CEO Daddy (Crescent Cove 6.50)

“Okay.”

“Or you can come in if you want—”

She’d already pulled out her phone. “I’ll be fine. I may come in if I need the ladies’ room. Joy of pregnancy, peeing every five minutes.”

On that n

ote, I headed in.

Lance, my longtime tattoo artist, came out to greet me with a grin and a clap on the back. “I thought you were done with tats for a while.” His expression clouded. “After Billy—”

“Yeah. This is for him though. And for my girl and my kids.” More things that sounded weird on my tongue, but I forced them out because I couldn’t wait around for the magical time when my life didn’t scare the holy shit out of me.

Maybe being scared meant I was finally living again.

“Oh, yeah? You told me a little on the phone, but lay it on me. I’ll do some sketches while we talk. If you like any of them, we can start laying down the outline today. Can do some more filling in in a couple weeks. We’re jammed in here nowadays, man.”

“That’s great.” I glanced out the big glass windows and noticed Hannah was now leaning into the backseat to fuss with Lily. “Let’s work on those sketches and by then, Hannah should need the bathroom. I’ll see if she can wait while we get it started.”

Lance laughed. “Is that how it is?” He turned and craned his neck. “She’s the pretty brunette in the front seat?”

“Yeah.”

“You did good. She’s gorgeous.”

“She is.”

“You said kids?” Lance waggled his brows as we moved toward his station in back. “It hasn’t been that long since I’ve seen you. You’ve been busy.”

“Well, Lily—”

“Yeah, Lily.” Lance scraped a hand over the top of his head, skimming down over his stubby ponytail. The back of his neck was tattooed with intricate Chinese characters. “How is she?”

“Good. Growing like a weed. She’s already at the top of her percentile.” The pride in my voice made my steps falter.

Was it odd that I was proud of something I’d had no hand in?

No. I didn’t have to take ownership in her accomplishments and milestones to appreciate them. And thank God for that.

“Not surprising. Billy was a damn string bean.” Lance pulled out a chair for me and grabbed his sketch pad. “Okay, let’s talk turkey.”

I told him what I had in mind, giving him the freedom to sketch whatever he thought would work. As I talked, he nodded and sketched and erased and added more shading.

“I was thinking a vine.”

“Where do you want it?”

I rolled up my right sleeve. “I was thinking my forearm. Not too far down, because of work—” Hearing myself, I shook my head. “Nah, I’m going to be working more out of my house for a while. I can have the fucking ink on my hand if I want it there.”

Lance grinned. “You sure can. You can have it come right down like this.” He sketched out his drawing with a fingertip on the back of my hand. He had the ink climbing toward my fingers, which was definitely more than I’d planned on. But I didn’t want to hide the design. If anything, I wanted to be able to look down and see it anytime I needed the visual reaffirmation.

I had a family now, one that was anchored in the past and growing stronger by the day.

“Not a vine though. I’m seeing a tree. Lots of gnarled branches, thick roots. And the names can be woven in between the gaps.” He turned his sketch pad toward me. “Like that.”

“Oh, that’s awesome. Can you start it today?” I rolled my shirt up even higher. “You can do it mostly black, with the names maybe in—”

“Colors like leaves I’m thinking?”