Page 28 of Yours Truly

My bare ass while a beautiful woman rides me? Yes.

A naked woman covered in cocaine? Yep.

But a cup of coffee and, like… I don’t know, a newspaper? Fuck no. That’s for grandpas.

“Want some coffee, peepaw?” I ask as Deuce eyes my place, judgment heavy in his brow. Okay, maybe I don’t know that he’s judging from just his face but… I also do. He’s been judging me for years. Even when I was on the road and we’d FaceTime once a week, when the topic veered from art and ink into my personal life, his brows would pull together. He’d get really kinda bitchy.

I sense that coming now.

He snorts. “You even have coffee to make me? And by the way, we’re the same age.”

I shrug. “You seem much older.”

“Listen, I’m too tired from Ace being up all night cutting teeth. I have no silk to wrap this up in, so I’m just gonna empty my apron, got it?”

I scrub a hand down my face. When’s the last time I shaved? “I’m not followin’ that metaphor but say what you came to say so I can get back to sleep.”

He steeples his hands beneath his chin, gaze surprisingly calm as he takes me in. After a sigh, he says, “I got a proposition for you. It’s the next leg of the Get Trace Back tour.”

“Get Trace Back tour,” I repeat on a snort, shaking my head. Though the booze lingers, leaving my neck and brain sore as shit. Instead, I run a hand through my hair and rest my elbows on my knees. “I’m here in Bluebell. I’m at Ink Time. I’ve done what I said.”

Deuce’s head tilts sadly just like in a country music song, and an equally empathetic expression curves his lips. “Sober up and live your life. Get back to caring about tattoos because showing up at Ink Time and giving 30% of what you’re capable of isn’t being back.”

We don’t use words like addicted and sober, because it brings a level of reality I’m sure we both realize I can’t handle. But today, he’s telling me to get sober, and as much as the words bring a knot of emotion to my throat, I fight them.

I fight back when someone cares, when someone wants to show me love. I push them away and I pick them apart and destroy them all, because it’s easier to be a hated, drunk asshole than to be devastated.

Lost.

Heartbroken.

“I ain’t gonna talk around it anymore. I’m not pretending that we don’t see it, me and Ev.” He scoots to the edge of the couch, hands still steepled as he speaks low and calm. “Come live in the house next to me and Ev. It’s ours. We bought it to fix it up and flip it but now with Ace, and, well, you…” He grins, making a joke to break the mounting tension, but I don’t smile.

“Live in the house you bought and fix it up?” I question. What a legendary plan.

He nods. “You live there for free?—”

“I got money,” I say, knowing we both know that much. I’m just so used to using money to keep my problems away. We sit in silence a moment before Deuce continues.

“I don’t need your money for rent. You live there and instead of coming home from Ink Time and drinking, come back and use your hands. Fix that place up for us.”

“Free labor, eh? I can see why this plan works for you.” I get up, knocking over a half-drunk beer with my ass. It glugs onto the table, and neither of us move to clean it up. Instead, I go into the small kitchen, ducking beneath the cabinet to see him as I fill a glass with water. My head is throbbing.

“Call it repayment for all those free tattoos you’re giving out at my business,” he says. A dig at the fact it could’ve been ours had I not chosen reality TV? I don’t know. But he isn’t wrong. I fucked up the other day.

“One tattoo. There was only one free tattoo.” For some reason, it seems important to punctuate that truth. I only fucked up once… and it was because I couldn’t get my mind off of Ivy. And then I couldn’t stop thinking about how she’s the first woman I’ve thought about like that since… her. Since Cat. “I was just… in my head.”

“Get out of your head. Use your hands to get it out, whatever it is,” Deuce says, his hands now resting open-palmed on his spread knees as he speaks. “You gotta get better. And if you don’t think you deserve it, do it for Ev.”

That same lump of heat and tension coils in my throat. My eyes burn. Everly has become like a sister to me. Taking care of me in my darkest times. When I’d crawl back to Deuce, my only goddamn friend in the whole world, the only person who didn’t want a thing from me but my friendship, she’d be there without questions, without judgment, free of lectures.

She’d have water. Food. Tylenol. A pillow. A ride. Words of wisdom. Sometimes just a hug. But she’s always been there. I’m pretty sure she can’t stand me, but she’s been there.

Deuce has too, but the thought of hurting or disappointing both of them gnaws at the soft spot deep inside me.

“Come. Come live by us. It’s time to get better.”

“Better, huh?” I know what he means. I know I’m not living a path of longevity. And without the show, without the fans, without the continual hype, my partying and drinking will only become more and more out of place. More and more of a problem. As if it’s not already.

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