Tattooed Troublemaker - Elise Faber Page 0,16

would have never thought could work together and playing around with them until I found a common thread that stitched the pieces into a collective whole.

And everyone’s pieces were different.

My own ink tended toward a more traditional Japanese vein—though I did have several pieces that were hot messes, mostly from me practicing on myself or other artists trying out a technique. They’d done the same for me, offering up a body part for practice, sometimes to not great results, but it was better than screwing up on a client.

The pieces I was really proud of—my sleeves and below the knee—had been done by people I trusted of art I’d drawn.

But Lorna’s had been my favorite work. The line work, the colors, the—

My pencil lead snapped.

“Fuck,” I muttered, knowing that I couldn’t keep doing this. It had been almost a year since the drama unfolded, and I was still alternating between hurt and anger and longing.

I shouldn’t still want a woman who’d tried to fuck my brother and best friend.

I shouldn’t still be hurt about such a despicable person.

The anger I figured I was allowed to hold on to for as long as I wanted.

Still, I didn’t understand all of what I was feeling or why. I hated that I’d misread Lorna so completely, that I’d been utterly whipped and hadn’t believed people I trusted. What did that say about me that some bitch with a magical vagina had imploded my trust in people I’d known my whole life?

That I’d been so quick to toss it all away just because she’d accused them of coming on to her?

Fuck, I’d been ready to disown my brother, had spent two months not talking to my best friend, Sam, because Lorna had said—

And maybe that was the crux of it all.

My ego was punctured, my confidence shaken.

I’d been manipulated and—

“Pathetic,” I said on a huff, grabbing another pencil, flipping the page, and beginning a different sketch. The lines were heavy and dark, decidedly ill-fitting for the client’s ink, but perfectly encapsulating what was going on in my mind, what had been going on.

Look, I got it.

I brooded.

While I was a not-so-starving artist anymore, I was still emotional and sensitive—barf—but I had always thought I’d known who I was deep inside. I was loyal and smart. If I said I’d be there, I always showed. I was reliable and followed through and was good with people.

And I’d still gotten hurt.

No more.

I wasn’t letting that happen again, same as I wasn’t going back to California until I had gotten my head straight, same as I wasn’t talking to Lorna again and how I was keeping the conversation with my brother and Sam light and easy when we talked.

They’d forgiven me easily, moved on like nothing had changed between us.

But everything inside me had shifted. An earthquake had cracked my foundation, rattled around the contents of my being, shook up the negative things about me and brought them front and center.

So, they might have forgiven and forgotten, but I hadn’t done the same.

“Shit,” I muttered. This was way too much emotion and thinking for seven in the morning, before I’d even finished my first cup of coffee.

I deliberately turned back to the previous page in my notebook, forced my mind to clear, and got back to the drawing. Thankfully, the moment my hand began moving, everything faded away and the image grew on the paper, almost subconsciously.

I didn’t hear the banging stop below me, nor did I hear the back door to the shop open, or Charlie clamber down the steps and sit in the wooden chair.

I did, however, hear her surprised gasp and definitely heard the shouted-out exclamation of, “Fuck me!”

My notebook and pencil hit the chair, my hands the railing, and I peered over the edge. She was sitting ramrod straight in the chair, a packet of papers in her lap, long tail of her ponytail trailing down her spine.

Then, for the first time since Lorna’s betrayal had come to light, since my confidence had disappeared and my life had been upended, I stopped thinking.

I opened my mouth and said the first thing that came into my brain.

“Now, there’s a lovely invitation for so early in the morning.”

Blue eyes flew up to mine.

Heat arrowed to my cock.

“Want me to come down?” A beat as those eyes narrowed. “Or are you coming up?”

Silence then a sharp shake of her head.

“Fucking asshole,” she muttered, gathering the papers and bringing them with her as she stormed inside, the