AllFreeNovel
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N - Do you remember what I promised you when we met?
L - A killer tattoo?
N - I’ll jog your memory.
N - *Incoming Image*
Since you walked out the door, I haven’t been able to think of anything or anyone else. I think we had a great first session. If you’d like me to continue working on your piece, I will have the private room reserved every time. I’d be honored if you’d allow me to continue. Fuck, sweet pea, let me take you out?
You fascinated me. Not in the circus freak way, but the way you command a room. Even when you’re trying to hide.
I need to see you. Even if the guys think I’m a pussy to beg.
Lexi’s eyes widened at the image, it caused long-buried memories to flood the forefront of her mind. It was a picture of the card that’d been attached to the flowers he’d bought her after her first tattoo session. He’d sent a bundle of beautiful mixed wildflowers. He’d later confessed the violet sweet peas reminded him of her and he couldn’t see getting her anything else.
L - I didn’t know you saved a picture of it.
N - I did. When you finally answered my texts and agreed to a date, I told you that I would respect your limits at all times. No matter big or small. I’d seek them out, bend them, but never break them.
L - I remember…
N - You’ve had enough space. I expect you here at your scheduled time. Or else. *devil emoji* You know I’ll come to Ella’s to get you if I must.
L - Noah, let's get things straight. You can boss me around all you want in the bedroom—or wherever we fuck—but you don't control me otherwise.
N - I don't think that's how traditional dynamics work. I’m not looking to control you, you aren’t an animal to be tamed.
L - I'm not interested in what’s traditional or how it works for anyone else. It's what I'm offering.
N - I’m offering you everything I am. Don’t forget to hydrate before your session. I expect to see you at eleven a.m.
The chat turned gray, signaling he’d left, and there would be no further discussion.
Glancing at the clock, she noted there was just enough time to bring Ella her notes and go over the menu choices before taking off to Noah’s shop across town.
Without another moment’s hesitation or thought about seeing him after she’d turned him down, she tossed caution to the wind. She found herself leaning into the butterflies instead of running away, excited for the first time in days.
She just had to keep her mind occupied and not stress or let trepidation ruin today for her. She’d finally decided to try her hardest to love cautiously. Noah would have to help her through this though.
***
Lexi pulled up to the shop at 11:15, knowing the fifteen minutes she’d reclaimed for herself would have her sitting uncomfortably on a normal day. That was before he’d asked for something she didn’t have in her to give.
“Hey, hey!” she greeted Wes, sitting at the receptionist’s desk. His forlorn expression made her pause. “Are you pouting because Mel isn’t here?”
“No,” he grumbled, “but I have a six-year-old who wants to know where her play friend went. Apparently, Papa doesn’t make waffles as good as Melly does,” he said in a fake sneer, leaning back in the swivel chair. It creaked under his weight. At six-foot-four, he wasn’t the target demographic for the neon pink and green, leather, gamer chair.
It was the same chair that Melody had convinced Wes to purchase when she took over the tattoo shop’s appointment book while school was out for summer and left her without her students to occupy her days.
“Sure, that’s it.” Lexi laughed, dropping her bag under the desk and hung her jacket on the hook next to Noah’s prepped station.
She was surprised to find it empty and looked around the space, noting it was fairly quiet for the morning. Since the beginning, it was purposeful for her to come in during the week when the shop was likely empty.
Lexi’s eyes caught sight of herself in the mirror, tentatively lifting her shirt to look at her torso and the marks that curved around her hip and under the jeans she wore. The work Noah had been doing was healed, and they’d decided to use a more extreme medium to achieve a different look and feel to the piece. Change the striped scars that felt like a beacon to her pain and give it life, instead of the death it represented.
It would be the final step to covering the visible, physical scars of a past she kept buried.
They say after seven years your body was ‘new’ again, untouched and no longer scarred from the trauma before. New cells or not, the body still remembers. Every kick, blow in anger, and venomous word spoken to her—she remembered all of them. Vividly.
