Last Call (Bad Habits Book 3) (24 page)

“All right, babe. Hop up here and take your shirt off.” Max patted the seat, and Ellie did as she was told with rosy cheeks and doe eyes as she pulled her shirt off and lost her bra, tossing them on the chair in the corner without hesitating. He washed his hands, put on black rubber gloves, and grabbed a Sharpie, looking very serious as he examined her nipples and marked her where he’d pierce her.

The room was silent, and I stared at the pattern on the wall to keep me from
also
examining her nipples.

Max turned and looked at the mirrored wall. “How’s that look?”

Ellie tilted her head, shifting her shoulders to get a good look. “Uh, I don’t know. I guess that looks fine.”

He smiled. “It’s gonna look great. Lie down.”

Her cheeks flushed, and she reached for my hand. I kept my eyes on hers as best I could.

What? Ellie has great tits. Plus, when boobs are out, there’s no way
not
to look. It’s just a fact.

Max came back with a huge clamp. “Okay, now, this is almost going to be worse than the needle. You ready?”

She gripped my hand, the first flicker of worry passing across her face. She nodded.

He opened the monstrous clamps and lined the markings up in the holes. “Take a breath, El.”

She did, but her face blanched when he closed the clamps, squashing her nipple until it looked almost nothing like a nipple.

“Good girl. You okay?”

“Mmhmm,” was all she could eek out.

“Rose, could you hold this?” He motioned to the clamp handles as he removed his fingers.
 

“Uh …”

“Just for a second. Here.”

I slipped my fingers in just as he let go. And there I was, holding my cousin’s nipple clamp in the back room of a tattoo parlor.
 

I felt a little lightheaded myself when he turned around with the gigantic hollow needle.
 

There was a reason why I didn’t have piercings.

Max got eye level with the clamp, checking it one more time to make sure it was straight before he commandeered it from me.

“Okay. Take two or three deep breaths, and keep your eyes on the ceiling. You ready?”

“No, but do it anyway,” she said.

He smiled. “That’s my girl. Okay. One … two … three.”

Her hand squeezed, and I looked down, which was a mistake. My eyelids were glued open as I watched him push that big ass needle through her nipple. Blood dripped down the side of her breast.
 

I was hot, so hot. Sweat rolled down my back, and my face tingled. “I don’t feel so good,” I mumbled, the room going dim.

“Oh, shit.
Tricky!
” I heard Max yell as my vision faded, and a strong set of arms caught me before I hit the ground like a sack of bricks.

When I woke a few minutes later, Patrick’s face was the first thing I saw, dark brows bent in worry, blue eyes burning with concern. I lay stretched out on his chair, feeling dizzy. Something cold pressed against the nape of my neck, and it felt amazing.
 

“Hey,” Patrick said softly, smiling down at me. “Don’t sit up yet.”

“I fainted.”

“You did.”

I sighed, closing my eyes again as I shifted. “I am officially the coolest.”

He chuckled. “You aren’t the first person to hit the deck in here. It happens every day.”

I cracked a lid and raised a brow. “Have you ever passed out getting modded?”

He smirked. “I like to watch.”

“You’re really sick, you know that?”

He handed me a tiny box of apple juice. “Here. Drink this. It’ll make you feel better.”

I took it and drank a little just as Ellie materialized next to me, eyes wide. She touched my arm and peered at me. “Oh, my God, Rosie. Are you okay?”

I smiled. “I’m fine” I nodded to her chest. “Are you?”

“Hell yeah. But thank God Max took the clamp away from you before you fainted, because I never would have forgiven you if you’d ripped my nipple off.”

I chuckled and sipped my apple juice. “So are you all finished?”

She lit up. “Uh-huh! Check it out!” She lifted up her shirt to display her naked boobs. We were about ten feet from the street window, where I noticed one guy do a double take before skidding to a stop.

A laugh shot out of me. “Uh, they look great, El, but maybe you should put them away.”

She lowered her shirt, still beaming. “That was fucking awesome. It hurt like a bitch though.”

