INKED 8: A Tattoo Shop Reverse Harem

"Are you going to stay over?" I ask her.

"Of course. But only if you have another pair of pajamas like those."

Luckily, they came in a two-pack.

So, for the rest of the evening, we eat ice cream from tubs and watch terrible reality shows about people that neither of us cares about. We laugh like it's the last evening we're going to have together, even though it's not.

My mom's place isn't a quick cab ride away though. There won't be drinks after work or sneaked lunch breaks together. It'll be different.

Everything will be different.

And as much as I know that I'm doing the only thing that I'm capable of, the creep of regret is already seeping in at the edges.

37

NASH

The whole day passes like I’m wading through water in a fast-flowing stream, the current tugging at my ankles and threatening to pull me under.

Carl got a message from Kyla, handing in her notice, and the news is like a knife to the heart.

Everything that I thought we were building toward is crumbling. I’m not the only one who’s taking it hard. Although we’ve been too busy to even discuss it, I can see from the dark expression and hunched shoulders that the rest of my Ink Factor brothers are as messed up about it as me.

The difference is that apart from me and Carl, they’re all thinking about it from their own perspective. They might have had ideas about what the days and weeks after the game had ended might be like. Secretly, they may have thought they had a chance with Kyla if they just kept showing her that their relationship could be more.

Maybe they’re just pissed that we’re losing a friend and a great administrator. I don’t know for sure, but I’m going to find out.

It can’t wait any longer. I need to tell them that I want Kyla, and I want us to share her. I need to help them understand how good it could be and ask them to join me and Carl in fighting for her to stay.

My hands flex, the ring I wear on my finger feeling too tight.

As the last customers leave, Carl locks the front door, and our eyes meet.

“It’s now or never,” he says, his jaw ticking with tension.

“I know.” Looking around, I find Noah and Niall emerging from their work areas, Noah wiping his hands on a cloth that he tosses into the laundry bin.

His eyes drift over the empty reception desk, and for the first time in a long time there’s no smile playing at his lips or laughter dancing in his eyes. Even my most lighthearted brother seems to have the weight of the world on his shoulders.

“It won’t be the same without her,” Niall says mournfully.

“It’s my fault,” Dex says, appearing from the back, closely followed by Lex. “If I hadn’t come up with the stupid game, none of this would have happened.”

Kole slumps down onto the customer couch, throwing his hands along the back and spreading his legs wide. “If you hadn’t come up with the game, we wouldn’t be feeling this way about Kyla leaving.”

“That’s true,” Kase says. “We were worried about her getting attached to us, but it turns out the opposite has happened. She was so quick to move on, and now she’s leaving.”

“It’s my fault,” Carl says. “I’ve been snappy with her. With everything going on with the cops…I wasn’t a good person to be around. I think she took it to heart.”

“It’s all our faults for being preoccupied at work at a time when she needed the extra reassurance,” Lex says, shoving his hands into his pockets, defeated.

“It’s all our fault for not being honest about what we want,” I say firmly. We can sit here all night blaming ourselves and each other, but in the end, it’s not going to make a damned bit of difference.

“But what would the point be?” Noah says. “We can all want to be with her, but only one of us can take that role. Maybe that’s why she’s leaving. She doesn’t want to become the person who drives a wedge between us.”

“She doesn’t have to drive a wedge, though,” I say. “She could have us all.”

Quiet settles across the group as my words drop into the space between us and spill out like ink in a bowl of water. Carl catches my eye and nods once, giving me reassurance that I’m doing the right thing.

“You mean like Luna Evans and her bodyguards?” Lex asks, his eyes flitting from man to man, trying to gauge reactions.

“That’s exactly what I mean, and before you say anything, just take some time to think about the next ten years and the life changes that are heading our way. Girlfriends, wives, kids, houses, cars that fit baby-seats and crazy volumes of luggage, people that might want to lead us in different directions. We can’t fight that. Life is a journey with some fixed stops on the way, stops that we don’t want to miss. But if we had Kyla…if we all had Kyla…things wouldn’t need to change so much. We’d be walking the same path, investing in the same future. We’d share all the good times and bad times. What we have now will stay the same.”