Page 23 of Breathing Without You

“I’m sorry,” I tell him, because if I wouldn’t have brought this up then he wouldn’t be crying right now.

“Don’t be sorry. For some reason whenever I talk about it to you it helps me feel a little better. Like I’m not carrying so muchweight on me, my chest doesn’t feel so heavy.” He squeezes me a little, hugging me.

“I’m always here for you, Creedence. I’m happy I was able to help you.” I squeeze him back looking up at him.

“I love you, Sugar.” He fully turns onto his side so he can lean down and kiss me. I stretch my body up to meet him and kiss him back before I pull away.

“I love you, you handsome, handsome man.” And then I lean back in to continue kissing him, opening my mouth for him as he takes his time to deepen the kiss.

13

CREEDENCE

After Emerald leaves,I head to the bathroom to shower and get ready for my day. I need to run to Crazy’s Tattoos to get some sketches done for the upcoming week and I’d rather do them there with less distractions. Whenever I try to do them at home, I just say fuck it and never get them done. Before I head to the car, I check the mailbox and smile because my packages are here. This will be so much fun using these on Emerald.

I head to my truck tossing the package into the passenger seat and head on into Crazy’s. As I walk in, Kane is standing behind the counter.

“Hey man, how's it going?” he says to me when he looks up and see’s that it’s just me walking through the door.

“Sup Kane, it’s going, just another lovely fucking morning.” I laugh. “How about you?” I haven’t seen him in a few days. The last few times I worked it was either by myself or with Carsten.

“I feel that. It’s going, just another busy week coming up for me, I have a lot of my regulars coming in to either finish up a piece or start something new.” He crosses his arms leaning against the counter next to the register.

“Damn that’s awesome, I’m about to draw up some sketches here myself for some of my regulars comin’ in this week too, I think Carsten has a busy schedule as well. I know he was drawing shit up at home yesterday while Winter was working,” I tell him, it’s always good when we all have busy weeks. I love my job and love giving people new pieces of art. I wonder if Emerald will ever let me tattoo her. I’ll have to ask.

“Awesome, if we get any walk-ins and we're not busy you can either take it if it won’t cut into your time with any of your regulars or schedule it for a future time with yourself that way we stay busy. Or schedule it with one of us if you’re going to be busy.” He says as he starts walking towards the back room.

“Alright cool, I appreciate you doin’ that man.” I follow behind him to walk into the room I always work in, my office. I don’t share it with anyone else, actually none of us share, our office is ours to set up how we please with our supplies.

I set up everything for my sketches and hear my phone ding. Looking down I smile, seeing it’s a text from Emerald.

Emerald

I miss you, you handsome, handsome man

I love how she does that, the way she says it twice, for some reason it makes it more unique to me.

Creed

I miss you too Sugar. Wanna get dinner later?

Emerald

what do you have in mind?

Creed

well, I already know that I want your pussy for dessert

Emerald

mmm promise?

Creed

Pinky promise

Emerald

---