Once Upon A Time
I wasn’t fucking born yesterday. If the traditional “Lakers” tattoo I just inked onto the back of Strawberry Shortcake’s hip wasn’t enough to tip me off, the fact these girls had enough make-up pancaked onto their damn faces would’ve clued me in. Fake IDs. Nineteen, my ass. I should’ve told Sue she was nuts. I should’ve sent these little girls home the minute Sue asked me if I was open. It shouldn’t have mattered that the tall one, Kelly, was the most stunning thing to ever walk into Avenues Ink. All that virgin flesh in a place like this… it felt wrong. These girls couldn’t be a day over seventeen, but instead of being smart, I let my dick think for me.
The redhead hopped down from the table once Kelly returned from filling out the mandatory consent paperwork and asked, “Do you care if I run and grab something to drink from Handy’s?”
Kelly gave her friend a withering glare. “You’re going to leave me here?”
“I’ll be like ten minutes. Besides, Josh is working the grave shift tonight.” She actually waggled her eyebrows.
I wiped down my work station and exhaled an annoyed breath as Shortcake twirled her hair in her finger. I wanted to tell her that her age was showing, but Kelly glanced at me under those thick lashes, and I swallowed down my nerve.
You’re an idiot.
“Ten minutes?” Kelly asked and raised her perfectly arched eyebrows.
I wished she didn’t have all that shit on her face. I had a feeling she’d be prettier without it.
“I swear.” The girl practically squeaked like a dog toy as she left my station. “Have fun,” she said and waved over her shoulder.
Kelly’s eyes trailed down my body once, and, when those big brown eyes met mine, her brows furrowed. I suppose fun was the last thing she thought of when she looked at a guy like me. A guy covered with ink and piercings and enough pent-up anger to bring down a skyscraper if he finally blew his temper.
She handed me her paperwork, and I gave it a cursory glance. “It’s all there.” Her voice shook, and I wondered if she was terrified or excited.
My stomach tied into knots once I allowed myself to look at her again. She was covered in summer skin and stood on long legs. Her delicate nose was centered between high cheekbones, and those lips… I didn’t want to think what I was thinking about those underage lips. This chick could be a fucking model if she wanted. My eyes fell back to the consent form, where they belonged. I scanned the top portion and read her full name. Kelly Kavanagh. When I lifted my gaze from the paper and appraised her again she almost appeared bored. I shouldn’t even care, but it sucked always being right. Girls like her don’t fuck with guys like me. It’s simple math. She was pure, and I was the scum her daddy warned her about. Kelly and her little friend were slumming it before their senior year started, and I was the lucky bastard who got their attention for the night.
“Do you think I’m stupid?” I asked, not attempting to tamp down my inner asshole.
Her posture faltered as she said, “Of course not.”
Her brows dipped and created a cute as hell dimple just above her nose. It almost made me lose my train of thought. “How old are you?”
She swallowed deeply and I laughed without humor.
“At least tell me you’re a senior… I mean, that’s what all you rich kids do, right? Get those stupid, fucking Laker waves… mark yourselves as privileged?” I shook my head as I watched her cheeks go red all the way to the tips of her ears.
“Privileged?” The venom she infused into the word surprised me. “I’m the furthest thing from it.”
I almost snorted. “You’re joking, right? Last time I checked, every kid who went to Pioneer Lake High was a spoiled brat. Trust funds, new cars, and enough entitlement that they could choke on it for all I care.”
Her hands rolled into fists, and I almost felt guilty for giving her such a hard time. But it was an insult to my intelligence. Like I wouldn’t know what the three waved lines meant, like I hadn’t gotten harassed by those same fucks who went to that damn high school every year since I started working here full-time.
“How old are you? And you better tell me the truth, or you can get the fuck out.” I kept my voice low, below the noise of the shop, but with enough edge her fists clenched tighter and she dropped her proud eyes from mine to the floor.
“I’m seventeen.”
My breath escaped my lips with a long, noisy exhale as I ran my hand through my hair. “And your friend?”
