Page 26 of Fallen Ink

“Okay!” She skipped off to her bedroom to change, and he just shook his head. He’d give her thirty minutes of the movie—tops—before she passed out. She might have taken a nap and was currently hyper, but it wouldn’t last. She usually had an odd amount of high energy right before bed until she zoned out. It had taken him a while to get used to that.

He went to put on his own sleep pants and shirt, though he didn’t usually sleep in either. However, he wasn’t about to walk around in his boxers with his daughter in the room. His routine had changed dramatically, and he was just going with the flow as much as possible.

They both made it to the living room at the same time, and he tucked her to his side under a shared blanket as they went through their queue for a movie they were both interested in. In other words, he was going to have to sit through another viewing of the Disney movie with the princess with the long hair in the tower. Since he liked the hero, Flynn, and Adrienne liked him, as well, he didn’t mind this one as much as some of the others.

Speaking of Adrienne, he’d missed a text from her asking how he was doing, so he quickly shot her a reply back as the movie started.

Mace: Sorry I missed your text. Just got home from the parents’. We’re sitting down to watch your favorite movie.

Addi: Kiss Flynn for me.

“Is that Aunt Adrienne?” Daisy asked, looking down at his phone.

He nodded. “Yep. She wants us to kiss Flynn for her.”

Daisy made little kissing noises with her mouth before patting his phone. “Can she come and watch with us?”

He shook his head. “Not tonight, honey. We’re already in our jammies.”

She nodded. “Okay. Next time? I love Aunt Adrienne. She’s my favorite.”

He sucked in a breath, worried that his little girl was starting to fall for his best friend much like he was. But the latter wasn’t something he would ever admit aloud, so the only thing he could do was lean down and kiss Daisy’s head.

“Maybe.”

“Okay, tell her I love her and good night, ‘kay?” She snuggled into his side, unaware that she was breaking his heart.

Everything was already too complicated before this, but Adrienne had been a part of Daisy’s life since she was born—a fact that hadn’t been lost on or appreciated by Jeaniene. So even though he was going to have to tread far more carefully, he couldn’t rip Addi from Daisy’s life, no matter how much it might seem better to do so to avoid heartbreak in the end.

Mace: Daisy says she wants you to watch it with us next time. And you’re her favorite.

Mace: And she loves you.

Addi: Tell her I love her too and next time I’m totally in to watch Flynn Ryder strut his very hot stuff.

Mace: You’re weird.

Addi: And that’s what you like most about me. Go cuddle your girl. I’ll see you tomorrow.

Mace didn’t text back because the first thing that came to mind wasn’t something he could ever say to her, not when so many things were unsaid.

He couldn’t fall for Addi, no matter how easy it might be. Because falling was the simple part. It was the landing and living with it that ended up tearing you to shreds.

Chapter 9

No matter how many yoga stretches she did, Adrienne had a feeling her back would ache for weeks after she finished this particular tattoo. Her wrists hurt, and she even had pounding in her temples that didn’t seem to want to go away. If she put it all together, it might sound as if she were on the verge of a cold, but she knew that wasn’t it. She wasn’t getting sick, but she really needed to start sleeping through the night.

Of course, that would probably be easier if she didn’t have vivid dreams about Mace and his mouth, his hands, his dick, and all of that other yummy stuff every night. Mace Knight was haunting her dreams, and worse, becoming a very real distraction at work. She hadn’t meant for it to happen; yet, somehow, she couldn’t stop looking at him when she wasn’t working on her tattoos, and her body always knew what part of the shop he was in. It was as if she had a secret antenna only tuned to him, and no matter what she did to ignore it, she could always feel him coming near her.

They were both acting as if nothing had changed when others were around, though. They had always been close, and everyone knew they were best friends, but now, there was a sense of knowing when it came to Mace, and it was hard to put that aside and react like nothing had changed. Whenever they were alone, it was hard to keep her hands off him, but she needed to. They hadn’t even defined what they were to each other, even though they kept talking about it and circling around the issue. How could she stay focused on what she needed to do when he was right there in all his sexy glory, looking all broody and refined with the white in his hair spreading over the rest of his scalp. That was one sexy, mature-looking daddy of a man right there, and those thoughts just made her want to scream.

Why couldn’t she just be normal?

No, instead, she had to become this obsessed weirdo who couldn’t stop staring at her best friend. And what was worse, she had no idea if he felt the same way about her. And because she couldn’t help but focus on that and didn’t want to obsess even more, she pushed all those thoughts to the side and kept working. Being in this position alone where she felt as though she were spiraling down the immaturity hole of doom wasn’t somewhere she wanted to be.

Ever.

So she looked down at the ink she was working on, ignored her aches and pains, and became whom she wanted to be.

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