His hooded eyes meet mine and he gives me a sexy, half smile. “Someone has to crunch the numbers on our badass tattoo parlor. Your lazy ass sure as hell won’t. It might interfere with nap time.”
A thrill shoots through me. Images of Penn and me running our own place together seems like a dream. A dream I want to chase until I turn it into a reality.
“Let’s do this,” I agree, grinning.
He motions at our cheap apartment. “We already are.”
Penn
Five years later…
“Come home to meeeee,” Leah whines. “I miss you.”
No, she wants adult time. As much as she loves her kids, even supermoms need a break.
“Maybe at Christmas. We’ll see. Things are picking up around here,” I tell her as I lock up the building and head down the street to Copenn’s Tattoo Parlor.
“Christmas is a million years away.” She huffs into the phone.
I can hear her oldest daughter asking about Santa now. “Whoops.”
“Whoops is right. Now look what you started.”
We move on to other topics. I stop to grab a couple of to-go coffees, which are hard to hold while I still have Leah yammering in my ear.
“Why are you suddenly whispering?” I ask.
“I’m hiding from Bea.”
“And where are you hiding from your kid?”
I can hear Bea calling for her mommy.
“Leah,” I say with a chuckle.
“In the closet. I’m hiding in the closet.”
“And what does Beau think about that?”
“Beau’s asleep. He sleeps through every hide and seek game.”
My phone buzzes and I pull away to see that she’s sent me a dim picture of her holding her infant son to her chest. I can’t help but grin.
“They’re going to find you.”
“They always do.”
“I found Mommy,” Max calls out and Bea shrieks in the background.
I roll my eyes when I hear smooching. This is why they have three kids. Their other little girl, the middle child named Bali, starts to cry from the background.
“Someone’s up from their nap,” Leah tells me. “Listen, we’re going to dinner with Max’s parents, but come home. We miss you. Love you bunches.” Chaos ensues as both the girls have to tell their Uncle Penn bye. Even Max joins the fray and agrees with his wife that we need to come to the States to visit. It was hard to stay mad at him. If it weren’t for him swinging a damn telescope at me to fight for the girl he liked, I would’ve never reunited with Cope. He’s a cool guy now.
I finally tell them all bye and hang up just as I pull up in front of our shop. It’s Cope’s baby, but I make sure he doesn’t overspend on advertising and cool furniture and shit. Being in the heart of London for the past year, we’ve spent more than we should making this place our home. Bryan, true to his word, paid for both of our educations. Then, he asked me to head the London branch. Because, surprisingly enough, I’m really fucking good at what I do.
Pushing inside the shop, I find all the stalls filled with people. Cope has eight artists not including himself. Because of his knack for edgy advertising and the trendy design of his shop, not to mention his American accent, his shop is all kinds of popular in this city.
“Hey,” he calls out, without looking up. He’s perched on a stool with a notebook balanced on his knee as he sketches.
“Hey, sexy.”
“Get a bloody room,” Faye hollers out.
I flip her off. “We did get one. You’re in it.”
She cackles and so does her client. The people here are cool as shit.
“Brought you some coffee,” I tell him as I sit his cup down. “Oh, and Leah says Christmas is a must.”
Cope looks up at me, his lip curled up. I can’t help but stare at him. London suits him. Where I am decked out like a boardroom boss, which I usually catch all kinds of hell from Faye about, Cope is a picture of dark perfection. His black hair has grown out some and hangs messily into his eyes. He pierced his lip not long after we moved here. Something that never fails to get my cock hard. Where he once had pale flesh, he’s now covered to his jawline in tattoos. He looks devious. I fucking love that about him.
“Do we have to?” he whines. He hates going back home. He and Bryan aren’t exactly close, but they don’t have that animosity they once had. Once Bryan realized that I was more than just a tool to fuck with my dad over, he has been utilizing me to grow his firm. I have good ideas and I’m even better at making them happen. Since Cope went to college and runs his own shop—in London no less—this is something he can brag about. Something to be proud of his son over.