Once Upon a Present
The intricate lines on her back, the detail, that was all me. The pale light from the window cut across her pale skin revealing every last inch of ink I’d placed there over the past couple years. Tana shifted slightly and I held my breath. My mind wasn’t in this bed with her and it never would be. We’d both hidden behind the pretense of friends with benefits for the past year, but neither of us really wanted the truth. I was the asshole who used her to get my dick wet, and she was the girl who used me to make her ex jealous.
Tana was a good woman, and if I hadn’t already cut myself open, I’d have enough blood in my veins for her. But I’d drained myself dry years ago, and at this point, all I needed was to feel something other than the vacant feeling of loss every now and then. I should’ve kept the lines between Tana and me professional. I was her tattoo guy, and she’d been just a client, but instead, she’d allowed me to use her body to breathe, and I’d allowed her to use mine to remember she was alive. Two fucked-up humans scraping and screaming just to get by. I took a deep breath and inhaled the scent of sex and cigarettes. I hated that she smoked. Normally, I’d make her take that shit outside, but winter was still here, regardless that it was March, and Tana always had to light a stick after we’d fucked. She thought I didn’t realize it, but I was well aware she’d cracked the window in the bathroom tonight and took a few drags. We weren’t the kiss each other goodnight kind of couple either, so I guess she assumed I wouldn’t taste it on her lips.
This was what I’d made for myself though, and no matter how much I hated every second of it, it was who I was. I’d chosen this life and I wouldn’t regret it. It didn’t matter that I was slowly falling apart, stitch by stitch, unravelling every time I looked at myself in the mirror. I had my family. I’d chosen the right path, regardless of the pain it caused me. Pain eventually faded… at least that’s what I was hoping for. My mom, my brothers, they were worth everything to me.
My eyes scanned the length of Tana’s naked form and watched as she breathed easily, comfortable. I never slept well on the nights she stayed, and I wasn’t exclusive with her either. I fucked who I wanted, when I wanted, and she was supposed to do the same, but there was something in the way she looked at me that made me think I was the only guy she’d been with for a while. I should’ve known better than to fuck with Tana. Her ex had really done a number on her. The first time we hooked up, I should’ve just let her cry on my shoulder and then moved the hell on. But she became a regular. Maybe it was because some parts of Tana reminded me of Kelly, or maybe I just liked to fucking torture myself.
My ex-girlfriend, Kelly, left a little over three years ago and left me in a world of shit. She wanted me to go with her, start some new shiny life together somewhere far from here, but I couldn’t leave my family. I’d promised her I’d go with her originally, but every time we thought we had the all-clear, something inevitably got in our way. After everything had gone down, after she ripped apart my life and moved, I refused to let myself wallow. I didn’t have time for what could have been. I had a fucking company to run. I’d started at Avenues Ink at the age of sixteen, cleaning shit for dollar bills and knowledge. My amateur comic book art became something more, and I worked my way up to be the head goddamn artist, pinching every damn penny that didn’t go to my mother and brothers along the way. When the first owner had invested his money too thin, the place went bankrupt. I was only twenty-four, but I bought it and made it the best tattoo shop in the valley. Kelly watched me grow. She loved that I had something of my own, that I’d made something of myself, but like I said before, it was easy to hide the truth. In the end, I’d fucked up, and all I’d ever done for that woman… it hadn’t been enough for her.
The phone on my nightstand started to vibrate, and I sat up a little too quickly. Tana rolled onto her back. Thank Christ, she was still asleep. I grabbed my phone, and the name that flashed across the screen didn’t surprise me. She’d been calling me once a week for a while now. Every time she called, I’d send it to my inbox and delete the message later so I wouldn’t have to hear her voice. I didn’t give two shits why the hell she was calling me. She left. She had a new life, a modeling career in California. It was what she always wanted. I didn’t need to know how great she was doing without me. Eleven years ago, when Kelly walked into Avenues Ink, I was nineteen and stupid. I fell for the parallels that blurred the lines between our lives. I fell for the princess who needed to be saved. I did everything I had to do to get her away from her dime store life and abusive, drunk fuck of a father. I fell for the fairytale she’d offered me. She was supposed to be my queen, and it didn’t matter how many years I was lucky enough to have her, she was never really mine. She belonged to something greater, something more than to a prince of a crumbling kingdom.
I eased the covers back and moved slowly out of bed trying not to wake Tana. I needed some air. I grabbed my sweats from the end of the bed and pulled them on. The blue light on my phone flashed indicating that I had a message. I picked it up and left the room. The apartment was too quiet, too still without my brother Dex and his girl Paige living here. They moved out a few months ago to start their own family. It was hard, watching Dex move out. When I found out they were pregnant I wanted to be pissed. I wanted to hate that he was getting back everything he wanted, and that I was still stuck in the thick as hell mire I’d created when I’d refused to leave with Kelly. But, I couldn’t. I wouldn’t hate his happiness. He’d been through too much. He’d grown up in the shit show that was the O’Connell family, and he suffered from a mental illness, but that kid was a fucking survivor. He deserved the goddamn world.
