Page 20 of The Other Princess

“The thing is… shit, I don’t know how to say this without coming off as even more of an asshole.” Damn, my stomach clenched and prepared myself for the worst. “I’m so fucking sorry, but please, if you have any mercy in you – even though it’s not deserved – don’t make me the guy that completely broke the club. Your dad threatened to leave the MC if you don’t agree to this, if everyone else didn’t agree to this. He said the brothers broke his family, and they need to fix it the right way this time. Besides, our families are suffering too. Our moms, our siblings, I just want everyone to have a chance at happiness together again. Not me,” he added the last quickly before explaining. “You made it clear you don’t want me in your life anymore, and I get it. As much as I’d like your forgiveness and to start over and be the friend to you I should have been all along, I know that ship has sailed. Hell, that ship burned and sank to the bottom of the ocean and I was the cannon that took it down. I know that.

“Just, please, think about doing this. Don’t just think about it, do it. I can’t take the thought that I’d ultimately be responsible for you never being around your family again.” The pain in his voice seemed genuine. I had known Jay too long to believe otherwise. Still, I didn’t even have a starting point for what to do with the goddamn tattoos, let alone a good enough reason to do them.

I said as much to Jay. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin, and not sure I even want to. There’s been so much…”

“Start with yourself, Ever,” Jay said quickly after cutting me off.

“What?”

“Draw your own tattoo. Draw how you feel about the club, and what everything has meant to you or made you feel. Put your feelings into one single image to start. I’m not saying you actually have to ink yours. This is our cross to bear, not yours, but maybe it will help give you perspective or a direction to go in with everyone else’s?”

He actually had a brilliant idea with that. “I’m still not sure this is something I want to do, or if it would even be good for me to do it.”

“It will be good for you, Ever. I know it will, because you need your family. Lucy needs you and so does your brother. Your dad is too stubborn to admit how much all this has killed him inside, and I’d like to say your sister too, but honestly, I don’t think that girl’s head has come out of the clouds long enough to notice there’s even a rift in the family.”

I chuckled at that. Again, he wasn’t wrong. My little sister was about as clueless as they come, but it lent to an air of innocence around her that I would protect for her, because I wish my life could have been so simple and carefree.

“Besides,” Jay continued. “Deck isn’t the type to give up on what he wants, and it’s going to suck to lose him to the club and family too when he follows his heart.”

“Um,” I started to say before I asked what that was supposed to mean.

“Tell me you didn’t!” An angry male voice shouted in the background of the call.

“It’s not what you think,” Jay’s voice was pleading, and then the call disconnected. I knew who that angry voice belonged to, and I can only assume Jay had been told by his brother not to attempt to contact me. For once, him not listening and following directions may have turned out to be for the best. I would never tell him that, but he did give me an idea and now that the spark was there my hands itched to put pencil to paper.

It took six hours for me to perfect the image that would become my tattoo. Jay had presented the idea as a way for me to open up to my feelings, and not as an insistence that I also get marked, but I had been marked so deeply on the inside that I felt my pain and hurt deserved a chance to see the light of day too. I was done hiding how I felt. I was done being afraid that no one would accept me if I told them how unhappy I was. How unhappy they had made me. In hindsight, I could see that it never mattered, because not once had I had their approval or love anyway. Sure, I had a modicum of it from my father, brother, and even the Jay of my childhood, but the rest of the men had never accepted me. It just took me until now to realize I’d been afraid of losing something I never even had all this time, and that just made me extremely sad for myself.

I snatched up my drawing and went downstairs to find Zeke still there finishing up a client he had no doubt had to push back because of the drama earlier in the day. “What’s up, buttercup?” Zeke called out to me as he leaned in and swiped away blood and excess ink from the man’s chest.

“I have something I want to show you when you’re finished up, if that’s okay?”

“You know it’s ok. Be done here in about five more minutes.”

“Thank fuck,” the guy in the chair huffed out. Zeke and I both laughed at that causing the man to blush. He probably hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

While Zeke finished with his client, got him cleaned up, and checked out up front I managed to get my drawing swapped out to a stencil using the thermal paper and fax in the office. Now, all I had to do was show it to Zeke and convince him to ink it on my skin for me since it was going to be placed on my back. I wanted it to be seen when I chose for it to happen, but I didn’t necessarily want to see it myself after all was said and done. That probably seemed crazy, and even I had a hard time rectifying my reasoning other than to say the hurt and pain I’d endured over the years should have a permanent physical scar on my body, but that didn’t mean I wanted to look at it every day.

Chapter 11

~ Ever ~

Zeke strolled into the office as I was considering how well the stencil had turned out. He reached around and grabbed my artwork out of my hand, taking it under better light by the desk to get a good look at it. “Damn,” he muttered as he took in the image. “I guess you decided to start with yourself, huh?”

“How did you know that one was for me?”

“Honey, this couldn’t have been for any of them. This one is definitely about your pain.” He turned toward me then and gently handed the stencil back. “Are you sure you want that on you?”

I nodded my head. “I’m positive,” I explained as I turned my back to him and pointed to where I wanted it. “Right here, if you would do the honors.”

“You know I will, but seriously, do you want some time to consider it first?”

“No, I’m positive it’s something I need to do to help me heal too.” Zeke smiled at me then, a gesture that was both warm and genuine.

“Good,” was all he said as he took the stencil back and headed toward his station. “Give me a few minutes to get this cleaned up and set up for you. I don’t have anyone else coming in tonight. Go put something on that will be comfortable for you and give me room to work without you losing your modesty.”

“You know I basically grew up around a bunch of bikers, right? Modesty is weirdly absent around that crew.”

“Yeah, I also know they kept you weirdly absent from their lifestyle so I imagine you still have a little left for yourself.”

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