Page 18 of Rose
She’d thrown a deal for tattoos and piercings in honor of her daughter’s birthday. No one knew the real reason, not the clients who filled her books, not the strangers posting about the sale. They thought it was just a marketing gimmick, something cute and clever. They didn’t know that this day marked the life and loss of the child she never got to hold for more than a few quiet moments.
She couldn’t celebrate Willow in Heaven, but she could celebrate her through ink, through beauty, through the thing she loved most.
The knock at her door broke her focus.
She looked up, watching as the door cracked open, revealing the one person who didn’t need an invitation.
A’Mazi.
Technically fraternal twins, but anyone who saw them side by side would call them a matched set. Same warm brown skin, same golden-brown eyes that looked like melted honey in sunlight. A’Mazi stood tall at 6’5, his body carved from lean muscle and ink. Long locs flowed down his back curls near his roots hinting at an overdue retwist, but his edge-up was razor sharp, facial hair framed his sharp features, and his thick, perfectly arched eyebrows somehow drew the most attention—women tripped over themselves for those damn brows.
But the burn on the side of his face—that faint mark forever etched in his skin—that’s what stood out most to her. A reminder of the night he walked through fire to pull her from the flames.
Tattoos covered him from his neck to his legs, most of them done by Ahzii herself when he didn’t feel like tattooing his own skin.
Art was the one thing they’d shared since they were little.
Life never handed them peace.
They grew up bouncing from foster home to foster home in Houston after their parents died in a car accident when they were eight. But they never found love in those houses. Only people who saw them as checks and chores. By fifteen, they’d had enough. They ran away, choosing the streets over cold beds and colder hearts.
A’Mazi hustled in the streets to keep them fed. Ahzii worked at a run-down diner, stealing scraps of food and scraping together what little change she made to wash their clothes at the laundromat. They made sure they went to school every day, blending in so no one knew they spent their nights sleeping wherever they could.
They survived like that for months, until someone finally saw them.
Ms. Bianca Lewis, their English teacher.
She caught on—the tired eyes, the worn clothes, the hunger they tried to hide.
They begged her not to call Child Protective Services. Being homeless was one thing, but being separated? That was worse.
They’d never been apart. Not since they came out of the womb minutes apart.
Bianca listened. Instead of reporting them, she opened her home. She gave them a hot meal, a warm bed, and for the first time, love that didn’t come with conditions.
Bianca had suffered miscarriages, loss after loss that stole her dream of motherhood. Her husband passed from an illness, leaving her grieving and alone. She thought love was something she'd never feel again.
But when A’Mazi and Ahzii walked into her life, she realized God sent her the family she’d been praying for.
Eventually, she adopted them.
And from that moment on, Bianca wasn’t just their English teacher.
She was their mother.
The first person who ever showed them what love really looked like.
“Hey, Shug.”
A’Mazi stepped inside and wrapped his arms around her from behind. The steady buzz of the tattoo gun didn’t falter as Ahzii leaned into him, comforted by his presence even as she kept working.
He released her and sank onto the couch, letting her finish.
When the tattoo was done, Ahzii applied the aftercare, her movements smooth and practiced. The client thanked her softly before heading out to pay Taylor at the front.
Quiet settled between them as Ahzii began cleaning her station, wiping down the chair, tossing away used gloves, spraying the counters like muscle memory.
A’Mazi watched her, concern tightening his jaw before he finally spoke.
