Page 8 of Keeping Kaitlyn

“Then you can get someone else to do your tattoo.” Stepping to the side, I shoo her friend onto the sidewalk. “I really don’t give a shit.” I give her awho the fuck caresshrug before slamming the door in her face and locking it for good measure.

“Lexi was right about you,” she screeches at me, voice muffled by four inches of hardwood. “You reallyarean asshole!”

Lexi Chase.

The gift that keeps on giving.

“Jesus Christ,” I mutter it before turning away from the door to stare down a waiting Tess.

“What?” She gives me a shrug while re-pocketing her weapon of choice. “I was helping.”

“Helping?” I say it on a laugh because I can’t help it. I can’t stay mad at Tess. Not for long—never could. “Yourhelpingisn’t actually helping—you know that, right? I’ll be lucky if she doesn’t call TMZ with a tearful recount of how she was terrorized in my shop by a psychotic, wrench-wielding pixie.”

“She was annoying,” Tess says on a dismissive shrug. When I don’t agree with her right away, she gives me a disgusted scoff. “Please tell me you didn’t actuallywantto fuckher.”

There’s no jealousy in her tone. No anger. Even when we were together, there wasn’t any of either where other women were concerned. We were exclusive out of convenience and mutual respect—not because either of us actually thought we had a future together, no matter what we might’ve pretended. I knew from day one that she belonged to Declan, even when she refused to admit it, and that eventually she’d find her way back to him. It's why we worked so well together. Because I knew no matter what, she’d never fall for me.Couldn’tfall for me because she’d already fallen and women like Tess never fall twice.

“I’m not even going to dignify that with an answer,” I tell her, giving the outside light that illuminates my shop door a flip. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m playing messenger boy,” she tells me while she skirts the counter that separates my tattoo space from the waiting area. “Con says you’ve been ignoring his texts about the wedding.”

The wedding.

Hearing her say it, my guts are instantly tied in knots.

“I’ve been busy.” I say evasively while I watch her wander around the room, moving from drawing to drawing. They’ve been here for years, she’s seen them a thousand times, just like everyone else. When people ask who the woman in the drawings is, I lie. Tell them it’s her. That the drawings are of Tess.

Tess never asks because she knows the truth.

That whoever the woman I keep compulsively drawing is, she’s not her.

“He says you need to get fitted for your tux,” she tells me, stopping in front of the drawing of a woman standing on the front steps of a large, two-story log cabin, facial features obscured by her hair, blowing in an invisible breeze. “Hen’s mom is about to have a stroke.”

“Good.”

My reply earns me a snort. “You know Lydia—she’s going to ride Henley into the ground until?—”

Yeah, I know Lydia. She and Astrid are a part of the same Manhattan lunch and shopping crowd. “Look—you can tell Con I don’t need a fitting. I have my own tux that I’m sure will pass Lydia’s inspection.”

When Conner asked me to be a groomsman in his wedding, I should’ve said no.

Hell no.

But because I’m a fucking idiot and because I didn’t know how to saysorry, even though I know that Henley is the love of your life and that you thought you’d lost her forever, I can’t stand up for you while you pull off the miracle of a lifetime by actually marrying herwithout sounding like a complete dickhead.

Or without telling him the truth.

Therealreason I don’t want to be within a hundred miles of his wedding.

Becauseshe’sgoing to be there.

“Areyouhaving a stroke right now?”

Shit.

I give Tess the kind of look that would make a grown man shit his pants. It’s a wasted effort—Tess has never been afraid of me. It’s the other reason I went out with her in the first place.

Because she reminded me ofher.

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