Page 18 of Exposed Ink

“What did Casey do?”

“There was nothing she could do. Apparently, what Kinsley says goes.” She shrugs. “Casey left upset, saying she would go somewhere else, but she hasn’t had the time. Which is for the best. You know I love her, but you wouldn’t catch me getting a unicorn tattooed on me, and I’m glad she didn’t get one either. I’m hoping she’ll change her mind before she makes it to the city to get it done.”

“What would you get?” I ask curiously.

“I don’t know.” She shrugs. “It would need to be something that I would want to look at every day, and when I’m older, it would make me feel something.”

“Who raised you to be so wise?” I joke.

“Apparently not you, Mr. Google,” she sasses back. “Now, let’s go to breakfast. I’m starved.”

As she runs back up the stairs to get ready, my eyes catch on the picture hanging on the wall, and an idea forms. The shop is closed today and tomorrow, but Tuesday, I’ll call them first thing and make an appointment. Kinsley might have gotten me that round, but I’m in this to win it.

* * *

“You’re back again?”Kinsley gasps, her eyes volleying from me to Scott, who’s grinning from ear to ear. “I thought I told you?—”

“I booked it under his name!” Scott says, lifting his hands placatingly.

“It said Evan!”

“No, Evans,” I correct with a smirk. “That’s my last name. Shane Evans.”

Kinsley glares, and I stifle my laugh.

“I already told you that I won’t ink?—”

“Anything that’s not meaningful. I know. I remember. And I have something meaningful.” I pull out my phone and click on the picture I took of the painting this morning before I left to come here. “I want this inked on my arm.”

“What is that?” Kinsley asks, furrowing her brows in confusion.

“It’s a picture of me and my daughter,” I admit. “She drew it for me on her first day of school. She had been home with me for years, but then she turned four, and everyone said I had to put her in school. She wasn’t having it, said she only wanted to be with me, but I told her she’d have fun. She told me she hated me for making her go …”

I choke up, remembering the day like it was yesterday. Sending my little girl to school was the hardest day of my life. Trusting someone that wasn’t family to care for my little girl sucked.

“I cried for a good hour,” I admit, my voice filled with emotion as I recall that day. “I didn’t have to work, so I was waiting at the door for her when she got out. I had already convinced myself that if she hated it, I would never send her back, education be damned.”

I chuckle, but Kinsley doesn’t smile. I can’t read her expression, so I keep going. “She came barreling out of the school, her little pigtails flying behind her. She beelined straight for me and hugged my legs. And then she looked up at me and said she had so much fun and couldn’t wait to go back.”

I tap on my phone and show her the picture again. “When we got home, she pulled this picture out of her backpack and said it was for me. Her teacher told them to draw what they loved the most, and she drew me … well, us.”

I point to the stick figures and then explain the rest of the picture. “That’s the station. I was young when Taylor was born and only had my parents to help since her mom wasn’t ready to be a mom.”

She still really isn’t, but I’m not about to open that can of worms. Kinsley just wants to know that my tattoo will be meaningful, not participate in a therapy session.

“The guys at the station are like family, so Taylor practically grew up there, considering them her uncles and aunts. When she showed me the picture, she said she loved me and I was her favorite person. And to be honest,” I say with a shrug, “she’s mine. She’s seventeen now, and she has her moments, but in a lot of ways, since she was born when I was eighteen, we’ve grown up together, so I thought it would be cool to have a piece of her on me. Eventually, she’ll go off to college and one day get married, but this picture will always remind me that from the beginning, it was just her and me against the world.”

I glance up at Kinsley. Her eyes are glossy, but she quickly closes them, and when she opens them, she’s back to her emotionless state.

“So, what do you say?” I ask. “Is it meaningful enough for you to tattoo on me?”

“Yeah,” she whispers. “I’ll tattoo it on you.”

SEVEN

Kinsley

I don’t knowwhat I was expecting Shane to say when he pulled up the child’s artwork on his phone, but it wasn’t that. Honestly, it didn’t click in my head at first. I was so frazzled by having him in my shop again that when he showed me the artwork, it didn’t even compute that it was a child’s artwork, let alonehischild’s artwork, until he started speaking.

---