After talking me through the process a bit, Liam got to work on the tattoo. For twenty minutes, time passed only by the changing of the songs playing in the shop. I’d never experienced anything that managed to be so comforting and almost painfully uncomfortable at the same time. It just happened that neither of those things had anything to do with the needles. The tattoo itself felt more like an irritation than anything. A couple times when he was working right over my rib cage, it bordered more into pain, but even that was mild.

No, the confusing war of emotions I was wrapped up in was entirely the result of the man doing the tattooing. I didn’t understand it, but Liam put me on edge. He made me feel jumpy and defensive and… awkward.

The last time I’d felt so truly off balance around someone had been in high school when Joel started focusing his attention on me. Well, I didn’t feel that unsteadiness right away with Joel. At first, I was certain he was just trying to bang me and move on. At first, that might even have been true. That had been his standard M.O., after all. Maybe it was because I was a challenge, maybe it was just a matter of natural connection, but the shift in him didn’t take long. Suddenly, he was escorting me in the halls, making a point to bail on his myriad of friends to sit with me at lunch; he even changed classes at one point to be in the same study hall as me. The attention was intoxicating.

And unsettling.

The return of that feeling wasn’t welcome.

Joel had been the only one to ever throw me off balance like that. The feeling of it belonged to him. I didn’t want Liam to touch that.

“Any reason why a gypsy?”

If I hadn’t been so focused on remaining still while he worked, I probably would have jumped. Which was ridiculous. He was sitting a foot away, literally touching me as he worked—the sensation of which after so long of barely having any physical contact with anyone but Owen, I wasn’t even going to begin to get into. It wasn’t a stretch to think he might spark up a conversation rather than working in silence for however long I was going to be there.

See? Off-balance.

I cleared my throat, searching for a way to answer that didn’t get too deep. And yet, when I opened my mouth, I dove right in.

“The first time I went with Joel while he got a tattoo, one of the artists had a drawing of a gypsy on the wall. I’d seen the same sort of tattoo before, but it just stood out that day. My whole life until I was eighteen, all I wanted was to go. Never an actual place, just not there. I never felt like I had any roots until Joel and I made our own little family, but even then I was only rooted to my boys. It wasn’t a location or a house. And now… without him… I’ve felt lost. I guess this is my reminder that I still have my boy, and that means I still have my home, even when it feels like I’m just roaming endlessly.”

Even as I said it, I couldn’t understand why I would share all of that. Sure, it was normal to tell a tattoo artist the significance behind the piece they’re putting on you, but Liam and I knew each other beyond this, however little. Getting this piece done wasn’t the only time I’d see him.

He gave a hum that I took as understanding, and then tacked on, “So not because you have secret fortune telling skills no one’s told me about.”

The laugh slipped out of me naturally, and still it felt foreign. When was the last time I laughed for someone besides Owen?

“Oh, no. That’s definitely part of it. Tell you what, why don’t you forget about cash? You do this, and I’ll tell you what’s in store for your future.”

“Incredible, perfect artwork, meatball sub, cupcake, couple hours of TV, in bed and out before midnight,” he recited.

I ignored the bait on the “perfect” thing. “Those wouldn’t be grocery store cupcakes, would they?” I hadn’t seen him since the awkward encounter we had almost two weeks ago now. “I’ll tell Avery you’re sinking that low.”

“Never. That woman has a piece of my heart no one can take back. I’m a commitment type guy, and I’ve sworn fidelity to Sugar’s Dream.”

“As you should. No one can give you what we can.”

I felt the tattoo gun follow a line, lift, and then stop. I looked over at him to see a wolfish grin on his face. “I’m well aware of that, gypsy.”

That was a good line.

Why was the Joel voice so active today?

Liam went back to work, letting the quiet settle between us again. A few minutes stretched on of me feeling like he’d gotten the upper hand before I felt compelled by the need to break it. I danced around us, looking for the first thing to incite a conversation about when my eyes hit the picture frame.

“I don’t want to overstep, but—”

He chuckled, and I felt the air across my back, forcing me to hold back a shiver. “I was wondering how long it would take you to ask.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Connor,” he replied simply, proving he knew exactly what I was about to say. “It’s not rude. I have a picture of him on display that raises those questions. I’m happy to answer them. What’s rude is when assholes stare and don’t try to understand that he’s just a little different.

“Connor suffered a severe brain injury when he was young. It impaired his development and cognitive ability. It also impacted a mess of other shit like his fine motor skills and caused him to have occasional seizures—hence the helmet. He leads a full life, but in many ways, he still is and will probably always be a child. He’s got that light to him that we all lose when we grow up, but he can’t rationalize things the way most twenty-two-year-olds can. He can’t take care of himself, so he’s still at home in my mom’s care. Still, we know more intimately than most how much worse it could have been.”

“I’m so sorry that happened.”

I watched over my shoulder as Liam turned to dip the tip of the gun in more ink, then went back to work, no sign that this conversation was impacting him at all. It was just his life.

“If there was a way I could undo what happened, I would in a heartbeat so Connor could do all the things he might have wanted to. But I love my brother as he is just the same. When you know him, it’s impossible not to.”

I knew exactly what he meant. If something had happened to Owen in the accident, I would have done anything possible to undo it, but I’d still be thankful every day that I had my baby. The same way I felt now.

“You’re a good brother.”

“I try.” I could hear the grin in his voice. “With my sister, too, even if she’s been a pain in my ass since she was born.”

Joel used to say the same thing about Daz, but only ever teasingly. He’d had to raise his brother because their parents just checked out. Never once did he indicate he resented it, even in private with me. He made no bones about how he felt about his parents—or mine, for that matter—but none of those feelings extended to Daz for a second. Seeing him as a big brother was one of the things that made me fall for him. I’d never seen that kind of unconditional love before.

“All right, I’m going to need you to lay down so your waist is flat.”

The instruction startled me. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been spaced out, thinking about Joel.

And comparing him and Liam.

I laid down while he adjusted the table for me, and I couldn’t stop the train of thought.

There were a lot of things that were similar about Joel and Liam, and yet there were fundamental differences. Like that little flirting Liam snuck in. Maybe it was because he was just a flirt, not actually interested, but it was so far off of how Joel had been. When Joel wanted something, he went after it. No hesitation.

Liam got back to it, that scratching feeling back to irritating my skin.

“Still doing all right?”

“It’s like scratching with a hangnail.”

“That’s a new one.” He laughed.

“How have you had other people describe it?”

He shook his head, and my eyes were drawn down to the powerful line of his jaw. With his hair pulled back, more of that edge was visible. He could be his own piece of art with a jaw like that.

“The way I’ve had people react in that chair, you’d think I was waterboarding them, or shoving shit under their nails.” It was a good thing he wasn’t working right then because just the thought of fingernail stuff made me tremble. “One dude actually accused me of ‘upping the gauges’ so it would hurt more. Like the asshole had a damn clue how this thing works.”

“Try working in a bakery. I get asked if things are gluten-free and vegan a dozen times a day.”

His eyes squinted like he was waiting for the punch line. “But there are signs that say if they are.”

I raised one eyebrow. If anything would make me snap at work, it would be one of the hundreds of customers asking if things were gluten free when they clearly had no clue what gluten even was.

“Jesus,” he muttered.

“Avery and I keep track now. We have a running tally to see if we can unseat the ranking of fifty-three times in one day.”

“I hope for your sake—and a bit for humanity, not going to lie—that you don’t achieve that.”

I laughed again, and it still felt strange.

But it was a good strange.