that, but you make me normal, and I love what I am around you.”
“We love who you are around us too,” Keys murmurs softly, pressing a gentle kiss to my lips. “We love you even if you are fucked up.”
A soft giggle escaped me. “I’m allowed to say that. Not you.”
He winked at me and pressed another kiss to the corner of my mouth. “Perks of being a… what? Am I your boyfriend now?” He mocked, “Girlfriend, it’s your solemn duty to tell me when you want to rip your eyes out because those bombshells are too beautiful to destroy.”
I sucked down a breath as I stared up at him, loving him for doing what he always did—making me feel like Amaryllis. Not the victim, not a woman who couldn’t get over something bad that had happened to her.
To him, I was Ama.
To Saint and Ink, I was too.
That was why I was addicted to them. Why they were my drug and poison of choice. I’d kill for them, die for them, but more importantly, I’d live for them, and that was the greatest gift I had to give them.
And they didn’t even know it.
19
Keys
This woman had the power to decimate me.
And she didn’t even fucking know it.
I swear, she could look into my eyes, and I’d see those gorgeous gray crystals staring back at me, but I saw the terror burrowed within. I saw the past and the present uneasily coalescing.
The torment in her eyes could tear me apart, but only Ama had the power to build me back together again.
I shuddered as I pressed my forehead to hers. “Do you know how much I need you? How badly I need you to be okay?”
She licked her lips. “I think I do. It’s why I never do anything. I know you l-love me.”
“No stuttering required,” I told her on a sigh. “I do. I love you, Ama. I have since I was a kid and didn’t really know what love was. Well, aside from the way my dad used to look at my mom.” I swallowed thickly. “I’d go insane if anything… if you did anything, Ama.”
She scowled. “I’m not going to. I was in a different place back then, but that’s in the past. Not my present. And even if you don’t want to be with me in that way, I’m not going to do anything either. I-I’m stronger now. I can do things, but you have to be a part of my life. Even if it’s only texting me a few days a week…”
I reached up and pressed a finger to her lips. “Shut up.”
“Charmer.”
“None of that crap,” I grumbled, ignoring her. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere. If you haven’t realized that by now, then there’s no hope for you. I would have gone to Rhode Island for you, baby girl.”
Her eyes widened. “You would have?”
I nodded, but then I pulled back and looked around the tattoo parlor. “But I get the feeling this is where you intended on being all along, am I right?”
She hitched a shoulder, nibbling at her lip until she muttered, “I knew if I had that validation, if the acceptance came through, that my dads would let me. They’d feel bad about what happened and would want me here rather than me having to fight for it.”
“Manipulative little mare,” I grumbled, but my lips twitched.
“I had to,” she defended. “You know what they’re like. They’d say it was too dangerous for me to be here otherwise. At least this way, they think they’ve done something proactive and it gets me where I want to be.”
“That tattoo, babe, it was phenomenal.”
She beamed at me. “You really think so?”
“I fucking know so.” Nervously, I asked, “Would you do one for me? My ma?”
Her lips parted. “Seriously? You’d want me to?”
“Hell yeah.” I reached up and rubbed my thumb along the line of her jaw—did I have the right to do that?
I wasn’t sure.
I felt like she wanted something I couldn’t give, but I also didn’t have a choice.
I wasn’t a man who appreciated being backed into a corner. All my life, I’d had to do things other people’s way.
Though I adored Ama’s family and was beyond grateful for them taking me in, I’d had to follow the orders of four men, and I truly pitied Seamus and Matty when they were old enough to butt heads with not one, but four dads. Jesus. It had been hard enough when mine was around, but four of