Page 46 of At the Edge with You

As an adult, I’m just fucking annoyed.

I may not be able to give her the luxury her parents gave her growing up, or what she’s accustomed to, but I can make her happy. I know I can. This week has only reinforced that for me. I can’t let her family win anymore. I have to fight for us. I didn’t when I was younger, probably because I thought she thought the way they did. But that’s not the case anymore.

She wants me.

I want her.

But I’ve been keeping my distance.

Call it self-preservation if you must, and I feel like a damn idiot for it. We still go at it about things for the Thistle, but I don’t hang around anymore like I had been, just to be in her vicinity. When she’s coaching, I don’t allow myself to act like I have something to fix just to watch her, and when I saw her at the game last night, I didn’t go up to the table.

Bea made sure I knew Fable was pissed about that, but I ignored her, needing the sanctuary that my apartment gave me after the game. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t watching her, drinking in her tight black leggings and how adorably the ribbon in her hair fell along her temples. But I kept my distance. I hate letting people control my feelings. Well…I take that back. I like the feelings that Fable inspires, but allowing her parents this hold over me, yeah, it’s fucking torture.

And I’m tired of letting them have so much power.

The buzzing of the tattoo gun settles my mind as Hazel drags the machine along my back. She’s touching up a few spots, and I welcome the sting of the needle. My arms hang beside me as I lean my face into the table she has here. I’m the only one she’ll still tattoo since she closed up shop. She’s been dealing with arthritis in her hands and doesn’t feel her work is up to par. For me, her work is as stunning as she is, but she doesn’t listen.

As she moves to my shoulder, I lay my face on the table and watch her. Like me, Hazel is covered neck to toe. Her hair ispulled back in a high bun as she concentrates, her brown eyes trained on the skin she holds and works on. I take in all the tattoos she has, and I smile. When I was younger, she made me my own tattoo gun out of pens and would let me draw all over her. My grandfather did all her work, and she did his and mine. When he wasn’t doing drugs, he was the light of her life, but addiction is a disease no one can understand unless they come face-to-face with it.

Mom told me once that Hazel isn’t the mom she had, that losing her husband ruined her, but all I see is a woman who loves me more than anything in this world. She has always been in my corner, and her love has never faltered. I know she wanted me to follow in her footsteps when I came back after my injury, but I have the artistic abilities of a three-year-old.

Hell, a three-year-old may draw better than me.

But instead of being upset, she supported my goals for the Ice Thistle.

I let my eyes drift shut as she drags a cloth along my skin, loving the pain she causes me. It almost distracts me from thinking of Fable.

Okay, it doesn’t, but I can at least try to act like it does.

“You’ve been quiet, my dearest.”

Even with all the hectic thoughts swirling in my head, my lips tip up at her endearment. She’s always called me that, and I don’t know why I love it so much, but I do. “What’s going on in that mind of yours?”

I don’t answer right away as she continues to run the gun along my shoulder blade. I swallow hard, relishing the pain of the needles along the curve of my skin.

“Or better for you,who’son that mind of yours?”

I grin at that, and I don’t have to look back to see her smirking. “I almost kissed her,” I admit, and the gun stops. “But Elena interrupted us.”

She tsks, and when the gun starts again, she mutters, “I hate that woman.”

“She said that Kitty needed her, but then she dropped Fable off at the Thistle like three minutes later. Elena gave me a look I swear her face only forms for me, somewhere between disdain and disgust, and I know she was going at Fable.”

“About what?”

“I don’t know what we looked like, but I wanted to kiss her and she wanted the same. I’m sure it didn’t look innocent.”

Hazel giggles softly. “You’ve always looked at her like nothing in this world could compare.”

“Because nothing can,” I admit softly, feeling very exposed. “But Nana, I could see it all over Fable’s face. She was pissed at her mom, but then she looked at me with guilt in her eyes. Like she knew I would never be enough.”

I’m surprised how easily that confession rolls off my tongue. Being under Hazel’s needle is therapeutic for me, and I need her advice. I have friends, but the relationship I share with my girls is something special. Hazel tsks again, shaking her head. “That’s not true.” Hazel rubs the cloth along my skin once more. “She isn’t pliable anymore, JT. She got out from underneath them.”

“And left.”

“But she’s back.”

I chew on my bottom lip. “But what if I’m not good enough for her?”

---