Page 27 of You Found Me in the Dark
“I know,” I said quietly. “But I’m okay. I really am.”
The room fell into a momentary silence. Then Cam sighed and muttered under his breath, “You are gonna give me an ulcer, Wren.”
Reed snorted, “I second that.”
Harper raised her mug. “To ulcers.”
The boys walked over to clink their coffee mugs. I swear I have never felt so loved. I laughed softly and leaned back against the counter, heart still quietly racing beneath the calm.
20
REED
Being back at work after a few days off was always a strange feeling. The rhythmic buzzing of a coil machine is a hallmark of the tattoo studio. The sound was normally something that grounded me. But today? I’d redone the stencil on this guy’s forearm three times before I could get it on straight. My hands weren’t shaky, but my focus kept sliding sideways. I kept thinking back to last night. Back to the weight of her in my passenger seat. Her voice. Her eyes. Her lips.
Dax leaned against the doorway, arms crossed, like he had nothing to prove, and that’s because he didn’t. He was the owner, after all. A Native from a reservation just north of Sawyers Cove. He left around twenty years ago after his parents passed. Even though he left for school and business, he never truly left it behind. He was quiet, rooted, and steady. He was half white and half Native, and somehow both sides showed up in the way he carried himself. It was like he had been raised between two worlds and learned how to hold his ground in both.
His long black hair was down today, falling over his shouldersin thick, unbothered waves. The ends were still bleached, uneven, and sun-worn, something he had done a lifetime ago and never cared to fix. It suited him. He looked effortlessly cool at thirty-eight years old. His skin was golden and smooth, lightly freckled across the nose and cheekbones. But there was nothing soft about him. His jaw was sharp. His expression was sharper. His eyebrows were thick and dark, naturally angled in a way that made him look serious even when he wasn’t saying a word.
There was a toothpick in the corner of his mouth, twitching now and then as he chewed. It was the same habit he picked up when he tried to quit smoking some odd years ago and never let go of. His arms were crossed over his chest, and the black sleeves of his shirt were rolled to the elbows, revealing the bold, intricate ink wrapped around both forearms. His posture looked casual, but Dax never really relaxed. He always looked like he was waiting for something. Either waiting to speak or waiting for someone to screw up. After working alongside Dax for the past fourteen years, I was used to his unnerving presence.
He did not speak right away. He just looked at me with that familiar stare, the one that said he had been up since before the sun and had already thought through every move that might play out in the next hour. There was something unreadable in his eyes. Dax looked like trouble. And he wore it like it was his favorite thing in the world.
“Dude,” he said after I began peeling back the stencil. My client was finally content with how it looked.“You placed that design like 60 times. What’s going on with you?”
I explained to my client we were good to go, and he was welcome to get comfortable.
“Thanks, Reed. You don’t mind if I wear headphones, do you?” Tom was a regular who always wore headphones duringtattoos and, on occasion, even fell asleep. Yet every time he was in here, he was sure to ask if he was allowed to do so.
“Of course, man.”
Once his headphones were on and he was lying down with his arm out on the armrest, I grabbed a paper towel and began tattooing my client’s arm, mumbling a reply to Dax, “Rough night.”
Dax raised an eyebrow. “Rough how? Like fight-club rough or you-got-your-heart-kicked-in rough?”
I shot him a look. “Neither.”
“Uh huh.” He pushed off the door frame, taking a few steps into the room, arms still crossed across his chest. “You’re not bad at hiding stuff, Reed. Just… rusty. So what happened?”
I glanced over at the client—thankfully, his eyes were already closed—and dropped my voice. “Saw someone I didn’t expect to see doing something they shouldn’t have been doing. Someone who shouldn’t have been anywhere near the person I give a damn about.”
Dax blinked once and uncrossed his arms. He looked shocked. “Whoa. Wait. You give a damn about someone?”
“Don’t make it a thing.”
“Oh, it’sdefinitelya thing.” He grinned, but the tone sobered. “You alright?”
“I’m fine,” I said automatically. Then, quieter, “She’s the one I was worried about.”
Dax leaned on the counter, eyes narrowing. “She?”
I didn’t answer.
He held his hands up. “Alright, alright. No names. Got it. But let me guess, some dude from her past shows up, you step in, now she’s tangled up and you’re stuck feeling like you’re drowning in someoneelse’s storm.”
I paused. “Yeah. Something like that.”
Dax studied me for a second. “Is she yours?”
