn’t drink either,” Phoenix told him, as Paul covered his tattoo up with white gauze.

It felt a little conceited, but I was sorry to see my portrait covered up. I couldn’t stop staring at it in awe, and I looked down at the image captured on my phone.

“Then I guess you two are perfect for each other,” Paul said.

“Damn straight,” was Phoenix’s opinion. He patted the table. “Have a seat, babe. I’ll draw up the bird.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Not the drawing,” Paul told me with a grin.

Paul was about thirty, with tattoos all over his arms and his neck. He was wearing a Slayer T-shirt and cargo shorts. It seemed to be the uniform of choice in the shop, which made me feel more confident about the gifts I had bought for Phoenix for his birthday. I had basically bought out the classic rock T-shirt section at Hot Topic, knowing he had been existing for weeks with only two shirts, one pair of shorts, and one pair of jeans. He wore the same shoes every day, so I had consulted with Tyler and bought him a pair of black Converse high-tops.

“Shut up,” Phoenix said. Then to me, “Yes, it hurts. Do you want Paul to do it instead so I can hold your hand? The good thing is it’s so small it will take less than ten minutes.”

Could I be brave for ten minutes? “I’ll be fine, then. I want you to do it.”

“I can hold your hand,” Paul offered with a grin.

Phoenix pulled his shirt back on and gave his coworker a glare.

“Kidding.” Paul made a funny face at me. “He doesn’t have much of a sense of humor, but I guess you already know that.”

There was some truth to that, but I wasn’t with Phoenix to have someone cracking jokes for me all day long. His sense of humor was quieter, like mine. “I have better things to do than laugh when I’m with him,” I told Paul.

Phoenix grinned. Paul let out a bark of laughter.

Feeling pleased, I sat down on the table, letting my feet swing loosely as they moved around me, doing their thing. Paul was pulling out ink and a fresh needle. “Do you want color?” he asked.

The one on Phoenix was just in black, but I wanted an actual blue bird. “Blue, please.”

Phoenix held up a drawing for me. It was a tiny, chubby, absolutely adorable bluebird. He let it hover over the back of my wrist. “Like this?”

“That’s perfect.” I touched his thigh, tucking my hand into his pocket, just wanting contact. It seemed like I could never touch him enough.

“Don’t do that when I’m tattooing you, babe,” he said with a sexy smile. “You’re damn close to what I would consider a major distraction.”

My nipples went hard, and I sucked in a breath. My thoughts hadn’t been going in that direction but now they most definitely were.

“Oh no.” He pulled my hand out of his pocket and set it on my thigh. “Don’t look at me like that. I still have to work for another three hours.”

“Yeah, don’t look at him like that,” Paul said, standing up. “I’m single and you’re making me jealous.”

“No, she’s not setting you up with any of her friends,” Phoenix said before I could respond.

“Did I ask?”

“I think all my friends have boyfriends.” Even Helen-Marie and the two other girls I had clicked with in the digital arts club were dating guys.

“I really was kidding,” Paul said. “No worries.” He pointed at Phoenix. “Don’t fuck this tat up. I’m going to grab a bite to eat.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Phoenix gave me a searching look. “Do you really want me to do this?”

“You can, right?” I was sure he could, but I didn’t want to force him to do something he wasn’t comfortable with.

“Sure. This is an easy piece. But I can’t say I love the idea of hurting you.”

“As long as this is the only time,” I said with a smile. “Or the only way, I should say.”

“It is. It will be.” He touched my chin with the latex glove he had pulled on. “Do you want to watch or close your eyes?”

“I want to watch.”

He laid the image onto my skin and rubbed, then pulled it off. The black outline of the bird was there, looking adorable. “He’s so cute.”

“Don’t say like me,” Phoenix said. “Because I won’t believe you. Okay, first touch. Take a deep breath and let it out. Relax.”

He bent over me, and the buzzing increased. I couldn’t help it, I let out a hiss at the first contact.

Holy shit. That hurt. It felt, well, like a needle being dragged through my flesh.

“You okay?”

“Yes?” I didn’t say that with a huge amount of conviction, but then I looked down and watched the black line tracing over the outline of the bird and I saw that he had already done one wing and the bottom. It clearly wasn’t going to take too long, so I could deal.

He wiped away the splatters. “I’ll go as fast as I can while still making it look good. Though it is distracting to be doing you . . . I’m not usually attracted to my clients.”

“Don’t make me laugh. I don’t want to move my arm. And you can be doing me later. It is your birthday, after all. You totally get birthday sex.”

He glanced up at me. “And today would be different from any other day, how? We have a lot of sex, babe, for which I’m very grateful.”

Hopefully no one in the shop was listening to this conversation. “But today you can put in any special requests you might have.”

“Oh, yeah? Anything goes? Or are there, you know, boundaries?” He wiped my arm and rolled a foot away on the chair, cleaning the needle to get the blue ink.

“No boundaries.”

His eyebrows shot up, disappearing under his hair. “Now that’s fucking hot.”

“No boundaries, unless you want a threesome or something. I’m not doing that.” I wasn’t sharing him.

Phoenix made a face that had me relieved. “Fuck no. Why would I want that? You’re everything I need and want. Though I would not say no to a strip tease and a lap dance combo, that’s for sure.”

All of a sudden I was feeling a hot rush of blood in my face, and I didn’t think it was from the pain. The thought of doing what he wanted made me super excited, but a little nervous, too. “I’m not a very good dancer.”