“I can only imagine. Actually, I did imagine, and it made me faint, so you just got serious badass points in my book.” I looked over at Patrick. “I feel a little better. Can I sit now?”

“Sure.” He grabbed my arm as I sat, and I used his weight to pull myself up.

I closed my eyes and ran a hand through my hair with a sigh.
 

When I opened them, Patrick was watching me. “Are you sure you still want to get lunch?”

I did the classic body assessment, checking all my parts — including my stomach — and found them intact. “Yeah. I should probably eat something, anyway. What are we thinking?”

“Tacos,” Ellie said definitively.

I almost moaned, and my mouth watered. “Tacos. How about El Corazon? They make their own tortillas, which is the equivalent of taco unicorns in New York. If they’d only stay open twenty-four hours, my life would be made.”

Patrick leaned against his desk. “I’m in.”

“Good,” I said as I lifted myself off the chair, but the second my feet hit the ground, my knees went out from under me, and I was falling again, straight into Patrick.

“Whoa,” he muttered and stood to catch me, pulling me into his chest. I looked up at him, and he looked down — our noses were inches from each other. My breath froze as I waited for him to kiss me, my eyes on his lips, but instead of meeting mine, they smiled, and he hugged me tighter, lowering his face to my ear. “I’ll give you that later, Rosie.”

If he hadn’t been holding me up, I would have hit the ground again because my knees were no longer functioning joints.
 

But then again, Patrick always did have that effect on me.

Patrick

I’d been back at the shop for a few hours after lunch as I hunched over my desk, sketching as I waited for my last client. I smiled down at the paper, thinking about the feeling of her hand in mine as we walked to El Corazon, her thigh against mine at the table, the sound of her laugh.
 

That sound made me more happy than I could find words to describe. Especially knowing I was the reason for it.

I smiled down at the page, shading the shadows of a woman’s face. It wasn’t Rose, not exactly at least — she’d been a muse since the first time I laid eyes on her. I’d always been drawn to the female form in art, the delicate features of a woman’s face, the soft curves of her body, but Rose was the standard to which I held all features. Sometimes it would be her eyes that I’d start with, though the rest of her face would be different. Sometimes it was her lips. Or an expression she wore. But there was a small piece of Rose in everything I drew. I supposed there was a piece of Rose in me, too. There always would be.

I looked up from my work when the bell on the door rang.

Seth smiled, and I stood, surprised to see him but glad all the same.

“What’s up, man?” I said as he approached. We clapped each other’s shoulders.

“Not much. Just got off work and wanted to say hi.” He took a seat in my chair, and I leaned against my desk. There was a hint of worry in his face, and the familiar dread of responsibility for Seth crept in.
 

“Everything okay?” I asked.

“Yeah. Or it will be.”

“What’s up?” I didn’t know if I was ready for the answer.

He sighed. “That’s not why I came here. Don’t worry about it, Tricky. What’s up with you?”

I folded my arms. “Come on, man. What’s going on? Are you clean? I mean, you didn’t—”

He shook his head. “No, no. Nothing like that. It’s just that my roommate bailed a couple of months ago. I’d been doing okay, but my savings are almost gone, and I’ve been looking for a roommate, but it hasn’t been easy. I’m recovering, you know? Living with a stranger could be dangerous for me — I don’t even know if I can have liquor in the house, you know? And almost everyone else I know is a junkie.”

“Yeah, I know.” I knew then what was coming, and the war in my thoughts began. “How can I help?”

“It’s not your problem.”

“I know it’s not, but I still want to help.”

He smirked, trying to make light of it. “Well, if you know anybody who needs a roommate, you could give them my number.”

There was only person who I knew who fit the bill. Me. My living situation was nowhere near stable or permanent. I knew I didn’t want to go back to West’s, and I’d need to find somewhere to go sooner than later.

“I may need a roommate soon.”

His brow quirked. “Yeah?”

I nodded. “You know I’ve been sleeping on Rose’s couch, but I don’t know how long that will last, and West and Lily should stay in our old place. I just don’t know when I’ll need to decide. How long do you have?”

