Page 42 of With You

I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t say goodbye to him, it felt awful and wrong, like if I said the word he’d disappear for good, as though he’d never been real and I’d imagined him all along. He must have realized it, too, because he took a step back and softly closed his door. The lock clicked into place with a finality that I should have been prepared for but was worse than getting shot.

All the energy that I’d gained left me in a burst and I barely noticed the arm wrapping around my shoulders and leading me back into my place. I dropped onto my couch, blinking and wondering how I got there.

“Sam? Honey?” The cushion dipped when Mom sat next to me, her face becoming blurry as I looked at her through tears. When was the last time I’d cried? Not when I’d been shot, not any of the other times I’d bled. The last time I’d hurt him, closing the hotel door on his disappointed features, I’d cried in the cab all the way to the airport.

“It’s over.”

“Oh, Sam. I’m so sorry, honey, this is all my fault. Tell me how to fix it.”

“It’s not. I should have told him, I should have—” my voice broke on a sob. She brought her hand to my head, tucking it into her neck and rocking me like when I was little.

Everything was wrong. So, so wrong. Why had I held back? Why had I resisted when all he wanted was me? Lying to myself over and over that giving into him would be a weakness, that one of us would end up hurt just like my mom had been hurt. The anguish sweeping over me proved I’d done just that.

For years, I’d distracted myself with mission after mission, never standing still, never pausing long enough to think about what I’d given up when I’d left him alone in that hotel room. He hadn’t asked me for promises then, all he’d wanted was a chance. A chance to be mine, to mean more to me like I did him and now I might never get the chance to tell him that he’d been more all along, he’d been everything. That every part of me belonged to him. He was tattooed on my body, my heart, my soul like the beautiful lines of color that decorated his skin.

Now I’d ruined everything, again. Sometimes you were lucky enough to get a second chance but never a third, not even Monroe Ross was that forgiving. And there was no one to blame for it but myself.

25

ROE

Waking up had never hurt this badly.

The signs of a hangover assaulted me. Predictable, since after finishing off the beers, I’d gone in search of something stronger to dull last night’s revelations that had hit me like a sixty-ton battle tank.

“Coffee?” A very unmanly yelp left me at the question, my eyes flying open to find Gage standing over me, holding a mug that, I shit you not, said ‘World’s Best Nana’ on the side. Dude was so fucking weird.

I sat up on what I now realized was a couch and not my bed, taking a deep breath while willing myself not to throw up. The list of embarrassments was already long enough. “Thanks,” I muttered, taking the mug of life-saving liquid.

Gage padded to a scratched leather armchair and dropped into it, taking a sip out of his own far less interesting plain black mug. That tracked. My cup was half empty before I felt like I could string more than two words together.

“Do I even want to know how I ended up sleeping on your couch last night?”

Gage had been the only one of us to decline living in the building where our business was. While Gray and Kane had been renovating the upper floors, they’d laid out plans for five private units, one for each of us. Gage had declined in one of his usual one-word answers. I’d only been to his Batcave one other time and that was when I had to deliver a huge ass box of paper files because he refused to come and get them himself from the office.

He lived on the outskirts of town in a small house that made Baz’s ranch look like a mansion. Everything was dark and outdated, the previous owners obviously having a major hard-on for wood paneling. Even the couch I was sitting on had to have been from the seventies, a nauseating mix of yellow and brown plaid that I was pretty sure had given me a rash on my face if my itching cheek was any indication.

“Got a call from Nash.”

Nash Vale was the owner of Dragon Ink. He must have called Gage because he happened to be both of our tattoo artist and knew that we worked together. There weren’t a lot of choices for ink when you lived in a small town but Nash was so goddamn talented, he could have made a fucking fortune in a bigger city. Whey he’d decided to set up shop in Little Falls was lost on me but I was grateful.

“Fuck,” the implications of what Gage had said finally sank in.

I mentally took stock of my body and started to search my arms and legs, feeling for the telltale signs of fresh ink. When I lifted my shirt, I froze when I saw the square piece of plastic taped to my left pec. No.

Vaulting off Gage’s couch, I sprinted to the bathroom. When the door was closed, I switched on the lights and turned slowly, terrified of what I was going to see in the mirror. Ripping the shirt from my body, my eyes automatically locked in on the only piece of bare flesh I had on my chest. Well, used to have. My heart raced, causing the new ink to pulse under the bathroom lights.

“Fuck,” I repeated, unable to look any longer, I released my shirt and gripped the sink in both hands, letting my head drop in shame.

It had been years, years, that I’d had that blank space. The only other person that had known of my plan for it had been Nash. And I’d be damned if it wasn’t fucking beautiful, exactly like I’d always pictured.

Still, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Me getting that space filled alone, without Sam. We were supposed to be together. I’d wanted to hold her hand and stare at the face of the woman I loved while the needle buzzed over my skin. She was supposed to know that I loved her when I declared it to the whole world. I guess I could add this to the many ways I’d fucked up when it came to her.

“You okay?” The gruff voice didn’t surprise me this time but the question did. First at the hospital and now this, Gage was almost acting like…a friend.

“Nope, not at all. Probably won’t ever be again.” I turned and crossed my arms, Gage’s eyes zeroing in on the new tattoo.

He whistled between his teeth. “Intentional? I’m surprised Nash agreed to ink you at all considering how shitfaced you were.”

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