THE LINES OF A GIRL’S face stared back at me as I worked on the portrait of a man’s daughter on the outside of his bicep. It took all my concentration to make each one perfect because this wasn’t the kind of tattoo I could fuck up and live with myself.
“She’s going to be seven this year, and I decided this would be the way I’d always remember her. Even when she’s got a license and driving and boys are chasing after her, I always want to remember my little girl when I was the only important man in her life.”
My client’s words penetrated, and I wondered what it would be like to feel that way. With the course I’d set for my life, it wasn’t in the cards.
“You mind if we take a break? I could use a smoke.”
I was holding the tattoo machine in midair as I let my mind wander, but snapped out of it. “Of course. Take your time.” I looked down at my watch. “I’m going to run next door and get some coffee. You want anything?”
The client shook his head. “Nah, just some nicotine.”
I put everything on the counter behind me and snapped my gloves off my hands before standing and stretching. Staying in one position for too long told me exactly how much of an old man I was becoming. Thirty-three years felt older than it should most days.
But when I walked into Your Favorite Hole, the feeling fell away as laughter reached me.
Eden was standing sideways, reaching into the donut bins and pulling out selections for a man that had to be eighty if he was a day.
“I mean, come on, it is called Your Favorite Hole for a reason. You have to pick your favorite.” Her tone was light and teasing, and the man’s smile grew.
“Oh, darlin’, if I wasn’t fifty years past my prime, I’d have a whole lot more to say to that.”
The rush of possessiveness that had been dogging me since I’d met Eden didn’t come this time. The old man was harmless.
He turned and saw me. “But this young man, he looks to be about the right one for you. I bet if you teased him, he’d just pick you up and carry you home.”
Eden glanced toward me. Her cheeks bloomed with color but her smile stayed intact. “He does seem like the type, doesn’t he? I think that’s a safe bet.”
The old man glanced between us, looking intrigued. “I sense some history here. You have intentions toward this girl? As her unofficial new grandfatherly figure, I feel the need to look out for her.”
I didn’t know what it was about Eden that made people automatically want to protect and defend her, but I couldn’t fault the old man for feeling like that when it was my natural instinct.
Eden leaned an arm on the counter and rested her chin in her hand. “What say you, Bishop? Do you have intentions toward this girl?” Her tone carried laughter, but there was something else underlying it. Challenge.
I studied her and considered my response. Might as well lay it all out there. “I’ve got intentions. Plenty of them.”
Eden’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline at my answer.
The old man caught on quickly. “I bet you do, boy. I bet you do.” He laid money on the counter and reached for the box of donuts. “You better watch this one, Eden. If he’s anything like me with my Sally, he might take his time with the decision, but once he’s decided, there’s nothing that’ll stand in his way.”
His words echoed in my head. Was that what I was doing? Taking my time with the decision to make Eden mine? I hadn’t even considered the possibility of something permanent because my life hadn’t left room for it. And then here was Con asking me if I’d want to buy Voodoo, and an old man insinuating that I could have permanent intentions toward Eden.
I’d never let myself give enough thought to my future for permanence to be part of it. Maybe it was time for that to change . . . but that meant the threat that kept me moving every few years would have to be removed from the equation. I had no idea if they were still looking for me, but I knew better than to settle.
“I’m sure he doesn’t have any intentions of that sort, Mr. Flowers.”
Mr. Flowers studied us both. “I think you’ll be surprised by what he intends, young lady. Thank you for the donuts, and keep the change.”
He lifted the box and shuffled out of the shop, but not before pausing beside me to say, “I might be old, but I still know how to get rid of a body. You treat Miss Eden right.”
I nodded, holding back the smile his words produced. “Understood, sir.”
The door chimed as he stepped outside, and I turned back to Eden. Her cheeks were still stained pink as I stepped up to the counter.
“He just threatened to kill me if I treated you badly,” I told her, wondering if those cheeks would get darker. They did, all the way to a bright red.
“You can’t be serious.”
“Dead serious.”
She shook her head. “He came in an hour ago and just wanted to chat. It took us forty-five minutes to finally get around to picking out his donuts.”
“Guess that’s your special magic then. Making people want to spend more time around you.”
This time her eyes widened comically. “Yeah . . . I’m sure that’s it. Just look at you. You want to spend as much time around me as you would around someone with the plague.”
Her statement threw me. “You think I don’t want to be around you?”
“Every time I see you, you’re gone so fast, it’s like you can’t wait to get away from me.”
“Maybe I don’t think you’ll be able to handle what I’d want if I stayed.”
The red continued to color her cheekbones, but Eden straightened her shoulders and stood taller. “Maybe that’s exactly what I want.”
I stepped forward and pressed both hands to the purple laminate counter. “You sure about that, cupcake? Because I’m not exactly sweet and easy.”
“I gathered that from the girls waiting in the room at the hotel.”
A shaft of regret that she saw them stabbed through me. “Two-on-one isn’t my thing, so don’t worry about that.”
No, if I got tangled up in Eden, had her in my bed the way I wanted her, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to let her go. But given my newfound possibilities of permanence . . . maybe I could keep her.
“Well, I’m definitely not into two-on-one, so that wouldn’t even be in the realm of possibilities.”
The fact that I was standing in Your Favorite Hole talking to Eden about how neither of us wanted a threesome struck me as surreal. I had to dial it back before we got way ahead of ourselves.
“What time do you get off work?” When her eyes popped open wide again, I smiled. “To hang out. Get some food. See what happens.”
“I’m here until midnight, and then I have to shower and change so I don’t smell like donuts.”
“You can shower at my place. I’ll find you something to wear.”
“I don’t think—”
“I don’t think you’re walking home from work by yourself, and I’ll be working until at least twelve thirty on this portrait. Come over when you’re done, and you can let yourself upstairs.”
The indecision warring inside her played out on her features, but I knew I’d won when she replied. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I’ll even make you a late dinner.”
“You cook?” Her tone was pure surprise.
“I got a few tricks up my sleeve, cupcake. Guess you’ll find out what they are tonight. Now, how about a large black coffee and a bag of donut holes so I can push through and finish the rest of this tat?”