The air in the kitchen breathed a bit better than my room. At least out here, I had a chance to clear my head of Tana and tobacco. If I was smart, I’d suffer the thin air in my bedroom and delete this fucking message. I placed the phone on my kitchen counter and stared at it. The why of it all started to eat away at my resolve.
What the fuck did she want?
I thought of Declan and everything he and Paige had gone through. He’d given her a chance, he’d let himself have hope. My finger swiped across the screen of the phone and hovered over the delete button. The ache in my jaw spread down my neck as I clenched my jaw, and my heart roared to life at a breathtaking pace.
“Fuck it.”
I pressed play and lifted the phone to my ear. There was silence for one, two, three, four beats of my heart, and then I heard her shaky breath. I wanted to crawl inside my ribcage and break apart the bones to relieve the pressure that was building inside me.
“Just answer,” she said through what sounded like tears and then the message ended.
The lump in my throat choked me and, without a second to think about it, I returned her call. The phone rang once, twice, and I was about to hang up when she answered with a soft and breathless, “Liam.”
I couldn’t fucking speak. There were no words. She’d been so far away for so long, and she was right here, right now, and every right answer sounded wrong in my head.
“Liam… please… just talk… say something,” she whispered, but I could hear the desperate sadness in her voice, and it was the same knife that had cut me open three years ago. I ignored all the pain and shed the pride I’d been armored in all my life. I was about to say hello, maybe even say her name, but then I heard him in the background as he said, “Come back to bed, baby.” Any bit of miserable fucking hope I’d mustered up curdled and branded my throat as I ended the call.
The phone sighed under the force of my fingers and I dropped it to the counter before I broke it. I took deep and steady breaths as I gripped the counter. The granite held me up; it was the support I needed as I sifted through each emotion. I got stuck on anger and rage. I pushed down the fucking hurt, the pain that was about to pull me under, pull me down into a darkness I was afraid I’d never find my way out of. Why the fuck did she call me?
“Liam?” Tana’s voice was raw with sleep. “What are you doing?”
I kept my head down and closed my eyes. I had no right to be angry. Kelly had someone with her and so did I. That kernel of self-revelation didn’t do a damn thing to stop my stomach from twisting, so I did what I knew how to do. I avoided. I hid.
“Couldn’t sleep.” My eyes lifted from the counter and lingered over Tana’s naked body.
She raised her hands and tightened the loose ponytail she’d always pulled her hair back into when she slept. She fixed her dull brown eyes on mine and chewed her bottom lip like she wanted to say something but thought maybe she shouldn’t.
“Come here,” I said with quiet authority and leaned my back against the counter holding my hand out to her.
She didn’t move. She stood on display, and I let myself enjoy it, let the blood feed my arousal—anything to forget the last five minutes or eleven years.
“Are you okay?” she asked a little too perceptive.
“I’m perfect, so get the fuck over here.” I gave her the smile I gave everyone. Fake as hell, but award winning it seemed, because she finally did as I asked and stood right in front of me.
Tana watched me for a second, her eyes appraising my mood, the pulse of my jaw, the set of my shoulders, and she smiled back. She mistook my tension for lust and dropped to her knees taking my sweats with her. She worked my dick with her hand, and I got as hard as I could in my present state of fury, but once her practiced lips slid over the head, I closed my eyes and grit my teeth suppressing a growl. I should’ve stopped her. I should’ve told her she was better than this. I didn’t deserve to have someone to fall into every time I stumbled. I should’ve stopped her and kissed her goodnight, should’ve made her admit the truth of what we’d both become, but tonight, I chose the low road. My hand fisted in her ponytail, and I grasped the counter with the other as I guided myself farther down her throat with a groan, losing that last piece of hope I’d foolishly clung to.
“You look like shit, little brother,” I said and laughed when Dex flipped me off.
“Good morning to you, too. I think you’re projecting. Have you looked at yourself lately?” Declan smirked and stood from his work stool.
He always came in a little earlier than everyone else these days. He’d book the first appointments of the day, and be gone no later than two. I’d helped him purchase his new place, and I’d gotten it pretty fucking cheap because it’d needed a lot of renovation. Declan and Paige were slowly transforming half of it into a working studio and the other half into a place to call home. All the major construction had been completed, but I think Dex liked to use the excuse of the remodel to head out early and see his girl. Paige worked part-time at this placed called The Gallery, and Dex had started to sell his paintings for a good amount of cash. Paige and Dex, they were making it. Living a life with another person, sharing, all the things a man was supposed to want, things I’d only ever wanted with her, with Kelly.
