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I flush, but Diana and Tom just laugh. No one contradicts what Sori has just said though.
“That’s okay.”
“No,” Sori interrupts. “Tom. She can’t go to someone else for this. It’s too important of a piece. Like my feather.” She dangles her foot in front of her. “She needs perfection. And that means you.”
Diana puts one arm around her husband’s waist and pushes him forward. “Do it, love. When a friend asks for help, you don’t turn them down.”
“Let’s do this.”
Tom presses a kiss to his wife’s head, and five minutes later, I’m trying my best to explain how I want to match the tattoo in the photo.
Once again, he rubs the back of his neck. “I don’t usually copy tattoos from photos. Kind of like stealing art, ya know?”
My heart plummets, but I have to push through it. He has to understand.
“This was my sister’s tattoo.” I keep my voice low, trying not to break down as I explain. “I was with her when she got it. And now that she’s gone, I need to get it. So I don’t ever forget her.”
Swallowing the pit of despair that is sitting in my throat, I wait for him to answer. He shoots a glance over my shoulder, where I know that Sori and Diana are still standing around the front counter.
“I see why you needed something perfect,” he finally says after a throat-clearing cough. “Let’s get this started. I think I know exactly what to do to make it perfect.”
I put my trust in him, because there is nothing else I can do. One step at a time, I am finally learning how to breathe again.
12
COLE
Emmett and I walk into Tom’s Tattoo and I smile as I see what we’ve been summoned for.
Sori and Diana are both sleeping, curled together on the couch that sits in the client waiting area. Sori’s call had come while I was on the phone with Sergeant Hayes, and we had to wait to get everything settled before heading out.
“Sori didn’t tell me that she’d be sleeping when we got here,” Emmett whispers loudly as we watch his wife drool on one of her closest friend’s heads. “But I’m kind of glad she is. Otherwise, I wouldn’t get to grab this gem.” He pulls out his phone and takes about a dozen photos, smiling like a fool the entire time, snickering when she snorts in her sleep. “She’s gonna have to do so much to keep these from getting sent out with our Christmas card this year.”
One of my favorite things about my cousin is the fact that he loves his wife more than anything else in the entire world. That love doesn’t stop him from giving her a hard time, though. Nor does it stop the two of them from bickering like children sometimes.
So while Sori and Diana continue to sleep, Emmett tries his best to move them over and make room for himself on the couch. The incessant buzzing from the other side of the room finally filters through my brain and draws my attention away from Emmett.
I can’t quite see who is getting tattooed, but my curiosity demands that I find out. Sori isn’t normally a patient person. There aren’t many people that she would wait on long enough to fall asleep. Shooting a glance over my shoulder, I see that my cousin is still entirely engrossed in getting his unconscious wife to move over and make space for him to sit on the couch.
Tom, on the other hand, is bent over a familiar redhead with a gun in his hand. The same redhead that I’ve been hoping to spend time with for a week. The woman who subsequently drives me crazy and makes my heart race all at the same time.
“Breathe, Casper. We’re almost done.” Tom speaks to Casper gently, like he’s afraid of spooking her. “Remember, you’re here. You’re safe. And this was your decision. No reason to panic.”
At the mention of her panic attacks, my hackles raise almost immediately. Like a hawk, I watch how he handles her, how Casper is breathing, and how she seems to relax under the tattoo gun. She doesn’t react or even flinch as Tom wipes away some ink and keeps working on the piece of art he is creating for her.
“Heya, Cole,” Tom says without looking up when I shift from one foot to the other. “You finally ready to let me tattoo that perfect skin?”
I watch as Casper tenses momentarily, but she doesn’t flinch away from the needle currently digging into her skin. Nor does she open her eyes. Instead, I watch as she relaxes before I address Tom’s comment.
“No chance in hell.” He’s been trying for a year to tattoo me.
He laughs but keeps working on Casper’s arm. “Still afraid of needles, I see.”
I’m not just afraid of needles, and he knows it. The first time I came into the shop, I turned right back around and walked away. Needles, pain, and the fact that people willingly let a man use a gun that shoots ink into their skin over and over again for hours… it completely baffles me. It’d taken me three or four trips just to tolerate being in the building, and I am not about to push it.
“I’ll never get one,” I inform him for what has to be at least the tenth time. “I’d rather get shot.”
Tom doesn’t answer, choosing to ignore me while he puts the last touches on Casper’s arm.