She nodded and I swore under my breath. The paperwork was legal; as far as Avenues was concerned, the IDs were real and the girls were old enough. There wouldn’t be any problem if these girls’ parents showed up. We’d done everything by the book. But, there was some masochistic part of me that was hoping she was at least eighteen, because then maybe…
“Kathy will be eighteen next month, and I’ll be eighteen in November. No big deal.” The corners of her mouth curled into a nervous smile, and I swore again.
“No big deal, just my job, Princess. You know, a paycheck… oh, I forgot, who needs a job when you have daddy’s bank card.”
“You don’t even know me.” She sounded hurt, but there was fire brewing in those brown eyes, and the darkness around her pupils almost burned amber as she took a step toward me, leaving just an arm’s distance between us. I couldn’t fucking believe it, but my heart actually started to pump faster. “My ‘daddy’ doesn’t work, and my mom… she busts her ass at Pete’s to keep food on our table. And me… I earn every goddamn dime of my own paycheck at the Handy Mart off 200 South. Me and Kathy, we were lucky enough to be part of the new busing program the county is trying out. You know, just your local charity cases getting an upper crust education. So, yeah, I go to Pioneer Lake, but that doesn’t mean I’m some trust fund baby, and even if I was…” She took another step closer and my mouth went dry. “You have no right to be such an asshole to me.”
She raised her hand and, for a minute, I thought she might slap me, but she rested it on her hip, instead.
The smirk that formed on my lips was involuntary. Her eyes were so wide, and her cheeks… I was sure if I touched them they’d sizzle. She was pissed, sexy as hell, and goddamn it, seventeen.
“I apologize.”
“You don’t look very sorry.” She narrowed her eyes.
“Really.” I motioned for her to have a seat on the work table. “I am. I’m a dick.”
She nodded as she sat and I chuckled.
“I don’t need to get a tattoo.”
“But, you want one?” I asked as I grabbed a new needle and readied my work station. “What are you thinking of getting if not the Laker waves?”
“I have an idea, can I have a piece of paper?”
I grabbed a piece of scrap paper from my work station and handed it to her along with a pen. I needed to focus on the job, focus on the task in front of me instead of the beautiful girl sitting on my leather table. In reality, I wasn’t that much older than her. Nineteen, still technically a teenager. It didn’t matter that my childhood ended when I dropped out of high school at sixteen in order to help support my mother… my family. Nineteen was nineteen and she was seventeen.
I internally slapped myself for even considering it. Kelly may not be the rich, spoiled girl I thought she was, but she was still way out of my league. Minor or not, she was the kind of girl a guy like me could only dream about.
Once I was finished setting up and brought my attention back to the work table, I noticed she’d placed the paper face down and was rolling the pen between her soft lips. Shit. I had to close my eyes and inhale a bit of sanity before I was able to move forward. When I opened my eyes, the pen, thank God, was nowhere near her sinful mouth.
“So, don’t laugh… but…” She lifted the paper with her long, fragile looking fingers and stared at it, her smile fading. “I can’t really remember what it exactly looked like. I drew it the best I could.” Kelly handed me the paper and every muscle in my body called out to hers. My jaw set into a firm line as my eyes lingered over the familiar drawing. “When I was little, when things got… bad… I’d read this stupid fairytale over and over again. And sometimes, the story was the only thing that got me through it.” I raised my eyes to hers, and their spark from earlier had died. Her irises swam behind unshed tears. Kelly looked right through me as she continued, “I wanted to believe that things could get better, like for the girl in the book. That my dad… that things could get better.” She huffed out a watery laugh and finally looked at me. The tears in her eyes were gone, as if I’d only imagined them. “Earlier, when you called me Princess, it made me think of the story.”
I wanted to laugh with her, but her history had glittered in her eyes, and there was something too familiar about the pain she was trying to push away. I knew what her drawing meant. The crown adorned with four stars at each peak and engraved with a picture of the sun and a crescent moon in its center. My mother had read me that story at least a hundred times when I was a boy. It was our thing. When my dad was too drunk to stand or started picking fights, I’d take the brunt of his poison so the others wouldn’t suffer. And at night, my mom would tuck me in and read The Painted Prince. She’d send me into a fantasy world long enough that my dreams would be filled with kingdoms of moons and suns instead of reality, booze, and empty stomachs.
“I know the story.”