“I’m fucking beat. I went to the gym before work, couldn’t sleep. I stopped and grabbed these on my way in.” I raised the two coffees I was holding and Dex took one for himself.
“We still on for the gym tomorrow morning, right?” he asked and then took a sip from his cup. The crinkles around his eyes deepened as he smiled with what I assumed was appreciation for the caffeine.
“Nah, Kieran’s gotta take Mom to the doctor’s. Let’s shoot for Thursday?”
“Sounds good to me. Thanks for this.” Declan tipped his cup in my direction. “I didn’t sleep for shit last night either. Paige is starting to have a hard time sleeping. I guess having two humans growing inside of you is a lot harder than it looks.”
“Your meds don’t help?”
Declan avoided my eyes. “I haven’t been taking my sleep meds. What if Paige needs something?”
“Dex, you need—”
“I know.” Declan shifted his gaze to his work station.
“Do you?”
He exhaled a long sigh and shook his head. “Liam, I’m not going to fuck this up. If I need sleep I’ll take the meds, but I want to be there for Paige if she needs me. Those sleep meds knock me the hell out. I don’t like it.”
I’d taken care of Declan since he was thirteen. My father was too busy killing himself with liquor, and my mom, as good as she was, wanted to pretend like Declan needed God instead of a doctor. When he’d started hearing voices, when he tried to kill himself, I’d promised myself I’d never let him feel alone. It had been difficult to hand the torch over to Paige, and at times, even though I shouldn’t, I resented her. But she was good for him, and when he was around her, he was the Declan he should’ve always been. I was holding on to old ghosts, holding on to anything to feel relevant.
“I just worry.”
“Don’t, okay? I’m good. If I wasn’t, I’d tell you.” Declan narrowed his eyes. “I hope you’ll do me the same respect.”
I laughed without humor. “Me? I’m fucking living the dream, Dex.”
“What’s up?” he asked and sat down on his leather work table.
I looked down at my watch and tried, without much grace, to change the damn subject. “Where the hell is everyone? We open in twenty minutes.”
“Ronnie is in the breakroom with Kemp. Kieran texted me and said he was running late, and you’re not avoiding this question. You look like shit… why’d you go to the gym so early? Need to work off some steam? You and Tana okay?”
My posture stiffened. “There is no me and Tana. You know this.” I turned and headed to the front desk. I didn’t need this interrogation bullshit.
I wasn’t at the desk for more than a minute when I felt the warmth of Dex’s palm on my shoulder. “You’re not the only one who fucking worries, Liam. You expect me to tell you everything, but you—”
“Christ, Dex, Kelly called… again. And this time, I listened to her message.” I kept my voice down. Kemper and Ronnie didn’t need to know any of this.
“What did she say?” His eyes were wide as he released my shoulder, and I hated the hope that stared back at me.
“Not much.” I dropped my eyes to the appointment ledger. “I called her back. I wasn’t thinking straight, man. Tana was over, and I just… I fucking miss her.” The last few words clogged in my throat and all the coffee I’d had to stay awake turned to acid in my stomach.
“Did she answer?”
The anger and the rage from last night came flooding back, and the weight of it crashed against my chest. Every wave pressed against my sternum suffocating me.
“Come back to bed, baby.”
Those words were the fucking noose around my neck. And Declan’s hope, the light in his eyes, it was contagious, and I had no desire to be infected by it.
“I got her voicemail,” I lied and his eyes zeroed in on me.
He saw my cowardice. Hell, Dex saw everything, but instead of calling me out he just nodded his head and sipped from his coffee with an indifference he had perfected over the years. “Well, shit, maybe you’ll catch her next time?”
“Maybe.” I placed my coffee down on the desk.
“Are you gonna man the desk until Kieran gets here?”
“Sure. Your first appointment will be here pretty soon. I’ll send him back when he shows.” I let everything dissipate, rolled the toxic presence of feeling from my shoulders and stretched my neck to the right and then the left.
Ronnie was laughing about something as she stumbled from the breakroom with Kemper on her heels. He saw us up front and waved. “Morning, Boss.”
I gave Kemper a half-hearted smile and Ronnie snickered. “Chipper as always I see,” she said and beelined for her own station.
I gave her a smug one-finger salute, but her back was already turned so she missed it. Declan chuckled and placed his hand on my shoulder again. He leaned in and spoke so only I could hear him, “Whatever happened… just give her a chance.”
Dex didn’t give me the opportunity to answer before he walked away. I didn’t blame him for his rationality; his forgiving nature had won him the dream. He’d put all his chips in for Paige, and it paid off big time. But Kelly and I, we’d been playing this fucking game for far too long. She’d folded three years ago when she decided to move to California. I pulled my phone from my pocket and unlocked the screen. My thumb pressed down on the voicemail icon, and I listened to her message one last time before I deleted it.