Page 67 of Turning Tides
Archer
Shane never hid hisinterest in my art, which I sort of loved. A lot. It was like he looked at my work and saw the bits of me that I put in it. Like he studied it for the keys to unlock my heart, but the joke was on him because my heart already belonged to him. I think I gave it to him that first day we met and each day since I’ve only fallen deeper.
I hadn’t painted since before I opened the first tattoo shop with Clayton. It hadn’t been necessary at the time and it got shoved to the side in favor of me grinding away on a dream that had been so easily shattered.
My first attempt was shit and I painted over it and tried again. And again. I could tell that not looking at it takes all of Shane’s effort, but he’s a good boyfriend. I promised to show him when I had something worth looking at.
The new attempt is going well. My rusty skills were slow to reawaken, but now they were pouring new life into me. I think I was lost before Clayton ripped everything away from me. I think I’d been lost for a long time. Or maybe I was different now. The person I am now doesn’t want the same things that I used to want. What I’d wanted the first time around was to have a fully booked schedule all the time. I wanted to do nothing but bury my head in work. I wanted to make a name for myself.
Now I didn’t care about that although I still loved tattooing people. Whether it’s a special memorial tattoo, or a piece of flash they got on a whim, it was still an important part of me. But Shane’s enthusiasm for all things Archer has rekindled some of the things I thought I didn’t care about anymore. Like painting.
Shane’s only complaint about his tattoo was that it wasn’t where he could see it. So the painting was for him. His house could use some art on the walls and giving this to him made me feel like I had something to contribute to our lives besides my baggage.
I tried not to think about Clayton when I was painting because he made my blood boil, but that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst of it was that I missed my friend. I missed the person he was before his gambling addiction made him someone else. I’d unblocked his number, but he hadn’t called and I didn’t want to reach out. Reaching out felt too much like forgiving him and I was not ready for that.
The good light was gone and I stopped painting before I ruined yet another attempt. This was the closest one yet and if I didn’t fuck it up, it might be something special. A smile tugged at my face like the sap that I was. That was how I felt about what I had with Shane. Like it was something really special and now I just needed to not fuck it up. But I had a good feeling about Shane and me.
I cleaned my brushes and tidied up my mess. I’d turned the bedroom in my apartment into a makeshift studio. The truth was I hadn’t been sleeping here at all. Ever since Cyrus found out about Shane and me, I’d spent every night at Shane’s house. To the point that a good chunk of my wardrobe had made it over there. It felt like home in a way that the apartment didn’t and probably never would. The apartment was temporary. When I could afford it, I wanted a shop that was street level andeasier to find.
The new me still wanted a tattoo shop, but he also wanted a life outside of it. I washed up in the sink, locked up behind me, and bounded down the steps and out into the parking lot just in time for Shane to pull in to pick me up and shuttle me home for dinner with Cyrus and Marshall.
It had been two weeks since the big reveal. We were supposed to have met up sooner, but Marshall got the flu and they had to cancel. The extra week didn’t hurt my feelings. Even though I’d forgiven him, I’d still been pissed about the whole thing. But now I was ready to let it go and move forward. Cyrus and I had texted back and forth a few times since then, though, and we both agreed that our relationship was a work in progress. He’d work on being less overbearing and I’d work on not shutting him out.
Shane turned the music down when I got in the truck. Leaning across the seat, he angled for a kiss, his eyes sparkled with affection.
“Purple today,” he said, grinning like an idiot. He stole his kiss and I buckled up before glancing at myself in the mirror.
My cheek was sporting a smear of eggplant purple and I rubbed it away. “I need to learn to check the mirror when I’m done for the day.”
“I don’t know; I think it’s cute.”
“You just like thinking you’re getting secret information.”
“Well, you won’t let me see what you’re working on, so I’ll take what I can get.”
“You’ll see it when it’s done and not before.” Satisfied that I’d gotten that streak of paint, I examined my face in the mirror for any other stray patches of color. Finding none, I leaned back in the seat. “Excited for dinner tonight?”
“Could be fun.” Shane was unflappable. Steady as a fucking rock. I wasn’t. And it was stupid of me to be nervous because it was just Cyrus and Marshall. But besides Shane, they were all I had. I neededthings to be okay between us. This was a test of that and if it failed, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do.
“Could be a disaster,” I muttered, shifting my gaze out the window.
Shane’s hand found my knee and he gave it a comforting squeeze. “It’s going to be fine.”
“Have you heard back from brother dearest?” Shane was actively trying to convince his younger brother to come home for a while.
“I threw the idea out there. Whether he listens or not is a different story. Maybe I’ll sic Kieran on him.”
I’d met Kieran and Shane’s mom, but only briefly. Shane was trying to get his brother to town so he could throw a big, meet the family thing with all the important people in his life. So far his younger brother had ignored any comments about coming home. Shane was starting to think it was a lost cause. He tried to hide it, but it was easy to see he missed his brother.
Shane had been busy while I was gone. The house was sparkling clean from top to bottom, not that it was ever dirty, but today it gleamed. The scent of fresh baked bread hung in the air and I breathed deep.
“You can bake bread?” I asked, spying the rolls cooling on a rack on the counter.
“I can read a recipe and watch tutorials online. And then I can call my mom and beg her to help me. But don’t tell Cyrus that I didn’t bake them.”
I reached out and gently poked one of the rolls. The crust was soft and warm to the touch still. “He’s so mad that he can cook anything and everything, but can’t bake a loaf of bread to save his life. He might murder you if he finds out you lied about the bread.”
Shane wound his arms around me and tugged me against him. “Then you’ll have to keep my secret.”
