After the cup filled, I grabbed it then picked up my pencil and notebook, heading out onto the tiny deck that overlooked the “garden” behind the shop. Garden being a loose term that encompassed the two planters that were filled with dirt and two very pathetic-looking bushes—the same bushes that were still soaked through from my shenanigans with the shop vacuum the week before and would probably die—three stained concrete steps, and a pair of wooden chairs the smokers in the studio used for breaks.
It was fresh air surrounded by brick buildings, a bit of quiet that was broken by the noises and smells of a city.
But it was something that wasn’t inside, listening to Charlie hammer away on the pipes below me or working with a client, staring at the tip of my needle, tracing a line, adding a shadow.
Speaking of which, I took a long sip from my mug and picked up my notebook. I had a drawing to finish for my appointment in a couple of hours, before I got down to all that needle staring, line tracing, and shadow adding.
This was a cool piece.
A mash-up of different art pieces the woman liked—some Van Gogh with heavy brush strokes and lots of texture, some boxier lines of a Picasso-esque piece, all done in bright, alternating colors like a Warhol.
This was one of the things I loved most about my art.
Being able to take concepts that I would have never thought could work together and playing around with them until I found a common thread that stitched the pieces into a collective whole.
And everyone’s pieces were different.
My own ink tended toward a more traditional Japanese vein—though I did have several pieces that were hot messes, mostly from me practicing on myself or other artists trying out a technique. They’d done the same for me, offering up a body part for practice, sometimes to not great results, but it was better than screwing up on a client.
The pieces I was really proud of—my sleeves and below the knee—had been done by people I trusted of art I’d drawn.
But Lorna’s had been my favorite work. The line work, the colors, the—
My pencil lead snapped.
“Fuck,” I muttered, knowing that I couldn’t keep doing this. It had been almost a year since the drama unfolded, and I was still alternating between hurt and anger and longing.
I shouldn’t still want a woman who’d tried to fuck my brother and best friend.
I shouldn’t still be hurt about such a despicable person.
The anger I figured I was allowed to hold on to for as long as I wanted.
Still, I didn’t understand all of what I was feeling or why. I hated that I’d misread Lorna so completely, that I’d been utterly whipped and hadn’t believed people I trusted. What did that say about me that some bitch with a magical vagina had imploded my trust in people I’d known my whole life?
That I’d been so quick to toss it all away just because she’d accused them of coming on to her?
Fuck, I’d been ready to disown my brother, had spent two months not talking to my best friend, Sam, because Lorna had said—
And maybe that was the crux of it all.
My ego was punctured, my confidence shaken.
I’d been manipulated and—
“Pathetic,” I said on a huff, grabbing another pencil, flipping the page, and beginning a different sketch. The lines were heavy and dark, decidedly ill-fitting for the client’s ink, but perfectly encapsulating what was going on in my mind, what had been going on.
Look, I got it.
I brooded.
While I was a not-so-starving artist anymore, I was still emotional and sensitive—barf—but I had always thought I’d known who I was deep inside. I was loyal and smart. If I said I’d be there, I always showed. I was reliable and followed through and was good with people.
And I’d still gotten hurt.
No more.
I wasn’t letting that happen again, same as I wasn’t going back to California until I had gotten my head straight, same as I wasn’t talking to Lorna again and how I was keeping the conversation with my brother and Sam light and easy when we talked.
They’d forgiven me easily, moved on like nothing had changed between us.
But everything inside me had shifted. An earthquake had cracked my foundation, rattled around the contents of my being, shook up the negative things about me and brought them front and center.
So, they might have forgiven and forgotten, but I hadn’t done the same.
“Shit,” I muttered. This was way too much emotion and thinking for seven in the morning, before I’d even finished my first cup of coffee.
I deliberately turned back to the previous page in my notebook, forced my mind to clear, and got back to the drawing. Thankfully, the moment my hand began moving, everything faded away and the image grew on the paper, almost subconsciously.
I didn’t hear the banging stop below me, nor did I hear the back door to the shop open, or Charlie clamber down the steps and sit in the wooden chair.
I did, however, hear her surprised gasp and definitely heard the shouted-out exclamation of, “Fuck me!”
My notebook and pencil hit the chair, my hands the railing, and I peered over the edge. She was sitting ramrod straight in the chair, a packet of papers in her lap, long tail of her ponytail trailing down her spine.
Then, for the first time since Lorna’s betrayal had come to light, since my confidence had disappeared and my life had been upended, I stopped thinking.
I opened my mouth and said the first thing that came into my brain.
“Now, there’s a lovely invitation for so early in the morning.”
Blue eyes flew up to mine.
Heat arrowed to my cock.
“Want me to come down?” A beat as those eyes narrowed. “Or are you coming up?”
Silence then a sharp shake of her head.
“Fucking asshole,” she muttered, gathering the papers and bringing them with her as she stormed inside, the door slamming behind her.
Yeah, so maybe I was an asshole, but also maybe I’d been delusional in thinking I’d been a decent person. And maybe I didn’t care anymore if other people thought the same.
Maybe I was going to embrace the dick.
Maybe I was going to do what I wanted, when I wanted, how I wanted.
Maybe that would finally be enough to quiet all the bullshit in my mind.
Seven
Charlie
Fucking men.
Fucking asshole men.
Ugh.
I shoved the papers into the envelope and then took the entire packet and crammed it into the bottom layer of my toolbox. It would probably get wet or covered with grime, but the legal documents inside that innocuous container of manila paper deserved all of the dirt and shit slung at it.
Heir.
My grandmother had listed me as the sole person to inherit her estate.
Her multi-billion-dollar estate.
So, yeah, I think my fuck me was warranted.
She couldn’t be bothered with me when I’d been orphaned, hadn’t given two shits that I’d ended up in some sketchy ass places in the system, and now she wanted to give me assets that totaled almost two and a half billion dollars.
Well, I didn’t want it.
Any of it.
I’d donate it to charity, or better yet, burn the fucking papers and toss the ashes in her face.
There. Done.
Decision made.
“Fucking buying me,” I muttered, shoving the new length of pipe into position with more force than was strictly necessary. “As a grown woman?” I slapped on an elbow joint then turned and began measuring for the next length. “Maybe that would have worked as a teenager, but I know you now, you stupid evil—”