Bad Boy Ink (Get Ink'd #5) - Ali Lyda Page 0,47

missing.”

A car honked outside, and I opened the door for her, too stunned to retort. I kissed her cheek, savoring how she smelled of Chanel no.5 instead of the chemical stench that used to cling to her. “Thanks for everything, Gran.”

“Have a good night, darling. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” she said, narrowing her eyes in mock warning. Then she chuckled. “And don’t forget protection.”

Every muscle in my body cringed. “I can die of mortification now. Thanks for that.”

She laughed at me every step she made until she was in the Uber. I stood in the doorway, watching her leave and thinking again about how insanely grateful I was to have her in my life. I’d put a lot on hold for her and I’d do it again and again, a hundred times over. Some people would always be worth the effort.

Then I was alone. Dinner would just need to be reheated. My case notes were already set up. I could relax until Aiden arrived.

Ha, what a fucking joke. There was no relaxing. There was only the sweaty-palmed anticipation that made my leg bounce when I sat and my heart race if I stood.

At the park, Aiden had actually talked to me. Not just about school, but about him. About what made him tick in the unique way he did. Instead of seeing why we were rivals, all I could see was how similar we were. I knew the aching loneliness that came from being rejected by your parents. He’d handled his hurt by becoming isolated so he wouldn’t be betrayed again.

What did I do with my hurt?

I’d turned my personality into a barrier, a means of protection. Making jokes, being kind, finding ways to support those around me were as much for me as for my friends. I was well liked. Easygoing. Always willing to go the extra mile for anyone in need. And I was insanely flirtatious—I knew it, even if I didn’t mean anything by it.

Or maybe I did. Maybe I was reacting in the opposite way, guarding my heart by being so likeable no one could shun me. Maybe I tried to avoid rejection by being so likeable it wouldn’t happen again. And I’d been so frustrated with Aiden, because he had pushed me away, and some part of me was terrified by the idea that someone didn’t like me. That they could wound me with that, even after all the steps I’d taken to prevent it.

I shut the door and pressed my forehead to it. Psychology wasn’t a land I liked to visit. My brain was functional and trying to deconstruct it seemed...like a bad idea. Aiden did that to me, though. Just being around him was like being forced to look in a mirror.

But was I going to be able to like what I saw in myself as much as I liked him?

Well, that was entirely too heavy. It was time for me to find anything and everything to divert my attention from that road of thinking. Hell to the no thank you.

So I went and changed clothes, choosing a thermal Henley that hugged my body and showed off the tips of my chest tattoo. It was one of my favorites, an owl with its wings spanning from shoulder to shoulder. But as it progressed from realism at the top down to the bottom, it lost its photo-correctness and broke down into circuits and code that managed to show the shape of outstretched claws.

It was my own design, tattooed by Javi when I first started at Get Ink’d. A sort of initiation, I supposed. He’d asked me what it meant, and I told him that owls were clever and free to fly and hunt, and I found those same things to be true for me in computers. I was free to fly, to hunt, and to have a world laid out at my feet.

The open V of the Henley showed the owl’s eyes, staring straight forward with intention.

I nodded approvingly at myself, like a total nerd. The fact of the matter was that I was being completely ridiculous. I was acting like I was in high school all over again, trying to get my crush to like me back.

Except, if Bryan could be trusted, then Aiden had at least some attraction to me already. The thought of that made my stomach quiver in a way I wasn’t used to.

There was a knock at the front door, and I gulped. This was it: we