Page 16 of Yours Truly

My hands fly to my hips. “My beady pupils?” I scoff.

She nods. “Yeah, so tell me who if it isn’t Deuce.”

I roll my eyes. My beady eyes, apparently. “Trace, you idiot. Of course I wouldn’t fall for a married man.” I step toward her, lowering my voice. “That’s grounds for murder.”

She nods. “Absolutely.”

“Anyway,” I veer back to the topic at hand. “Don’t… I don’t know. Just… don’t say anything or talk about it or think about it or… fuck, don’t even remember I told you, okay? Just, like, forget it.” Sweat beads on my upper lip and my heart is suddenly racing. I feel like I’m hooked up to a polygraph and she’s the tester.

I feel so exposed.

I’ve admitted out loud, and that makes it real.

I do like Trace. It’s almost all physical, with a tiny, itty, teensy bit more. Still…

He’s a complete fucking asshole to me and I want him bad… what does that say about me? I swipe my hand along my forehead and take a deep breath. “Please just don’t say anything.”

She pulls her fingers through my long, wavy tangles. “I would never.”

Ev returns, settling back in her spot, taking her glass of white wine by the stem. “I love that he doesn’t even know and you’re using that. And I love my husband for going along with it.” She takes a sip, and her eyes wrinkle as she grows thoughtful.

“I think discipline is what a guy like Trace needs,” Ev finally says, slow and intentional, like she’s thought about it before.

I can’t help but ask, “You… Think about what Trace needs?” I hope it doesn’t come across as jealousy.

But I am.

I am seething with ridiculous levels of jealousy that Everly knows Trace so well that she even has the ability to form an opinion about his life and what he may or may not need.

She gets access to an intimate side of him that I don’t, and I hate her for it.

Even though I love Everly through and through.

Right now, my fingers curl into my thighs as I breathe through the intense wave of jealousy that washes agonizingly slow over me.

Ev nods. “I do because he means so much to Deuce.” She sips her wine, then seems to urgently correct herself as her gaze bounces between me and Dolly. “I mean, of course I care about Trace,” she amends. “But Deuce has this bond to Trace that I’ll never understand.”

Is there a side to Trace that is even deeper than what she gets?

A new level of jealousy for me to reach?

As I think of Deuce, I’m suddenly angry to know they share some secret, intimate connection. My body burns to be the one intimately connected to his talented brain, his skillful hands and his jagged heart.

He has to have a broken heart. He has to.

It’s the only way to explain how he behaves. Sleeping around endlessly, always drunk. The signs are there that something is off.

But then again, it’s been years. He’s been doing this for years.

“Discipline is what he needs,” Dolly agrees finally, shaking us from our silence. “He needs something to control him a little, even if he doesn’t realize it.”

Control him.

That’s something I’d love to do. God, I’d love to be the one finally playing devil’s advocate to him, while he’s somehow at my mercy. I’ll never be the one to mentor him in tattooing, but if in some reality I can be at the helm of his well-being and sanity, so help me I’ll do it.

To torture him the way he tortures me, constantly critiquing me.

“Yeah,” Ev says after another sip of Pinot grigio. “He needs a woman to take control of things and shape him the hell up. The only woman who broke his heart did lasting damage but he’s beyond a simple repair now. He needs tough love.”

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