Brandon was a fucking idiot. Was he one of my best friends? Yes. Did he enjoy making my life miserable for his own sick enjoyment? Fuck yes.

He called me yesterday to tell me that he offered Livy a job and she took it. When I asked him if he told her that I owned half the business, he just laughed.

Of course, he didn’t.

He knew it would be torture for me to work with her. He also thought it would be a good source of entertainment for him. What he didn’t know though? Livy and I weren’t a game.

But the thing about Brandon was he thought he knew better than anyone else.

Emily? He hated her with me. He said that she stifled me. Whatever the fuck that was supposed to mean.

When I told him I was proposing to her, he literally cringed. When I told him that she said yes, he voiced how crazy he thought I was.

But I wasn’t crazy. Was Emily safe? Yes. No doubt. But I didn’t see anything wrong with playing it safe. Emily and I were different, sure. She had perfectly unmarked cream skin that was always incredibly soft and smooth. Me? My skin was covered in so much ink that I could barely remember what my skin looked like without it.

She rarely cursed and always made a face when expletives flew out of my mouth, but I tried to tame it down in front of her. Which annoyed the fuck out of Brandon.

But I knew what to expect out of Emily. I knew what a day with her looked like, even if it did look the same almost every day. She wasn’t spontaneous, she didn’t make rash decisions, and I wasn’t scared that she would break my heart.

Was that a completely fucked up reason to marry someone? Sure. But she was my safety net.

And I loved her. I really did.

When I met Emily, I wasn’t in a good place. I was drinking all the time, partying more than I was working, and thinking about Livy every second of the day.

But then I saw Emily. She didn’t block Livy out of my mind completely, but she seemed a little fuzzier as each day passed. Then there were moments when I was with her, that I didn’t see Livy at all, and I felt like I could actually breathe.

But I couldn’t explain that shit to Brandon. He would call me a pussy and tell me that breathing wasn’t a good enough reason to marry someone.

But he had never suffocated before. And until you feel it, the loss of air, the panic crawling through your skin, the desperation to inhale just one more time, you could never understand what it was like.

Emily was breathing, and I would never take the easy push and pull for granted again.

Like when I walked in the door of Forbidden Ink, my shop, the place I had built with Brandon brick by brick, I could feel the lack of oxygen before I even saw her.

Forbidden Ink was my sanctuary. Tattooing, sketching, drawing, that was where I was one hundred percent at home. I could have a million things running through my head, but as soon as I put on some music and held a pencil or gun in my hand everything else melted away.

I was good at it. I wasn’t being cocky, it was my one thing in this world, and I fucking rocked it. Brandon was just as good. That’s why I went into business with him. We were two no-name apprentices who worked our asses off every single day. We bonded over our hard work and our artwork, and when it finally came time for us to do our own thing, we didn’t even consider doing it with anyone else.

Livy was sitting behind the front desk when I walked in the door. Her head was down and her brow was furrowed, it was the face she had always made when she was hard at work. When the door chimed, she looked up quickly, a smile replacing the frown, but as soon as she saw it was me instead of a customer, the smile fell again.

“Hey, Parker.” She looked back down at her paperwork in front of her. “What are you doing here?”

I would be lying if I said that it didn’t feel a little bit good to know that I had something over her. Or at least that I knew something she didn’t. Because she would be pissed when she found out.

Instead of answering her question, I asked one of my own. “Hey, Livy. How’s the first day going?”

“It’s good so far.” She nodded her head. “Brandon really hasn’t given me much to do yet though. He said he’s waiting until his partner gets here.” She pointed down at the pages in front of her. “I was just looking through some of their work. It’s phenomenal. Did you get yours done here?” She motioned toward the ink that marred my skin.

“Most of it, yeah.”

She nodded her head, but looked back down at the image in front of her. It was a drawing of mine. It was an anatomical heart, drawn in black and white. Intricate lines and shading. But half the heart was an explosion of colors, butterflies and flowers busting from the lines creating chaos and life.

Wild at heart. The title written below it.

It was one of my favorite drawings to date, but regardless of how many people asked for it, I always said no. I couldn’t seem to part with it.

“This one is amazing.” She took a deep breath and I held mine.

She turned the page over, looking for a signature I presumed, and I prayed she couldn’t read mine. “I want this.” She looked up at me. “Is that crazy? I just saw this and I want it tattooed on my body. Maybe working here wasn’t such a good idea.” She laughed softly, one of my favorite sounds in the world. “Do you think Brandon will tattoo this on me?”

I couldn’t lie to her, not about my art. “That’s not Brandon’s.” I pointed down at the page that I had spent countless hours drawing. “It’s…”

But before I could get the rest of the words out of my mouth, the door to the back of the shop busted open and Brandon walked through with a shit eating grin on his face.

“Oh good.” He rubbed his hands together. “I see you’ve finally met my partner.”

I watched her for her reaction, but it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. She closed her eyes, breathed through her nose, and her black fingernails gripped my drawing, creasing it a bit on the sides.

I expected her to scream at me, or hell, I don’t know, throw something. But she didn’t.

She opened her eyes and stared down at my drawing for a few more moments before she put it back in its place and closed the portfolio. Only then did she look up at me, and there was a flash of betrayal that always seemed to rest there when she looked at me.

“Brandon, can I talk to Parker alone for a minute?” She didn’t look at him when she spoke. She just stared directly at me.

“Sure.” I could hear the laughter in his voice, but I didn’t dare look away from her.

When we heard the door shut again, she finally released a deep, shuddering breath, and it was as if I could feel it filling my own lungs. It was the deepest breath I had taken since she stole it so many years ago.

“I need this job, Parker.”

I nodded my head, but she wasn’t finished.

“I had no intentions of ever coming home, and I sure as hell didn’t plan on being anywhere near you.” That one stung, but I understood. I hadn’t planned on being around her either. “If you can be civil, so can I. I’ll do my job then I’ll go home. I won’t be in your hair or your business.”

“Livy, you don’t have to convince me. If you want the job, it’s yours. We’re completely different people than we used to be.” That was an almost truth. “We can be friends.”

I watched her wince. That same fucking line having left my mouth before, but this time I actually meant it. I was man enough to be able to work around her every day. Would it be difficult? Sure, but it wasn’t something I couldn’t handle.

I would just need to repeat that mantra in my head every day. I can handle this. I can handle this. I can handle this.

Because despite everything, the idea of being around her, of getting to know who she was now, it excited me more than I was willing to admit.

“Okay.” She nodded her head as if she was convincing herself. “Friends.”

“Friends,” I repeated the word. It tasted foreign on my tongue, but mixed with the intoxicating scent of her I could swallow anything.