Page 105 of Storm

Placing my hand on Ezra’s cheek, I stroke his jaw with my thumb. “It’ll be fine,mi soldado. I found a great place. We’re going to do it right and it’ll be a breeze.”

“I just don’t want her to cry,” he murmurs.

I hear Oleander’s huff, but she doesn’t argue with him. It’s obvious she’s also nervous, but her desire to get it done is bigger than her fear.

Richard joins us in the entryway and picks Oleander up to lay kisses over her face until she’s laughing and fighting him off. “She’ll be brave. Send pictures as soon as it’s done!”

“You guys leaving now?” my oldest son, Gabriel, asks from the living room doorway. He and his brothers and uncles have been heavily involved in some sort of video game tournament. Ihear the younger two shouting from the room as they battle each other to the cheers of my brothers.

I hold out a hand, and he comes over to hug me. “Yeah, we’re about to head out.” He’s well over six feet now and it makes my heart hurt a bit that he’s not my little boy anymore. Wrapping me up, I sigh into his hug before he’s rushing back to the living room when Liam yells for him. I can hear Thane’s disgruntled complaining at his apparent loss.

“Okay,” I say, clapping my hands together. “Let’s get going.” Before anyone can ask, I quickly add, “Yes, I will take photos. Yes, I will take a video. I will also let you know when we get there. Alright, let’s go!”

Everyone gives another round of hugs, Ezra holding on to our daughter a little longer than necessary, but she endures it.

The drive to Anarchy and Vice Ink is a little over half an hour, and it’s not much of a wait before we’re shuffled into a room sporting an entire wall of jewelry and tattoo equipment.

Oleander looks around, her eyes wide, then turns to me with a hopeful look. “Can I get a tattoo too?”

A snort comes from behind us and we turn to see a gorgeous woman practically covered from head to toe in tattoos. Surprisingly no piercings aside from a few in her ears. “Maybe when you’re eighteen, but nobody said you can’t think about what you’d like before then.”

As she walks to us, she holds out her hand to Oleander first, who takes it a little nervously.

“I’m Grey. You must be Ollie?”

She nods her head slowly, eyes wide. “You’re so pretty.”

Grinning sweetly at my little girl, she thanks her, then turns to me and offers her hand. “Nice to meet you,” I say. “I’m mom.”

“Miriam,” Oleander adds, apparently getting over her shock and hurries over to the chair in the center of the room. “Let’s do this!”

Grey directs me where to sit after she marks the spots where she’ll pierce. I’m surprised at how long it takes because she does a lot of measuring and comparing, then wipes away the spots and marks them again. Eventually, they’re exactly where she wants them and she turns to me with a raised brow.

“What do you think? Good placement?”

Oleander was holding a mirror to watch as she worked, but her eyes keep straying to the side of the room, distracted by something.

“What do you think, Ollie?” I ask, and when she doesn’t answer, I call her name again. “Ollie? What are you looking at?”

Instead of answering me, she grins wide and holds her finger up to her a mouth like she’s shushing me. I tilt my head in confusion, but she doesn’t explain. To Grey, she smiles from ear to ear. “I like it. Are we going to pierce them now?”

Chuckling, Grey nods once and pulls over her tray with everything laid out, all of it sanitized including the earrings we picked out before starting the process.

“Okay, I’m going to use a little clamp to flatten your ear lobe. Honestly, you probably won’t feel much of it and it’s very fast. Are you ready?”

I hear a little bump, maybe from outside the room, but Oleander’s eyes dart back to that spot she was staring at before. This time when she speaks, I can hear her nerves. “Y-yes.”

Sucking in a breath, she shoots her hand out to hold mine when Grey picks up the needle.

“Listen to me. I wouldn’t do this if I thought I’d hurt you. Will you trust me?”

My little girl nods her head quickly, then closes her eyes tightly, gripping the fuck out of my hand. Grey murmurs that she’s going to do it now, then immediately pushes the needle through the dot she marked.

The only reaction Oleander has is one eyebrow ticking up slightly, but she stays frozen in her seat. “There,” Grey says, working around the needle and slipping in a fresh earring. “All done.”

Oleander blinks her eyes open, then she looks at Grey with her mouth hanging open. “I barely felt it.”

We both laugh at her, then Grey moves to the other side, repeating the process. The whole thing only took a couple of minutes when we got to the piercing part. “Wow. This is so much better than going to the mall,” I admit, remembering when my dad took me to get mine pierced.

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