One Last Time (Loveless Brothers 5)

Not that I thought that there would be. Not that I thought I deserved anything but this silent emptiness, because I’m the one who shouted I want you gone and I’m not allowed to get upset that he did what I asked.

That night, I go over to Lainey’s place. She lives in a stately brick house near downtown, on a fancy street where her neighbors routinely report her to the homeowners association for her Black Lives Matter flag.

We watch The Batchelor and I tell her about the fight. Then I tell her again. We get tacos delivered from Gloria’s, Sprucevale’s best and only Mexican restaurant, and then I cry into my carnitas and I tell her one more time, now with angry editorializing.

She says all the right things, like that must have really hurt your feelings and absolutely, it’s a betrayal. She holds me while I ask her what’s wrong with me that I’ve done this again and again, and she gently reminds me that humans are nothing but flesh and bone running on less electricity than it takes to power a lightbulb.

It does make me feel better, which is why we’re friends.

We share a churro. We judge the romantic choices of everyone on The Bachelor, and that night, I sleep in her guest room because I don’t want to leave her warm, wonderful house.Ava calls. Winona calls. Vera calls. Even Olivia calls, and I ignore them all. The only call I answer is from my dad, and I swear him to secrecy.

They call again. I know I’m being an asshole and making them worry more, but their concern feels like a burden that I can’t carry right now.

My cousin Georgia calls. Wyatt, her brother, texts, then calls, then texts, then calls. I don’t answer any of them, because answering them feels like climbing out of a hole I’ve dug myself into and I don’t even have a ladder.

Life goes on. Work goes on. I do touch-ups, line work, color work. I have a consultation about a full-back tattoo of a stylized wolf, and it’s badass as hell. I cover up an ex-con’s grinning frog tattoo. It’s a busy week, and I wonder again if I should hire a second artist. Move to a bigger studio. Develop my business plan beyond make this work so I don’t have to ask my dad for money, because I’m somewhat startled to realize I’ve already done that.

Whenever I look in the mirror, I fantasize about tattooing something on my face, just to do it. A star. A teardrop. A tiny broken heart. It doesn’t really matter what, though if my volunteer work has taught me anything, it’s to be careful with face tattoos because apparently they all mean you’ve murdered someone.

I keep avoiding calls from my nice, well-meaning family.

Then, one night nearly a week after our fight, I do it.

Not on the face. That’s too much. It’s on the inside of my left wrist: a small, black star, about half an inch across. It’s been a couple of years since I tattooed myself — that’s how most tattoo artists learn at first; we almost universally have some very bad thigh tattoos — and I have to lash my forearm to the chair with gauze to hold still, but I manage.

I turn off the gun. Wipe the blood. Sit back in the chair, hold it up, examine it for flaws. It’s not much, but it’s there, and it’s plain as day, out in the open. Hard to hide, not that I’m going to.

People will know. Everyone will know, and Vera will be upset, and my sisters will be politely baffled, and it’s fine. People can think what they like. I’m the kind of person who has a fully visible wrist tattoo, and as Lainey has advised me: their thoughts are not my concern.Chapter Forty-SevenSethThe day I get back from West Virginia, I skip dinner at my mom’s house without telling anyone. I know all my brothers will be there, most with their wives and fiancees and girlfriends, and I’m going to have to see them be happy, functional couples, and I don’t think I can.

Instead, I buy fifty pounds of flour and five pounds of butter and at least that much sugar, not to mention chocolate chips and vanilla extract and sprinkles and cinnamon and whatever else strikes my fancy in the baking aisle at Kroger.

I make croissants, something I’ve never done. While they’re rising I make chocolate chip cookies. When they’re out of the oven I find a recipe for hazelnut biscotti that looks satisfyingly rigorous, and I get to work on that.

That’s in the oven when there’s a brief knock on my door, and then Caleb walks in without waiting for an invitation.

“Hey,” he says, and he eyes the cookies cooling on the table, the stand mixer, my shirt caked with flour and sugar and butter. “You weren’t at Mom’s.”