Page 30 of The Other Princess

“The other one’s your boyfriend.” It was a statement, but the inflection told me it was also a question.

“No,” was my only response, because it was the truth. Going out on a couple dates did not make someone your boyfriend. It just made them someone you’d gone out on a date or two with.

“Jake will be happy to hear that,” he told me.

“Who the hell is Jake?”

“My buddy. The guy that was just sitting in here with us,” the man stated as if I should already know this. Honestly, they’d definitely told me their names, but I hadn’t been paying much attention to that.

“Why would he care?”

“Pretty sure he thinks you’re hot. I mean, you are hot, but he definitely wanted to ask you out, I could tell.” The man never even stopped to take a breath, as if he were nervous for his friend. Maybe, he should be nervous since if I had been interested before – and I wasn’t – he probably would have just blown it for the poor Jake dude.

“Ah, well, I’m not interested anyway, so it doesn’t matter,” I explained as I swiped away the last of the ink and blood that had welled up in the area before starting to clean him up.

“Jake is rolling in money. He’s not like a teller at the bank, you know… he’s…”

“Do I look like a fuckin’ prostitute?” I seethed the words at the man who back peddled instantly.

“No, I didn’t… I wasn’t implying…”

“Why the fuck would I care how much money he makes then?”

“All women want a man to take care of them at the end of the day,” he stated simply as if his belief made that asinine statement the truth.

“No, they don’t. I definitely do not.” I wrapped his tattoo, none too gently, and handed him the care instruction card without explaining it to him. “Take care of your tattoo, the card tells you how. If you lose it I’m sure you can Google it,” I suggested. I heard Kane laugh, and realized he’d been sitting in his own little space working on some girl while all this was going down. I hoped I didn’t get in trouble for my attitude later, but honestly, some people just needed to be put in their place.

“Sorry,” the guy apologized, but it was half-hearted at best.

“You can pay the girl up front on your way out. She already knows my prices.” With that, I turned my back on the man and started cleaning up my space.

“Damn girl, that was a cold send off for a client,” Kane murmured from where he sat working. I didn’t need to address him though, because the girl he was working on piped up instead.

“Good for you honey. That guy was a fucking jerk who got lost on his way back to the ‘50s where his little woman is waiting with a fresh baked pie.” I had to laugh at that, but then she ruined our newfound allegiance. “Besides, why would you want either of those repressed, buttoned-up boys when you had two hot as fuck bikers in here looking for you? Girl, I’d be all over that scene too if I were you! Actually, if you don’t mind sharing that brother of yours, you can toss him back out here for me.”

I gave Kane a look that said everything I wanted to spew at the girl. He just laughed and waved me off so I finished tidying and went to the back to find my brother and Deck. They were lounging out on the sofa across the back wall, both with legs spread out before them and arms where ever they felt comfortable, making themselves right at home. It took them a moment to realize I was standing there as they had both been watching the sports highlights on the television and hadn’t heard me come to the doorway.

“What is it you two needed?” I finally asked, drawing their attention to me. My brother trained his eyes on me, carefully assessing my mood, and rightfully so. After the bullshit he had put me through, initially, with the Jay debacle he’d learned to gage when to approach me for anything. That included even telling me hello, because some days I couldn’t take it any more and I would tell him to go fuck off, or worse. He was one of the few that I took my anger out on at all. The rest, I simply ignored. It’s hard to ignore the person you are most angry with though. My brother was definitely that person, because he was the last one I thought would throw me under the bus for any reason. Deck had not been around for all of that though, and didn’t know how to gage the situation or my overall mood.

“Please, tell me you’re not working on that tool who took his shirt off?” I rolled my eyes and glanced back at my brother, ignoring Deck’s question.

“Why are you here?”

“To talk to you about the tattoos for Jay, PeeWee, and me,” my brother informed me without pretense.

I made a noise in the back of my throat at that, but gave no other indication that I had plans to continue with the tattoos. When my brother looked at me with a question in his eyes, I stated the obvious. “You said you needed to talk to me about tattoos, that doesn’t require anything from me just yet. That requires effort on your part.” I glanced down at the phone I held in my hands, checking the time, but not really seeing it. It could have been two in the afternoon or ten at night for all I knew. It was a symbolic gesture to tell my brother he needed to get on with it, because he was wasting my time. I heard Deck huff out a very loud, frustrated breath, but I refused to acknowledge him even with just a look. Yes, I could be a stubborn ass sometimes, but I’d learned to be that way after getting my heart trampled so nastily before.

T-Bone cleared his throat and then stood, glancing down at his feet while fidgeting with his hands in front of him. He was never one for nervous gestures or showing weaknesses in front of others with the exception of me. He’d started attempting to look contrite after everything blew up, and he realized how badly he’d fucked up with me. “I know you’re pissed, Ev. We had club business that took us all out of town, and…”

“And you all suddenly lost your cell phones? They blew up in some crazy club business that managed to leave you looking alive and well while the cell phones didn’t make it? EMP burst, maybe?”

“What?” He questioned, and then coughed out a bit of a laugh. “No. We were on a run and were instructed that we couldn’t communicate with anyone so that there would be no leaks to…” He didn’t even need to finish, because even though he didn’t realize what he’d just said, it equated to the fact that I wasn’t trusted enough to receive a call or text about them being gone. Instead of letting him finish, I interrupted.

“Get out!”

My brother stammered his words to a stop before the shock of those two simple words caught up to him. “We couldn’t… what? Get out?”

“You heard me. Get out!” I spun on my heel and moved to go down the hall that would lead me up to my apartment, because right now I was simply too pissed off to work on another living soul without hurting someone.

---