Page 77 of Fighting for His Life

I stand from the couch. I feel Maddox’s eyes on me as I make my way toward Jax. I always feel his eyes. I’m not blind or stupid. I know how he really feels about me, but he knows how I feel about Jax. Because of that, he’s never once tried anything. But I still feel bad sometimes.

I shake off the niggle of guilt when I catch Jax’s eyes on me in the mirror. When I reach him, I’m a little awestruck by the tattoo. Dane did an amazing job. It’s as if I drew it on him myself.

I gently rub a hand over it. “It’s perfect,” I say with a whisper.

Jax

I hand over several hundred-dollar bills to Dane with a grateful nod. “This is more than we agreed on,” he argues.

I wave him off. “It’s worth it to me.”

“You’re up, Zoey,” Tori says with a grin.

I look down at her noticing the excitement rolling through her. She nods at Tori, then begins to lift her shirt over her head.

“Ugh. Can’t you leave your shirt on?” Zane complains.

I smack the back of his head while Tori and Zoey glare at him. “I wear less than this when we go swimming, jackass,” Zoey growls.

She turns to go to the chair, and I notice the angel wings on her back. She has added falling feathers to the huge piece that cover her shoulder blades then mold to the curves down her back stopping right at the top of her hips. I grab her wrist turning her back to me. “You changed it,” I say but it sounds more like a question.

A bright flush colors her cheeks as she nods. “I felt like I was falling apart,” she explains. “You always called me angel. I got the wings because of you. But then I felt like I was anything but an angel. I knew if I really had wings, the feathers would have fallen off. But obviously I don’t, so I had Tori add the fallen feathers. One for you. One for me. One for the baby.”

I see Zane, Maddox, Tori, and Dane look at the floor. The discomfort they feel at the obviously private moment and words is plain on their faces, but I ignore them as I bend to place a kiss to her forehead. I wipe a tear from her eye before it falls. “You’re still an angel, baby. You’ll always be my angel. Fallen or not.”

I turn her back to Tori. The others in the room are still quiet. I don’t do a thing to dispel the silence. I stand there, taking her in. I see the same arrow tattoo made from my name on her inner left bicep and my jersey number marks behind her right ear as an XIV. I remember when she got those. I argued with her that she shouldn’t get them. I didn’t want her to look back in twenty years and regret them. Of course, she called me stupid and said she could never regret.

On her right hip, I see a golden snitch from Harry Potter that wasn’t there before. It brings a smile to my face as I remember the significance. It seems like so long ago that we were so young, but it also seems just like yesterday.

On her ribs, she has words from Metalingus by Alter Bridge on her ribs. I read the words feeling my heart clench.

“Fear will kill me, all I could be

Lift these sorrows

Let me breathe, could you set me free”

I go to stand by her to watch Tori work. Dane slides me a chair that I turn around and straddle. I lean my chin to the back of it while Tori gets to work.

Zoey never fails to amaze me. Every time she’s gotten a tattoo, she’s always looks so peaceful. I’ll never say that a tattoo doesn’t hurt, but for me the pain is worth the end result. Zoey has always embraced the pain to the point that I could swear she enjoys it.

Dane slides in a chair over next to me offering a bottle of water. “How’d you meet Sebastian Delrie?” he asks.

I give a small laugh at his question. “I love that, man. I’m in the room. Zane’s in the room. And you’re interested in how we know Sebastian.”

“You throw balls. I give ink. If I told you I knew Warren Moon, I’d get the same reaction from you.”

I nod my head in total agreement. “Yeah. You would.”

“So, Sebastian?”

“Sebastian is my brother’s best friend,” I say simply. “They’ve been best friends since we moved to River City when they were fourteen. I guess you could call him my brother’s Zane.”

“He always into tattooing?”

I shrug. “I don’t really remember. I just know when I wanted my first one at fifteen that Bastian did the honors, and nearly everyone since.”

“I’d love to meet him,” he says almost praise like.

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