They were all clean cut, naked of ink, but they knew and respected me, and Nova, enough not to judge us for it.
Jake just…thought I had enough.
I stared down at the rich, golden skin covered in peonies exposed at the hem of my skirt on my upper thigh and the full sleeve of flowers I wore inked into my right arm.
There was more beneath my clothes, a lotus flower between my breasts, blossoms cupped under the mounds like underwire in a bra, and a fair amount of them over my shoulders down my back.
Nova’s Flower Child.
I was famous for them.
Nova had made me his muse, and in turn, he had made me nearly as famous as Street Ink Tattoo Parlour.
I knew it was nothing compared to what they received at the shop, but people wrote into my social media all the time asking for more tattoo content.
I had nearly a million followers on my Photogram account.
Street Ink and Nova had over two million each.
My love of tattoos had been one of the most difficult obstacles in removing my eldest foster brother from my life two years ago. How could I dissociate from a man who’d made my body into art and that art into a business?
I couldn’t.
So over the years, he’d still tattooed me.
But I always brought Harleigh Rose with me.
Or Cleo, Cressida, or Loulou.
Or Milo, Oliver, Hudson, or Ares.
Once, when I was in a pinch, I even begged Bat to go with me. I’d had to promise him free babysitting for a month, but it was worth it.
Because Nova couldn’t talk to me the way he wanted when other people were around.
And on every other occasion I could, I avoided him.
Sunday dinners with the Booths were the only other situation I couldn’t always avoid. They didn’t accept excuses unless they were ironclad. If I had to pick up a shift, maybe they’d get it, or if Nova was out of town at a tattoo convention or on a run with the club.
Otherwise, we sat at the same table Nova had inked on as a teenager and pretended everything was okay.
We laughed, we joked, we shot the shit.
But we did not speak.
He didn’t tell me about his art. He didn’t crawl into bed with me when he had insomnia the way he used to some nights. We didn’t travel. We didn’t hike or go on adventures.
We didn’t do anything los tres Caballeros had done.
Just the tattoos. And never just the two of us alone.
Just that ritual I hadn’t been able to kick, his hands on my skin, creating masterpieces on my flesh that sunk beneath the muscle and bone and laid deep roots in the heart of me no matter how hard I tried to weed them out.
I got one whenever it was too much.
The not loving him.
Whenever I felt missing him would tear me in two.
Just a couple hours of the two of us breathing the same air, of our voices synced with animation over the design of a new tattoo.
Of being us.
JB + LM.
I was an addict with an unhealthy fixation, but at least I had it under control.
And I’d moved on, even if my heart hadn’t entirely.
I was with Jake.
As if summoned by my thoughts, there was a commotion at the door of the bar, and a group of bikers rolled in on a chorus of motorcycle boots stomping and low, smoky laughter.
Of course, as he often was, Nova was at the center of it all.
I tried only to watch from the corner of my eye as he followed Ransom, Kodiak, Boner, and Bat to the bar to catch up with Eugene, but I hadn’t seen him in two weeks, and I was eager for the sight of him.
He’d cut his hair shorter, the sides and back buzzed just enough to show the tattoos inked behind his ears and up his nape, but the top was still that thick, wavy pelt of deep, glossy mink that caught the dim light in the room and reflected it like a moonbeams on a lake at midnight.
I knew I wasn’t the only girl watching him strut across the space in his leather cut and old, black denim. I knew I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t help herself from wondering what it might feel like to shove that cut off his muscle rounded shoulders, to wrench the tight black tee over his head and discover with my tongue, teeth, and fingertips exactly how much ink he had underneath it.
“Lila,” Jake said sharply, pulling my gaze to his irritated expression. “What’s going on with you and Jonathon?”
He refused to call him Nova on the basis that it wasn’t his given name, and he felt Nova had a big enough head already without constantly being called Casanova.
I bit the corner of my lip and cracked my fingers nervously under the table.