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She ducked her head, and it broke my fucking heart that she couldn't look me in the eyes. That she no longer believed me "Winter." I reached for her, but she flinched away.
“Maybe you aren’t the father. Say I believe you. We still can’t be together. Ivy is a mess. She’s a fucking disaster up there. I can’t hold you and her at the same time.”
I shook my head. “This is what she wants you to believe. She’s manipulating you. How long are you going to pay for her mistakes?”
She choked back a sob but stepped away before I could reach her. “It’s not just Ivy I have to worry about now. It’s her baby. Fetal alcohol syndrome is terrible. I’ve got to keep her dry.”
I drew on a store of patience I didn’t know I had. “But it doesn’t have to be you,” I said. “There are others who can help her.”
“No.” She wiped her hand across her face. “Ivy has always been there for me when it counted. When Eli Shorthaven said my face was flat because I fell off the monkey bars too many times, it was Ivy who punched him in the face. When that asshole in tenth grade said he would never date a chink, Ivy was the one who stuffed a dead fish in his trunk.”
“That was me, actually,” I interjected, remembering Ivy raging about how some punk was mistreating her sister.
“Oh.” Winter looked confused for a moment. Then she barreled on. “Still, Ivy’s been there for me. I’m her only family. Don’t you see that?”
I didn’t—or at least not in the way Winter wanted me too.
“Who’s not the first wife now?” I challenged.
She stared at me, tears rolling down her face, but she still turned away. I wanted to follow her in, but I knew I'd only make things worse.
24
WINTER
"Finn's here," Tucker said. His words made my hand jerk and the tattoo gun went skittering across the skin making an ugly jagged black mark.
"Dammit," I cursed, wiping the mark ineffectually.
"I
can tell him to leave." Tucker drew his finger over the faery wings I was drawing. This was part of Cecilia's design. Cecilia was a dancer at Riskie’s who’d had her career derailed by scarring. Jimmy had demoted her to waiting tables, and Cecilia claimed that if I could do an art piece on her body to disguise her scars Jimmy would put her back on the stage. She was also the mother of two really adorable toddlers.
I’d decided if Cecilia could strip and be a good mom, so could Ivy. I hadn’t informed Ivy of my conclusion yet. She and I were barely talking. More accurately, she was talking and I was ignoring her.
The design was a fairy garden with creeping vines and hidden winged creatures. On paper, it was gorgeous. How it would translate to her skin, I wasn’t sure. Tucker suggested I try out each small part and then move on to putting the components together. My graduation project would be Cecilia. She was thrilled because the tattoo would be free. Me? I felt ready to puke at the idea of putting the needle to someone's skin.
It was hard enough doing the pigskin.
"I really suck at this," I muttered, turning off the gun and ripping off my gloves.
"You've done it for four weeks," Tucker countered. "You're supposed to suck at this. When you first started drawing, were you any good?"
I laughed. "Yes, I was awesome. I started drawing with a pencil when I was three, and I was so good my mom enrolled me in art classes before I was even potty trained."
"You'll get better," he replied encouragingly. "I'm sure."
"But I don't know if I want to?"
He cocked his head. "What would you want to do?"
I hadn't thought about what I really wanted to do in a long while, not since I’d learned that a bachelor’s degree was out of the question because Ivy'd spent our money on drugs. "I don't know. Maybe be an elementary school art teacher like my mother. Something to do with art. I’d like to take classes to get better at graphic design so that I could take better and higher-paying projects."
"Why don't you do that?"
"Because it's expensive. I can't afford it, and I love it here."
"So get a scholarship or loans and work here doing commissions. Even if you moved on to something else, we'd still want you here."
