Page 4 of Beautiful Lies
“It’s beautiful,” Eden said.
Eden saw beauty in the ugliness, but I guess she was referring to my design—a colorful Japanese dragon. I’d been chasing that dragon for years, but now the artwork would cover up the carved letters on my chest. SNITCH. Of all the things I’d been called in my life, I never expected to be that person.
“Tell me a happy story,” I said. Eden was a magician, and I was hoping she’d conjure one up out of thin air.
“Once upon a time, there was a boy,” she started. “A beautiful boy with dark hair and cerulean eyes. Let’s call him…” She tapped her chin and narrowed her eyes, pretending to think. “Connor Vincent. The boy grew up battling demons and when he got older, he became a dragon slayer. He’s brave and fierce and courageous.”
“I think you’re mixing up the brothers in this fairy tale.”
“Oh, well, his brother is all those things, too, but you’re the hero in this story.”
I was nobody’s hero. “Does this story have a happy ending?” I asked.
“Of course. But first, the hero needs to win back his lady love.”
My lady love… my first love, my first everything, had kicked me to the curb. She’d waited until I’d physically recovered, three weeks after my father’s funeral, a month after the night that had nearly cost me my life, and Eden and Killian’s lives. Ava told me I made her cry too much. Made her feel too much of everything—the good… but mostly the bad and the ugly.
“It’s too much, Connor. I can’t handle it anymore. You need to set me free.”
I couldn’t blame her. It was self-preservation on her part. But it was killing me that she’d moved on with someone new. “She still with Zeke?” I asked as if I didn’t already know.Go on, pour a little salt on my wounds.
Eden chewed on her lower lip. “Yeah.”
Zeke was a silver-spoon Ivy league graduate. Ava couldn’t have found anyone more different than me. But then, I guess that was the whole point.
“You should ask her on a date,” Eden said, taking a sip of her coffee.
A date. Like that would solve our problems. “You’re saying I should court Ava who is currently screwing your buddy Zeke?” Not to mention Ava wouldn’t even speak to me, let alone accept a date with me.
Eden tucked a lock of blonde hair behind her ear. “They’re more like friends with benefits if you ask me.”
Benefits I wasn’t currently getting. Not for lack of offers. But the look on Eden’s face when she stared at my chest… yeah, I couldn’t go there.
Hello, hand, we really need to stop meeting like this.
“Does he make her happy?” I asked, not sure why I was continuing down this torturous path.
“What they have is easy,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “Zeke is fun, and he’s cool to hang out with, but he isn’t the great love of her life. He’s a flicker, not a flame.”
Ever the optimist. “Yeah, well, she’s been burned by the same flame too many times. Now my girl is too scared to play with fire.”
Eden smiled triumphantly. “You called her your girl.”
She’d always be my girl. It didn’t matter who she was with or how long we were separated by time or distance, Ava would always be mine. I knew in my heart that nobody could ever love her the way I do. It simply wasn’t possible. Unfortunately, I’d fucked up too many times and that was what it always came back to. Our history was long, with moments of pure bliss, but the bad outweighed the good for her, and there was no way to wipe the slate clean and start fresh.
Fucking hell. Love hurt.
My chest tightened, and I took deep breaths, trying to fight through the pain. Not only the tattooing but the daily struggle of life as a recovering addict. It’s a journey of one baby step at a time and I was attempting to scale fucking Everest.
“Time for a break,” Jared said, wiping the blood off my chest. Removing his latex gloves, he let himself out and closed the door behind him, leaving me alone with Eden. I sat up on the table, wishing I could cover my chest so she wouldn’t have to look at it.
“I guess that wasn’t such a happy story, after all,” Eden said.
I mustered a smile for her. I needed a cigarette, but she stayed a little longer, chatting about happier things. Namely, a mural she’d been commissioned to paint in a boutique on Bedford Avenue.
“You’ll be able to give up the day job soon,” I said.
“That’s what Killian keeps saying. But I love working at the bar.” She slid out her phone and checked the time. “Sorry. I need to get to work.”