“You do?” Kelly’s eyes teemed with questions.
“My mom read it to me, too… I think I might’ve taken the metaphor too far though.” I waved my hand up and down my inked arm.
Kelly laughed, and it was the kind of laugh that stitched in your stomach. The kind of laugh that made you smile no matter what horrible shit was running through your head. I wasn’t a romantic guy, and if I was being real, most of the time, the chicks I dated never really stuck around. The whole high school dropout thing—I wasn’t someone you brought home to Mom. But the sound of her laughter hung in the air and shifted the beat of my heart.
She took a slow breath and said, “I can’t picture you as a little boy, tucked away in bed, reading fairytales.”
I wanted to tell her I was glad for it. Those days were shitty enough as it was—no one needed to relive it with visuals. Instead, I laughed it off, keeping it professional and asked her, “Where do you want the tattoo placed?”
She pursed her lips and her eyes raised to the ceiling. She was quiet for a moment and then tipped her head back down to eye level. If I‘d thought she was sexy before, the grin on her face now was flat out scandalous. It took all of my sane thought to keep my blood pumping through my veins and not to my dick.
She lay back onto the table and popped the button of her jean shorts. My nostrils flared and I clenched my jaw. I swear I was being tortured for being such a prick the majority of my life. The sound of the zipper being tugged down lit my skin with a scorching heat, and I had to ball my hands into fists to stop myself from reaching out to touch her. It wasn’t like I didn’t get laid, and I hated that I was even thinking such over-the-top bullshit, but there was something different about her. She was gorgeous, sure, and the ideas that were flooding my brain right now would land me in prison, but it was more than that. I had no clue why, and it was immature of me to even entertain the thought, but there was something connecting me to her.
“I don’t want my father to see it. If he sees it, I’m as good as dead, so…” I noticed then her fingers were shaking as she pointed to the hollow next to her right hip bone. She shifted her weight so she could pull her shorts down a little more, exposing the top of her pubic bone. My throat contracted painfully as I tried, unsuccessfully, to avert my gaze to the smooth curve of her hip. “Can you place it here?”
Each inhale and exhale came faster than the previous as I stepped closer to the table. The planes of her stomach were touched with summer, as well, and if I’d been a better guy, I would’ve told her there was no way in hell I would ruin such flawless skin. That wasn’t who I was, though, and something small inside of me shouted into the void, you will own this flesh. It’s yours, take it.
So, I did.
“Here?” I ran my thumb slowly over where she indicated, letting it dip farther than necessary. She was like silk, and the ache in my chest nearly crushed me when she shivered. I wondered if she ached for me, too. If we were alone, would she let me do the things I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about as my touch puckered her skin into goose bumps.
I almost missed it when she asked, “Will that spot work?”
I exhaled a ragged breath and nodded my head. She smelled like lemons, mixed with sunlight. I needed air, fresh air. I gulped and turned away from her as I said, “I’m going to freehand it. I know the image well enough, if that’s okay with you?”
“Sounds great.”
I ignored the tinge of reluctance I heard in her voice as I grabbed the black ink.
“Oh, my God, you’re really doing it!” The high pitch of Shortcake’s voice cut through the private moment.
Thank Christ.
I turned around, and even gave the little redhead a real smile. Kelly eyed her friend and, if I wasn’t paying attention, I might’ve missed the nonverbal exchange. Kelly huffed out an irritated puff of air, and when the redhead looked at her again it was apologetic. Was Kelly pissed that her friend showed up, or was she pissed that she was late coming back? Fuck. I hated this. I waved off the girl, pointing to the stool in the corner, taking a seat myself next to the table and the temptation of Kelly’s body. I let my eyes consume Kelly’s curves, her skin, her scent, and when our eyes met, her cheeks filled with blush.
She had no idea, but I was grateful for that damn redhead. If it wasn’t for her showing up when she did, I had a feeling I would’ve given in. I would’ve let myself believe I could’ve had her, a girl like Kelly, something good. I would’ve done the stupidest thing I could’ve done. I would’ve let every last stone I’d built around myself crumble to the ground. But, I was no Painted Prince. I was a thief, coveting things I could never earn.
“Queen of Night,” I whispered as I placed the needle to her flesh.