I moved my forehead to his chest and closed my eyes. I breathed in his scent, the smell of his lingering cologne mixed with his permanently sun-kissed skin, and slid my arms around his sides. I hugged him back.
If we were official again, we needed to do something different. This time needed to stick.
I needed him too much, and so I kissed his chest and looked up.
“Yes.”
We were together again, but really, when had we ever been apart?
Lincoln was waiting for us when we arrived at Channing’s warehouse.
I hadn’t been out here for a long time. Being broken up with Channing meant my trips were generally just to his house (aka his bedroom) or him to mine. There were usually a few random visits to his bar, but I hadn’t been there during this last break. He’d come to Manny’s, but now that we were together together, I’d start visiting these spots again. I knew I’d be hanging out at Tuesday Tits later in the week, so a trip to the warehouse seemed fitting.
It also felt awkward, as if I shouldn’t have been away as long as I was.
I tried to shake off the feeling when we parked and headed inside, but it seemed settled in my shoulders. It wasn’t going to be leaving.
A few guys were lingering outside the door. They stepped back to talk to Channing as I went in.
Lincoln rolled back on his stool when he saw me. “Heard you wanted a tattoo?” He motioned to a chair. “Have a seat. You ready for some pain?”
I wasn’t sure if he was joking, but I sat. I’d gotten a tattoo before. And I was plenty familiar with pain of all kinds.
I laid my arm on the table and turned it over.
He glanced over. “That’s where you want it?”
I touched from under my wrist to my elbow. “Small letters spaced out.”
“You have a pattern in mind?”
I showed him the font I wanted and where I wanted the letters inked.
He nodded, measuring me. “Same as Chan’s?”
I didn’t know Lincoln well. He’d joined the crew a year ago, but even if he’d been around for years, I didn’t think I’d know him any better. He was quiet. There was a roughness to him, and he had an almost feral look in his eyes at times. It faded when he was around the others, but I saw it more clearly now that we were alone.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, but I had to trust myself. Under those hairs was nothing. The door was open. We could hear the other guys in the warehouse, and no matter what, I knew Channing wouldn’t allow me to be alone in a room with someone he thought might hurt me. If this guy tried anything, one, I’d beat his ass, and two, Channing would give him a second beating.
As I studied him, I caught a flicker in his gaze.
“You guys know?” I asked.
He’d started cleaning my arm, and now reached for a razor to shave it. He didn’t respond at first.
“It’s a guess,” he eventually said. “He told us he’d picked her up from the hospital. And he’d won so many fights, I didn’t think it had much to do with that.”
A knot infused in my throat.
Everyone assumed it’d been a miscarriage because I’d been so small when she died. We hadn’t told them how far along I’d been. I didn’t know the guys knew she’d been stillborn.
“Yeah.” I couldn’t say anything more.
I’d wanted to pick her up, but couldn’t bring myself to do it. Brandon just told me he’d asked Channing, and it was done. He’d asked to bury her next to his mother, and I was okay with that. We had a small memorial for her, just a few of us.
It was one of the hardest things I’d ever done.
Lincoln finished shaving the area and drying my arm. “A few of us thought about doing something in her name for you guys—just haven’t figured out what it would be yet.”
He’d kept his head down, focused on his work, but he looked up at me now. Just a small pause, but enough that I could see he meant every word he’d said. His sympathy was genuine.
He looked back down.
He grabbed the stencils with the lettering, and added, “You don’t really know me, but I was in a bad spot for a while.” He laid the Y down. “When Channing brought me into the crew, he saved my life.”
This wasn’t what I’d expected from Lincoln.
As he worked, I studied a scar that ran down the length of his face, almost from his forehead to his jaw. It hadn’t healed properly, and it seemed to stretch the skin. That scar, mixed with the air of violence around him, contrasted strikingly against the meticulous care he was taking with my tattoo, and how soft his voice was as he spoke.
It also struck me how much reverence I heard in his voice for Channing, and if he was crew, then Channing felt the same for him. It was moments like these when I understood why Channing lived the way he did.
Warmth spread through me.
I was proud to know Channing. I was proud to know these guys. They weren’t criminals, but I knew they’d committed criminal acts, and because of that, they might be looked down upon by outsiders. Rich folk in Fallen Crest feared us, and they should, but they should never think they were above us.
In that instant, I felt foolish. Ridiculously foolish.
These guys were home to Channing. Channing was home to me.
I’d been away far too long.
“He has a habit of doing that, doesn't he?” My throat swelled up. “Saving lives, I mean.”
We didn’t talk the rest of the time. Linc did my tattoo and bandaged everything up for me. When he was done, I waited until he’d put away all his equipment and cleaned the area, then I walked out of the room with him.
It felt fitting, for some reason.
21
Heather
One month
One week
One day
One hour
One minu—you get the drift—since my last smoke
* * *
“You can't ban smoking from Manny’s.”
Brandon stood behind me as I put up the no-smoking sign. I’d slipped the night I got Naly’s tattoo on my arm. That whole day had been too much in general. Almost all of Channing’s crew had come to the warehouse. They’d put up seven speakers around the yard and inside. There’d been three bonfires. A DJ. A taco truck had pulled in. Someone ordered pizza as well, and the entire night passed in a drunken blur.
Too much booze, and so many people had been smoking, I’d succumbed.
I only got one puff in before Channing took the cigarette from me and led me away, but damn it—that puff seemed to have lingered in my lungs since then.
Every time I walked from the house to Manny’s (a whole twenty steps) I had to walk past the smokers. It was beyond torture, and I swear her tattoo throbbed too.
I’d gone past irrational. I was in survival mode.
I. Would. Not. Smoke. Again. Whether it killed me or not. Though currently, I was almost ready to do the killing myself.
I finished whacking the last nail and stepped back. The sign stayed put.
“I can, and I will.” My hands found my hips, and I turned to my brother. “You’re supposed to be supporting me.”
He opened his mouth. He grabbed a fistful of his hair, and then he closed his mouth. He swallowed. “Are you kidding me? This is our place of business.”
I pointed the hammer toward the front parking lot. “I had that punk’s crew clean out the front section. There’s a whole area over there where they can smoke.”
“No one’s going to go over there. It’s in the woods.”