Page 25 of The Other Princess

Crow was up first since his would be the easier of the two tattoos I had to do. He and my father had come in together and insisted they were to be the first to have theirs done. Crow’s tattoo was going on his left forearm since he didn’t really have room to ink anything anywhere else. I figured it would be fitting since he’d have to see it every day for the rest of his life though. Maybe it would serve as a reminder that he needed to be nicer to people, at least to people he was supposed to give a damn about.

I had Crow’s transfer all ready to go on his skin, but as per our agreement, none of the men could see the tattoos until they were all completely done and healed since we were going to have a ceremony to reveal them to the entire club. In preparing for that eventuality, I had come with a blindfold at the ready. I turned to hold it out to my dad. “Could you do the honors? I don’t think Crow would take too kindly to me blindfolding him since he doesn’t even like me.”

I felt Crow wince beneath my hands as I shaved the fine hairs off of the inside of his forearm to prep for the tattoo. He was watching me, but said nothing to either affirm or deny the accusation. Instead he just nodded at my father who took the blindfold and tied it around Crow’s head making sure that his eyes were covered to a point where he could not see what I was doing. “Now, you need to go, because you can’t see it either. You can either wait in the lobby or in the lounge we have in back.”

“Come on man, I’ll take you to the lounge so our other customers don’t bother you,” Zeke called out to my father as I began prepping the transfer on Crow’s arm.

Once they were gone I finished applying the transfer and got to work, bending over the arm I was working on and doing my thing. I got lost in the work for quite some time before Crow decided to speak. Actually, it startled me a bit, because I hadn’t been prepared for him to talk to me at all through this process. He’d only ever had a very few sparing words to say to me over the years, and nearly all of them were either filled with some sort of spite or hatred I didn’t understand or they were dismissive and left me labeled with a moniker I’d never be able to shake. The one that left me feeling like so much less than my sister and everyone else involved with the club for years. I lifted my iron from his skin as he spoke so I wouldn’t mess up by accident, or poke too deep if whatever he had to say pissed me off.

“I never understood how much of my anger about my own situation I had put off on you over the years. You never deserved an ounce of what I put you through, and for that I am truly sorry, Ever.”

Aside from the small noise I made in the back of my throat, I didn’t respond to that. What was there to say? Instead, I continued inking my pain on this man’s body so he would never forget what he was sorry for. I hoped it also kept him from judging people unfairly as he had done with me. I wasn’t naïve enough to think my tattoo would change this man’s views on the world, but hopefully, having it plainly visible on his body would at least give him pause so no one else had to suffer with the hurt he inflicted on them the way I had over the years.

When we finished up, I put a cotton bandage over the wrapped tattoo and explained the cleaning process to him. “Since your tattoo is in a heavily visible area, I understand you probably won’t be able to avoid seeing it, especially since you need to unwrap it and let it breathe. Just remember when you see it, you may not understand it until I explain it to you.”

“I’m not going to cheat and look at it. My old lady said she’d care for it until it healed. Otherwise, I’ll be wearing long sleeves to hide it. Damn shame we did this in the warmer months though. I’m going to be sweating balls while trying to hide this thing.” His attempt at a joke worked, and we both chuckled while I scooted him out of my chair and to the lounge where my father still waited. “Give me just a minute to clean up, and get your stuff all set,” I told my father and then I hauled ass out of there before I could hear whatever questions my dad was hurling at Crow.

Crow left the studio while my dad was in the chair still. Some sort of club business was going down. They’d actually taken a break half way through the tattoo so they could discuss whatever was going on before Crow took off to ‘handle it’ for them. I didn’t really care what their club business was, but it was interesting to watch the dynamic from the perspective of an inquisitive stranger rather than the unwanted daughter position I’d occupied for so long. It was interesting being this close the fray when I knew I didn’t belong in that world.

“Sorry about that,” my dad offered as he took his seat again, straddling the chair so that I could continue to work on his back, upper right shoulder blade where his tattoo was going. It was one of the few spaces he actually had left on his upper body, and I didn’t want to have to deal with anything involving working on my own father’s lower half where pants needed to come off. Nor was I interested in working on his front side where I would have to watch him looking at me. This was better, more impersonal, considering the extremely personal nature of the tattoo I was inking on him.

“It’s no problem,” I told him, and it hadn’t been. I’d been bent over Crow’s arm, and now my father’s back for the past three and a half hours so I used the time to shake out my hands and grab a drink anyway.

“How much more do we have to go?”

“Probably half way through at this point. Did you need to leave to go handle business? If so, we can wait and do the rest once this heals.”

“No,” my father protested quickly. “I think everyone would shoot me if I made them wait even longer to get to the finish line on this one.”

“Yeah, wouldn’t want to make anyone wait to get over their shit, huh?” I asked with a bit of a bite to my words.

“Ever,” he started to say, but thankfully the bell over the door tinkled, distracting me and forcing him to keep his thoughts to himself.

“Hey man, she’s still working on her dad,” I heard Zeke greet whoever had come into the shop. That meant whoever it was knew my dad and me.

“It’s okay, I spoke to Crow. I knew she’d still be busy for a bit.”

“How did the other night go for you?” Zeke asked, and I tried to tune out the answer as I got back to work and let the buzz of my machine still the conversations going on around me. That was to no avail though, because apparently my father had tuned into the conversation and was paying some serious attention to it.

“Deck took you out?” He finally asked as I swiped away excess ink and blood from where I was working.

“Yeah, the other day,” I explained without detail.

“On a date?”

“Um, I guess so,” I answered as I continued to work.

“What does that mean? Either it was a date or it wasn’t.”

“I didn’t know it was a date until he brought me back home,” I answered and my father immediately stiffened which bunched his shoulder muscles up forcing me to have to stop my work once again. “Calm down, I just didn’t realize. I thought he was just being nice to me. When he asked me on a second date I realized that had been the first one.” I said the words nonchalantly and as my father relaxed I started back in on my work once more.

“I didn’t realize you and Deck, um, you know, liked each other that way.” I shrugged my shoulders briefly in response, not that my father could see.

“I’m sure there’s a lot of things you don’t know about me. It’s no big deal.”

“Fuck!” The word hissed out of my father’s mouth unrestrained. “Ever, it is a big deal. It’s a big fuckin’ deal that I know so little about my oldest daughter. It’s not something I’m proud of, and definitely something I want to change if you’ll let me.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I just didn’t. I continued to work, and let the buzz of my machine fill the silent gaps. It wasn’t that I didn’t want those things too. Hell, I’d dreamed of having my father be interested in my life for such a ridiculous amount of time. Even before I came to live with him, I had wished for a daddy to call my own. I longed for it my entire life. What I didn’t do now was trust his words, because there was only so much let down a person could handle before they gave up on the things they dreamed of coming true. For me, I had given up on my father being a part of my life two years ago. Now, it was hard to fathom that changing, even after the tattoos. Honestly, the whole idea of forgiveness through the tattoos, while wonderful, was still kind of an unknown for me. I didn’t think it was going to be the insta-healer everyone else assumed it would.

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