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Prying his eyes open, he looked at Shay as she continued. “I’ve always been good at art and I’ve always wanted to tattoo, but what if I’m no good at it? what if I can’t put all the knowledge I have in my head from working at Rebel Ink into practise and I make an ass of myself? I don’t want Cathal to have to tell me that I’m shite, or just lying his ass off and tell me I’m making progress because we are family.”
Rhys could understand her fear; he had a fair amount of it himself.
“If I fail,” Shay continued, wrapping her arms around herself in a way that made Rhys want to comfort her. “Then my dad was right and he would relish in it. He told me it was beneath me to want to be a tattoo artist, that I should strive to be more, to be like him, and I could never let him gloat like that. And if I’m shit, then he would be delighted.”
“Declan opens his mouth and honey comes out. Andi sings and the world stops rotating to listen to them. When Andi sits behind a piano and sings, like nothing else you’ve every heard. Before my voice changed, I knew I could never live up to them so I pretended my voice breaking meant I lost my singing ability. I was afraid of being compared to them and feeding into my inferiority complex.”
Shay regarded him for the longest time, as if she was trying out just how genuine his words were, and then she let loose a chortle of laughter. “For fuck sake, we’re a well met pair, aren’t we?”
Rhys shrugged in response, grinning as he said. “Misery loves company, right?”
Returning his grin, Shay unfurled her arms from around her stomach, then tilted her head like she’d had an idea. “How do you feel about another challenge?”
“Well, considering how close I came to kissing you earlier, I’m not doing very well on that challenge, but sure, why the fuck not?”
Rhys liked the sparkle of mischief in Shay’s eyes as she put her feet on the floor and leaned in toward him. “Let’s work toward sharing our secrets. If you promise to tell everyone that you can sing, then I will tell Cathal I want to start training as an apprentice. We do it together so we both have support when we might back away from it. It might help you mend fences with Declan, and it might force me to be brave.”
While he wasn’t one hundred percent sure that telling Declan that he had lied for years and could hold a tune was the best way to start to mend things between them, he would do anything to help Shay reach her own dreams. When she held out her hand, he took it, shaking it and she quickly pulled it back, though she had a smile on her face.
“I guess that’s settled.”
“I guess it is. But I meant what I said, Shay. If I do get that tattooed, I want you to do it. And I might never be ready to tell everyone bout the singing. But I will promise to try and that has to be enough, okay?”
Shay nodded in agreement and then reclined in her chair. “Right, so that’s settled, do you plan on hanging out with me all day or have you got your own shit to do?”
Rhys arched a brow, unable to stop his lips from curving. “Trying to get rid of me already?”
“Not at all...but if I have to feed you for the rest of the day, then you can order take out just saying.”
Rhys glanced at his watch. “I was supposed to meet, Andi for lunch. I could rain check?”
“Nah, go have lunch with your sister and text me and let me know how it went. Since you have my number it seems...how did you get my number?”
He wasn’t about to admit that he had asked Jameson for her number when he texted him to say thanks for the music booking his bandmate that he had promised to send Shay some tracks for the shop playlist, but had forgot to get her number.
Jameson had just sent a text with Shay’s number, telling Rhys he was losing his touch.
Rhys got to his feet and tapped his nose. “I gotta keep some mystery. You nearly know all my secrets, Shay Gleeson. How else will I make sure you keep hanging out with me?”
Rolling her eyes, Shay rose off the chair and gave him a mock shove towards the door and Rhys laughed, asking Shay if she treated all her celebrity friends like him.
“There’s no one like you, Rhys Collins, now get out of my gaff before I kick you out.”
ChapterSixteen
Shay
Shay foundherself alone with Cathal the next day, the two of them arriving at the shop early to start to get stuff sorted before Darren arrived to help out. Isaac had MJ for the day, but he was going to pop in later on with her. Shay always loved when MJ came to the shop; she liked being an auntie and spoiling the little girl as much as possible.
Growing up, Shay had always wanted a sibling, someone she could fuss over and teach things too, but her parents had never seemed inclined to have another child after seeing how much disruption even one child could have on their busy social calendar. Shay had raised herself really, and the only family she had really known until she met the boys was Sinéad, and she’d been devastated when Sinéad had left for Spain and the communication had become sparse over the years.
Of course, Sinéad had her reasons, and now that Shay was fully aware of what Sinéad had gone through, it had made sense for Sinéad’s mother Matilda to get her away from the situation. That being said, Shay was glad to have her best friend back in her life and sticking around Cork for the foreseeable now that she was dating Jameson Kent.
Thinking of Jameson made Shay think about Rhys, but then she had been thinking about him a lot of the last couple of days. They had texted on and off, with Rhys telling her that things had gone surprisingly well with his sister, probably because they both made a point of not bringing up Declan during the time they were together. And Rhys hadn’t mentioned his near miss with the party.
Shay had told him he needed to be upfront with people when he was struggling and ask for help, to which Rhys had replied and said, he’d called her, hadn’t he?
The drollness of his retort made Shay smile as she looked over her phoenix that had turned out epically. There was hammering and sawing going on upstairs, as Cathal came back into the newer part of Rebel Ink, a mug of coffee in each hand. He handed one off to her, then leaned against the counter and regarded her with a look that made Shay feel like she was back in school.