“A couple of weeks.”

“I can handle that. Let me think about it, and if you find somebody else, just let me know.”

He smiled and shook his head. “Man. It’d be just like old times.”

I laughed. “Except better.”

Seth rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe a little less drama. Anyway, I’m starving, thought I’d see if you wanted to get something to eat?”

“Can’t. Still have another client, but I’ll take you up on that soon. Hit me up.”

“All right.” He stood, still smiling. “I’d better get something to eat. Take it easy, Tricky.”
 

We embraced again, and he headed out as I sat back down at my desk.

Living with Seth again after all this time? If you’d have told me a few weeks ago I’d be considering it, I would have said you were crazy. But I was in limbo, even if it was a happy limbo. Even if I looked at it solely from an objective point of view, it made sense. I’d have to figure something out eventually. Did the timing matter?

My first thought was that yes, it did. Staying with Rose might have been the only thing keeping us together. At least right now. After a few weeks, maybe things would be different, but right now? I had a tenuous grip on the situation, and I wasn’t ready to risk letting it slip away. But that didn’t change the fact that I had no place to call my own. Clothes at one place. Toothbrush at another. Never sleeping in my own bed.

I sighed, setting down my pencil as Joel approached.
 

I eyed him.
 
“Are you about to lecture me?”

He put up his hands in surrender. “Nope. Promise. What’d he want?”

“He wanted to eat, but I also found out he needs a roommate. And, technically, I need somewhere to stay.”

His eyes were hard, though the rest of him relaxed as he tried to hold back what he really wanted to say. I’d known him too long to let that get past me. “Mmm,” he said noncommittally. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

He didn’t seem satisfied with that answer, but he nodded anyway. “It’s been a while since you’ve been by for a beer. You busy tonight?”

“Not until later.”

“Good. We’ll walk up after your next job.” He smirked at me as he walked away.

It was that simple, that easy. Being friends with Joel always was. When I moved in with him after he hired me, when I got clean, I was amazed at just how simple it was. My first real friend — Seth — had been anything but simple. My relationship with my father was strained, and I barely remembered my mother. And that was just about the extent of the people who were a part of my life for more than twelve months at a time, before Joel.

It wasn’t until I met him then that I began to realize my view on the world was far more hopeless than life really was. The reality was that the people in my life had sucked me dry, and that if I could find people who gave as much as they took, it would change everything. And it did.

I closed my notebook and setup my station, finishing just as my next client walked in. I had drawn up a memorial piece for the man’s wife, who had recently passed away. He was a quiet, solemn man and sat in my chair as still as stone as I worked, hands clasped in his lap, eyes locked on the window, blank.
 

At one point, I asked how he was holding up, but he shook his head, eyes still on the window.

“I want it to hurt. The pain reminds me that I’m still alive.”

I nodded. I’d been there more than I cared to think about, and every drop of ink on my skin was a display of that pain in one way or another. My body was a canvas, an exposition that required no words. Just a reminder that I was alive. That I would remember my faults and my mistakes, never to make them again.
 

They were a reminder that life would always go on.

I inked the lines, shaded and filled, the machine vibrating in my hand, up my arm until the familiar feeling became a part of me. Neither of us spoke.

I shook his hand when he left, felt his sadness. Felt the connection of being a part of something that meant so much to him, something that would exist on his body to remind him. But I knew that the mark was only a symbol. It was for others even more than it was for him. Because he would never forget. Neither would I.

I cleaned up my station and grabbed my bag, heading to the back where Joel waited so we could walk up to his place together. He and Shep lived in the apartment above the shop, the same place I’d lived while Joel put me back on my feet. As we walked through the door, the familiar smell of the apartment settled into me, clinging to me like a part of me never really left.
 

It was home.
 

It was my first Christmases and Thanksgiving that felt like the family you saw in movies. Times when I felt loved unconditionally. It was the first time I knew what it was like to have someone in your life who’d always have your back, who had your best interest at heart. Someone who loved you.

Moving to New York opened my eyes. Moving in with Joel changed the course of my life.