“Because it feels like the right thing to do, to try. Listen, Sophia. I can’t let you go back to the way things were. Your brothers … they turned you over to a fucking madman. That life, that wasn’t a life, that’s not a family. I can be your family.”
“Even though you’re in love with another woman,” she pointed out. “Who was she? Who was this woman who was worth all of this?”
“An old friend,” I said simply, ignoring the nails in my heart. I didn’t even want to say her name, not now while we stood there in Palm Valley, where I could almost feel her getting farther and farther away. I had to focus on what I had right in front of me: Ben and Sophia. Money for a new life. I had to make sure they were safe first before I could even indulge in thoughts about Ellie.
I hated that I had to choose.
“Please, let’s just get out of here. Somewhere safe. We can lay it all out, discuss our next move.”
She turned and looked behind her at the shop, my beautiful shop, built on lies and ink. “This isn’t safe? It’s your home.”
“This will never be safe. And it’s done being my home.”
She nodded, seeming to understand. “So what, you’re going to leave right now, like this? Your father …”
“I’ve already left, Sophia. I shouldn’t even be here.” I shouldn’t have been so careless to think a man like Javier wouldn’t go after me and take the things I loved. He gave some of them back to me and I had to make it work.
I looked at the GTO, the car that Ellie named Jóse, sitting in the driveway. It had seen so much already. It was time for it to see more.
I grabbed Sophia’s hand and tried to grab Ben’s but he pulled away from me. Would he recognize himself inked on the back of my leg? Would he one day realize how much he meant to me? I wanted to feel like a father again. I wanted him to feel like he had a dad.
We had just reached the car when I heard someone call out from the street.
“Camden!”
“Shit,” I swore under my breath and turned to look. It was Audrey Price, one of my clients. Her pale skin glowed under the hot sun like skin cancer waiting to happen. On her arm was the sleeve of cherry blossoms I had partly filled in a few weeks back. The day I met Ellie. The same cherry blossoms I would later add to Ellie’s leg.
“Who is that?” I heard Sophia whisper.
“A client,” I said and put on my most charming smile as Audrey approached us. “What’s up, Audrey? How’s the tat?”
She stopped in front of us and quickly glanced at Sophia over her retro shades. She took her in first, then Ben, who was still as quiet as a mouse. Finally she looked to me.
“I came to see you the other day. You were closed,” she said uneasily, and slid her shades back on.
I shrugged as casually as I could muster. “Going on a vacation with my family.”
She frowned, then her head swung to Sophia and Ben again for a better look. Her mouth dropped open. In the stark light, it wasn’t obvious off the bat that Sophia had been knocked around. “Family? I … I had no idea you were … I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I told her, knowing that Audrey was running over a few scenarios in her head. She’d always had a female hard on for me, that much was obvious. It didn’t help that I tattooed her ass late one night and in turn she sucked my dick. Now, all of that, combined with what seemed like a hidden wife and child and obvious case of spousal abuse, probably made things seem that much more wrong.
She never really knew Camden McQueen, did she?
She smiled tightly at me and I went on, trying to put her at ease. “I’m just going off for a bit, need some quality time, that’s all. I’ll re-open when I return. Did you want another session? Let me take a look.”
I reached for her arm as I would normally do, to inspect my work, just to see how it was holding up and if it had somehow gotten more beautiful as it melded with the skin, something I’d notice time and time again. They say tattoos are permanent, but in my eyes they adapt, ever changing.
She jerked her arm away as if my fingers were needles themselves and shot me another one of those awkward smiles. “I should be going.”
I swallowed my fear, the kind that would paralyze me and keep me here to make sure I wasn’t given a bad name, so no one would think ill of me. “Alright, well drop by in a week or so.” I could see now I was no longer the hot tattoo artist but something more sinister. In a week, she wouldn’t return. And I wouldn’t be here anyway.
Audrey gave me a vague nod, turned and quickly walked away, her sex heels echoing on the sidewalk.
“Are all your clients that awkward?” Sophia asked as she moved over to the passenger side door of the car.
“I guess none of this looks very good,” I said with a forced shrug.
“It’s beyond looking good,” she said, throwing the briefcase inside and squinting at me gravely. “Because this is all very, very bad, Camden. I don’t think you realize how bad this all is.”
Oh, the thing was, I did.