Page 42 of Absolute Valor

I’d always appreciated the straightforward attitude he possessed, leave your bullshit at the door kinda guy. “I’m gonna need another star.” Recognition flashed in his eyes. He knew the meaning behind the three stars around my insignia. We’d had long conversations about why it was important to remember a nameless man.

“Well, Morgan. Every tattoo has a story, let’s hear this one.” Waving his hand in the direction of his chair, I strip off my shirt as I followed him. The cold leather feels good against my back, the temperature outside still hadn’t cooled off, even with the setting sun.

“You back for good, or is this a stop along the way?”

“Home for good this time, opened a shop of my own actually.”

“Same star as last time?” Black gloves cover his fingers, reminding me of the pair Austin tried to shove at me. I needed a reminder of the type of man Lucas was. Something to always remind me of the type of man I never want to become. He didn’t deserve the same recognition the other three had. They were taken from acts of war, where Lucas was an execution for crimes he committed.

“No, this one is different.” I paused, searching for the right words which would leave him in the dark, yet make what I wanted perfectly clear. “I did something incredibly stupid by breaking a girl’s heart, without intending to.” I shake my head, trying to get her last words out of my head.

“Well, tell me what I’m going to do and then you can tell me what you did”

Once the design was agreed upon, I laid back once again and told him the highlights of what had happened. I left out how I shot a man in the balls for talking trash about the girl I’m in love with, and then killed him good and proper for all the shit he pulled. I couldn’t very well tell him, ‘hey you know that fire a few weeks ago? Yeah, that was me’. Nope, couldn’t tell him any of that.

“Has she moved on yet? Gotten a new boyfriend?” His question crushed me. In all of my moping and avoiding, I hadn’t thought about another man touching my Audrey, or, heaven forbid, little Grace calling some other swinging dick Daddy.

The other night when I was looking at their photo on my phone, I remembered how Lucas had taunted me when he said he would always be her father. Grace will never know the cruel and horrible man who helped give her life. She’ll never feel the pain of knowing he refused her time and time again, using her as a pawn to get what he wanted from her mother.

“No.”

“Have you been following the rules; sending her flowers, calling her phone?”

“No, but she ain’t like that. I tried to pay her electric bill for her and at first she didn’t take it well, but I thought she had gotten over it. The other day, after I’d shown her how stupid I was, I found a deposit in my bank account for the exact amount of the bill. See, she does the payroll for my shop and—” Just like a mule kicking me in the gut, I realized what I’d done; I’d questioned her loyalty due to her association with Ginny and Lucas. Yet, she had access to all of our accounts from the beginning, and instead of robbing me blind, she deposited over a grand into my account.

“And?” Slash waited, his eyes peeking up at me over the top of his round glasses.

“And I’m a fucking idiot, she didn’t change, I fucking did. Me and my goddamn pride changed because of some cunt who screwed me seven ways to Sunday, and not in the way I wanted her to.” I was so pissed at myself for allowing my fucking pride to cloud my judgment and close off my heart to her.

Slash pushed back his chair as he pulled his gloves off. “You know what, Chase?” He adjusted his glasses, and then crossed his arms over his chest. “When I wanted to open this place, I had no clue how to apply for permits or hire an accountant. All I knew was how to turn on that gun and draw a great picture on a man’s skin.” Rising to his feet, he pulled the hand mirror from beside his station and handed it to me. “But when your granddaddy offered to help me, he told me something I’m going to share with you now.”

He motioned to the finished tattoo before he spoke any further. The star was exactly what I’d asked for; a little larger than the other three with an outline around the edges. Enough of a difference that I would always remember the day I did it.

“God gives us men a big enough throat to swallow our pride. You have to be willing to choke a little as you wash it down.”

“You gonna ask Audrey to the low country boil?” Dylan was acting weird, not the typical crass asshole he usually is when Claire isn’t around.

“Don’t have to, Momma already invited her.” I’d been trying to get a feel for Audrey, see if her hatred for me had lessoned any. So far, she was holding tight to the anger I’d created. “Besides, I already told you I need time to figure my shit out.”

Austin and Lainie had arrived home a few days ago and momma had invited the close family to a dinner at her house. Audrey called her the day before and politely declined, saying Grace had been running a fever and she didn’t want to expose anyone to whatever she was fighting off.

Of course I got an earful of how the baby is exposed to all kinds of germs, now that she’s going to daycare instead of playing beside her mother where she belongs. Momma had come by the shop the following Monday to ask Audrey and Grace to have a girls day with her. Again, Audrey declined, claiming she had already made plans and couldn’t break them. Not surprisingly, this earned me a tongue lashing and a crying momma, the latter bothered me more than the chunk of ass she took away.

“No, you need to pull your dick out of your ass, have it checked out, and then start listening to it.” Ah, the return of the crass dick.

“Listen, Chase, girls like Audrey don’t come around twice. You need to get over the shit Ginny pulled. Ginny, not Audrey, and show her some fucking respect, pull out her chair and open her door. Because you know what?” He poked his finger into my chest, inching his face so close to mine I could see the pores on his nose. “You wait too long and someone else will.”

Dylan pulled back once he’d made his point. Audrey had to take the baby to the doctor when she started crying in the middle of the night and pulling at her ears, so this was the perfect opportunity for him and Austin to gang up on me.

“Up to you, Chase,” Austin took his turn, arms crossed in the same stance Dylan had. “You can go find yourself and watch as she rides off into the sunset on the back of some other cowboy’s horse.” Standing shoulder to shoulder with Dylan, both of them standing firm.

“Or you can be the cowboy she rides until the sun comes up.” Dylan finishes, not a hint of teasing in his voice. “But you should know, Momma invited Jackson Siever to the party. You remember him, big guy, with a great job and better looking than you.”

Jackson Siever was the pitcher for our high school baseball team. Pro scouts came and offered him lots of contracts, but he preferred to play for the love of the game. His sister, Darcy, took Dylan for a spin a few times. He had a girlfriend, Becky, all through school. Everyone had assumed they would get married and have thirty-two kids. But after law school, he came back here, bought a farm outside of town and a nice bike from us not long ago. I’d seen him making eyes at Audrey, but she was oblivious to it. Maybe she would continue to not notice him and Austin and Dylan would be proven wrong.

“You decide. The party’s this weekend, though.” Dylan slapped me twice on the back. “But I’m sure she’ll back out and not come.” His sarcastic tone caused my heart to dip into my belly.

“Anyway, we need to get going.” Dylan, twirling his index finger in a circle, indicating us. “Kitty said they can only hold off taking any cases for ten minutes before the county calls.”

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