Page 44 of Shattered

“Why?”

“Would it be easier for you to shower here?”

I’m not a dumbass; I know she tricked me into staying here this morning, not that I would’ve left anyway. And now this? It’s weird.

“It’d save time.”

“I noticed. Go shower, and I’ll make us some coffee.”

“Yeah, if you wanna be my little slave this morning, that’s fine with me.”

She rolls her eyes perfectly. “Do you want help up the stairs?”

“I’m fine,” I say, my tone shorting.

“You landed pretty hard; you’re allowed to be sore,” she fights back.

“No, I don’t need help up the fucking stairs.”

I’d rather die.

Sunshine wanted to change out of her dress, but I forced her to keep it on. It looks cute on her.

Jared’s nearly half an hour late, which is fine by me. Bane sent over his design for Jared, and I use that time to alter it to a style more like mine. When I’m done, the enormous dragon head is entirely different.

Sunshine’s a little more relaxed around me now. When I sat down at the desk, she pulled another chair over and sat close, watching over my shoulder while I fucked with the design on my tablet. She’s not tense or bitchy, she just seems calm. Despite how fucked up it was that Rocco and Rooney showed up, it broke some of that icy wall between us, and we actually had some conversations without yelling at each other.

“You like?” I ask, offering the tablet to her that she’s been pretending not to look at for the last half hour.

“This is so cool. Where is it going?”

“It’s a full back piece.”

She studies the design carefully, her mind going. “Can I make a suggestion?”

“I guess.”

“You should put some trees or something at the bottom of the piece for scale. It’ll make the head look so huge it’s terrifying.”

I had considered something like that, too, but hadn’t gotten there yet. “You don’t make a commission off ideas around here, you know.”

“You’d better pay me something if you’re holding me here against my will.”

I know she’s joking based on that devious twinkle in her eye. It doesn’t falter when my eyes narrow on her.

“Oh, trust me, Sunshine. I canreallyhold you here against your will if that’s what you want.”

She chuckles. “Shut up and work on your dragon.”

While I continue to work, she flips through another binder, examining each page.

“This looks similar to something I did in high school.”

I look at the piece she’s talking about. It’s one of my more recent designs, the skull biting into the apple I did on Jared. I usually remove the design from my binder when it’s been used, but I hadn’t gotten around to taking that one out yet, due to the shit show that went down right after he left the shop.

“Yeah? You like art?”

“I used to,” she starts. “When I was in school, I took as many art classes as possible. But I fell out of it when I went to nursing school. Did you do these yourself?” she asks, delicately tracing her fingers over my inked arm.

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