Page 59 of Save Me

The logical part of her wanted to say it wouldn’t be a big deal. Their relationship wasn’t serious and it would mean she could go and play the heartbroken girl at the pub and maybe that would ease the tension between her and her mother for a little while.

Liar.

Or…she’d be mildly disappointed because Ryker was a cool guy to hang out with and the sex was off-the-charts fantastic.

“So, okay…I’d miss the sex.”

Liar.

Well, not a total liar on that one, because she really would miss the sex. No man had ever made her feel as good as Ryker had and she was seriously considering not getting into any kind of deep conversation with him tonight and just maybe surprising him in his room and…

“Oh, crap,” she muttered. She’d been going on and on and on about how what they had wasn’t real and she wasn’t looking for a relationship and there was no reason for Ryker to keep up the pretense all the way up in Virginia Beach—especially when he didn’t know she was going to be there. For all she knew, she was going to show up and find him with another woman!

And the knot of dread in the pit of her stomach hit so hard that she almost had to pull over.

“Okay, okay…one thing at a time. I can’t possibly get mad at him for playing by my own stupid rules. Stupid, stupid,stupidrules! Gah!”

The reality was, if things went south and he got pissed at her for showing up and ended things…she’d be devastated—just like if she showed up and found him with another woman.

It was beyond tempting to simply turn the car around and go home and feign ignorance. It was bliss, after all. But, she wasn’t a quitter and she didn’t shy away from challenges.

Unless they involved her family, in which case, all bets were off.

But right now, this challenge seemed too important to ignore.

So, hitting the button on her favorite playlist, Ryleigh Donovan made her way to her first ever tattoo convention.

* * *

His shoulders ached, his hands were cramped, and his head was pounding.

It was both a touch of heaven and hell.

The noise level in the convention center was insane and the crowd around his booth was almost suffocating. There’d been a reason he took a year off from this and now he wished he’d waited and taken another before making a “comeback.”

Ugh…

“Ry, you want me to grab you something to drink?” Billie asked. “Marc’s here and we were going to get something for us, so…”

“Just water,” he told her. “And make sure it’s cold or get me a cup of ice, please.”

“You got it.” She started to walk away and then paused. “Two more hours to go.”

Nodding, he thanked her, his eyes never leaving his client’s back and the massive dragon he was filling in. If they weren’t at a convention, he’d want to do this in two sessions, but because of the strict timeline, it was all getting done today. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that he could get it done and it was going to look awesome; he was just itching to get up and move around.

And sleep.

Sleep would be great right about now.

All day, Billie had made sure he had plenty to eat and drink and got his bathroom breaks, but damn, he was exhausted. From the moment the convention center doors opened the previous day, he’d been going nonstop. He’d spoken on a panel yesterday and answered what felt like a thousand questions, and then he’d jumped right into working on his first client. Fortunately, he’d been able to get two in yesterday because what they wanted was on a much smaller scale than today’s guy. It had been a long time since he’d pulled an eighteen-hour day where he worked like this and it made him realize just how much he missed the energy of working one-on-one like this.

Maybe this was the kick in the ass he needed to go back to Laurel Bay and pull the trigger on the parlor.

Maybe.

He worked some green into the dragon and did his best to focus on the tattoo and not on how tired he was. At some point, Billie put an icy bottle of water in front of him and he paused long enough to drink most of it down in one shot.

And instantly cursed the brain freeze it gave him.

---