Page 77 of Love Me Tomorrow

There he is. Playing with a roll of tape on Jorge’s desk—naturally.

I sweep Pablo into my arms, offering a silent prayer of thanks to the cat gods when he doesn’t turn crazy and try to use my arms as a scratching post. With him cradled to my chest, I head for the front door.

“Savannah.”

I stop in my tracks, glancing over my shoulder to my executive assistant. “Forward the calls to me, Georgie,” I repeat, voice calm even though I’m a hot friggin’ mess on the inside. For once, Dad’s constant life lesson to “give nothing away that you don’t want to be seen” is paying off in spades. “It’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

But Georgie doesn’t return my stiff smile. Instead, she nervously peels the label on her coffee cup. “Don’t”—her mouth twists like a bad thought has entered her head—“don’t make the mistake in thinking that you’re untouchable. The Roses aren’t the Roses outside of N’Orleans. Y’all aren’t royalty and everyone is fair game.”

Everyone is fair game.

It’s not anything I haven’t already thought a million times over since showing up for filming eight months ago. But it doesn’t change a thing—I need to get to Owen.

While the office building ERRG is in has security downstairs, the same can’t be said for Inked on Bourbon. And if we’re being slammed with calls coming from every which way, I can’t even imagine what Owen is enduring.

The social media apocalypse has cracked open, and Owen and I—we’re at the center of it all.

24

Owen

We’ve been swarmed by twenty-something-year-olds.

It started five minutes after I opened Inked’s doors at nine. The first chick walked in, looking nervous but excited, and asked for a trio of turquoise stars on her ankle. I hadn’t even finished the set when the door swung open again and another girl strutted in, this one decked out in a miniskirt that threatened to reveal all, and a crop top that stopped right under her breasts. She wanted a pink gradient butterfly on her shoulder blade. No big deal. I had her sit in the waiting area for Jordan to show up—he was due in at nine-thirty.

But then the door popped open again, and this time it wasn’t just one girl waltzing in butfive. Twenty minutes after that, another ten strolled in, all giggly and doe-eyed and looking at me like I was a meal they wouldn’t mind snacking on.

I called Gage in. I called Lizzie.

I called both Kyle and Sammy, our two apprentices, and even with the six of us trying to manage the growing crowd of giggling women in my parlor, there’s no denying the truth: it’s a fucking shit show of epic proportions.

“Oh. My.God!” shouts a chick from the waiting area. “Owen! Owen, can you be the one to do my tattoo?Please?”

I offer her a placating grin and turn to the girl lying flat on my table. Her denim shorts are dragged down just far enough so that I can work on the crescent moon she wants inked on her hip bone. Incessant feminine laughter drowns out the heavy metal sounds of Five Finger Death Punch on the surround system.

“Ooo, that tickles!” the girl coos, brushing her fingers over my arm. “Is it supposed to tickle, Owen?”

Careful to not screw up her tat, I roll my stool to the left by a margin, giving her the subtle hint todo not touch. Maybe I need Gage to make me a sign. Better yet: put it on a T-shirt and sell it as merchandise.Don’t touch your tattoo artist.I bet I would sell millions. Fastest get-rich scheme there ever was.

I don’t know what the hell is in the air today, but something must be going down. We’re the number one tattoo parlor in the city—maybe even in Louisiana—but I’ve never seen Inked as packed as it is this morning. There has to be at least thirty or forty women waiting out front, not a single one of them willing to make an appointment and come back on another day. Like I said, epic shit show.

“Sometimes,” I grunt, in answer to the chick’s ridiculous ticklish question. “Depends on the person.”

“Are you ticklish?”

“Uh . . .”

“Sorry, what I meant to ask is, are you single?”

Christ.

I lift the iron, then grab a damp paper towel to wipe her skin clean. “Yellow, right?” I ask, picking up the color chart I use on the regular, to help customers go with the perfect fit. “How deep do you want the shading to get?” I point at the column of various yellows on the laminated trifold. “G5? Lighter than that?”

Propping herself up on her elbow, the girl takes the chart and studies it. “Canary yellow, I think. G3.”

“Great.”

She lays back down, and I pick up G3’s bottle and add some to one of the ink caps in my color tray.

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