Page 47 of Knot All is Crystal
As I scoop the food into his bowl, I grow more sure about my decision. “I’m going to get her number. Get to know her. What’s the worst that could happen?”
* * *
“What are you doing?”Trina asks, startling me from where I’m digging through the computer at the reception desk. “What are you looking for?”
“Uh…” I stutter out suspiciously. My brain isn’t fast enough to make up a lie. Trina narrows her eyes, knowing that whatever is about to come out of my mouth isn’t true, and my shoulders slump. “I was trying to find Crystal’s number, okay? I ran into her at the grocery store yesterday and meant to ask her for it, but I forgot.”
“So you were going to rifle through her file to find it?”
“Yes? Look, I know it’s wrong, but she met an Alpha, and if I want the chance to take her out and maybe be a part of her pack, which I know is getting ahead of myself, Trina, you don’t have to look at me like that, then I have to try now and sure it probably won’t go anywhere because she’s older than me and an Omega and what does an Omega need a Beta for, especially one like her because she’s so fucking incredible and I’m just a street rat, but I have been tattooing her for four years and I feel like I know her well and I feel like we could be good for one another and I just really want to see where this will go and I’m running out of time so can you please not fire me and let me have her number? Please?”
Trina places a hand on my shoulder. “Oh my God, Gage, fuckingbreathe,dude. That was probably the longest run-on sentence I’ve ever heard. You kicked my anxiety up like ten levels. Jesus Christ, I think I need a garden gummy now.” She scrubs her face with her hands. “I’m not surprised, Gage. I’m just surprised it took this long. You two have some crazy chemistry, and even though she comes in here looking like she’s steps away from ending it all, she leaves much lighter after talking to you. But you have to understand that if you do this, cross this line, and reach out to her, she may never come back. She may go to someone else for her tattoos, ruining that beautiful piece you’ve been carrying around for years, waiting for her to be ready for it. You have to decide if a chance with her romantically is worth the risk of never seeing her again.”
Never seeing her again feels like the worst thing that could ever happen to me.
But I don’t want to wait another three months for her to come back here for a cryptic tattoo.
“I’m willing to risk it,” I say quietly. “I’ve got good instincts, I think. I need to do this.”
Trina nods, leaning over me and pulling up Crystal’s file with a few taps of her fingers. “I hope you’re right because this is such an invasion of privacy to do this.”
My hands shake as I type her number into my phone and save it under her name, with a little cherry emoji beside it. She doesn’t know I started stocking only those little cherry hard candies after her second session because I noticed that she picked them out of the bowl of mixed flavors.
Oh shit, I’ve been down bad for her from the beginning, in retrospect.
It takes me ages, but I finally type the perfect opening text.
Hey. It’s Gage.
A masterpiece.
Wait. What if she knows more than one Gage? Fuck fuck fuck.
The tattoo artist.
With celiac.
I don’t know why I used that as a qualifier, you literally just learned that yesterday.
My dog is named Burger, which is funny, right, since most burgers aren’t gluten free
uh
anyways
hi
I nearly throwmy phone across the shop. I would unsend every single one of these messages if I could, but then she’d get the notification that I had unsent messages, and she’d probably wonder if I was a creep or something.
Do I want to look like an idiot or a creep?
Probably an idiot, right?
I don’t know many people who’d willingly go out with a creep, but everyone I know has dated idiots.
I’ve got no clients on the books this morning, so I get to spend it obsessively staring at those blue bubbles, hoping to see three little dots appear with her response.
“Gage,” Trina shouts. “We got a walk-in. You up for it?”
