Page 38 of Muse (Fighting Fate)

I looked over at Dean, watching him talk to a couple of hotties. He always seemed to be able to maintain a slight distance from them. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but now I was curious how he did it without pissing them off.

Leah touched my arm softly, her fingers lingering with intent. “Do you want to go somewhere more private?”

I knocked back my third beer, feeling the beginning of a slight buzz. Well fucking shit. This was a situation I hadn’t been in before. I sat forward and sighed, rubbing my hand across my forehead. “Sorry. I can’t.”

I felt her shift beside me. “Oh. Is there someone else?”

Yes. No. I didn’t fucking know. “I guess you could say that.” I glanced back at her to make sure she wasn’t about to go all psycho on my ass, but she only had her lips pressed into a defeated smile.

“She’s a lucky girl.”

I wished someone would tell her that. I shrugged, suddenly wanting to be anywhere but there. “Thanks for the chat, Leah. I’m glad you enjoyed the show.” Shoving off the couch, I looked over at Matt who had some redhead sitting on his lap. “I’m out of here.”

He looked surprised, but I didn’t stop to explain. I just wanted to be gone. Pushing my way through the crowd, I hit the pavement and just kept going.

I had no idea where I was heading, but when I turned onto 2nd St, I had an idea. Walking two more blocks, I saw the lights on and smiled.

Dan looked up when I pushed through the door and laughed. “I wondered when you’d be coming in. Don’t tell me you’re finally going to do it.”

I looked around the cozy tattoo shop. Dan was Matt’s older brother’s best friend. “Yep. You still got the design?”

“Fuck yeah I do. You wanna do it now?” He was grinning from ear to ear now.

Matt, Dean, Aiden and I had designed a ‘Fighting Fate’ tattoo when we’d first started the band. We had intentions of getting it at the same time when we finally made it. I figured now was as good of a time as any. “Yeah, I do.”

“Awesome, man. I did some work on it when Paul told me you were getting offers shoved down your throats.” He went behind the counter and opened a drawer, pulling out a file. He slid it across the bench top. “What do you think?”

I looked down at his drawing. It was a tribal type design with hidden music notes and our band name woven into it. It was still basically what we’d designed, but a hundred times better – more intricate and meaningful. “I love it.”

“Where are you thinking?”

“Arm. I’d like to eventually extend it down and have a full sleeve.”

He nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, man. I can do that. You could even extend it up over your shoulder a bit and down over your pec. That would look fucking awesome.”

I nodded, his enthusiasm jumping to me like wildfire. Fuck yeah.

I followed him into the back room where a couple of other guys were already working. Dan slapped one guy on the back who was sitting back, watching. “Hey guys. You remember Jace, Pauly’s little brother’s mate?”

They all looked at me. One of the artists lifted an eyebrow. “You in the band?”

I nodded. “Yeah, we just finished a gig down the road.”

“Pauly says you’re going to be touring with The Dark Hybrid. That’s gotta be pretty intense.”

My gaze flickered to Dan as he flittered around, getting everything ready. “Fuck yeah. Those guys are insane.”

“Yeah, but they’re fucking awesome,” Dan said. “Come on. Sit your ass down. I’ve been dying to do this for years.”

Chapter 21

Mia

By the time Sunday night came around, I was quite pleased with the fact that I’d managed to avoid Aiden and Jace since Friday. Not that it was difficult. Aiden didn’t come home on Friday night after their gig, and Saturday, Mom said he and the guys had some band stuff to go over with Mr. Thomas - Dean’s dad. He’d been more or less acting as their manager since everything turned chaotic.

Other than that, I didn’t know where they’d been, or what they’d been doing. Even though it kind of drove me a little crazy, I preferred it that way.

Mom had gone out to a cooking class she’d enrolled in a few months earlier, and I still didn’t know where Aiden was, so I was home alone and taking advantage of being able to play my own kind of music. Loud.

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