Of course none of my issues had been helped when right about the time Derek had proved to me that men were not to be trusted, my dad had decided that he was bored with my mom and that he wanted to trade her in for a newer model. It didn’t matter that we were a loving, caring, rock-solid family unit that helped and supported each other. No, what mattered was a pair of perky boobs and a toothy smile that made him feel ten years younger. He didn’t think twice about breaking our family apart, and I was left with a bone-deep understanding that men always picked the easy choice. If you put a pretty girl, someone that was obtainable and glossy in front of them, their penis was ultimately going to make a choice for them, and that sucked.
Even though I knew he wasn’t for me, I had built an extravagant fantasy around who I thought Nash was back in the day. I liked that he was into art, thought the allure of him painting graffiti and being into tattoos and piercings was dangerous and cool. Most teenage girls did. I thought he was different, thought the way he interacted with me at our lockers made him above the way the rest of the typical teenage boys in our school treated me. When I found out how wrong I was, it had shattered me and just dug the pit where my sense of self and all the shattered pieces of confidence had fallen even deeper. It had taken becoming a nurse, finding a greater purpose, to enable me to go into that deep, dark hole and get all those fragments of myself out. I wasn’t entirely whole, but I was a far sight better off than I had been as a teenager.
Faith was right. Ford women didn’t deal well with heartache, and I was loath to admit that one drunken kiss from Nash had more of an effect on me, got more of a response out of me, than all three months of the gentle wooing Derek had offered me. I was shrewd enough to know that wasn’t good, and I needed to take Faith’s stern warning and steer clear of him. Nash Donovan wasn’t good for my sense of self or good for keeping my life in the neat and orderly, straightforward way it was running now.
CHAPTER 5
Nash
I was running on empty and getting increasingly short-tempered. Instead of working noon to seven, I was having to go in at nine and stay until eight or later to make up for all the people I had screwed over by skipping their appointments in the midst of my mental breakdown the previous week. My appointment book was always pretty full, so trying to reschedule an entire week’s worth of work wasn’t just a nightmare for me, but also had Cora ready to choke me.
I was also trying to spend each lunch break visiting Phil, which meant there wasn’t a moment of downtime in my entire day. He wasn’t doing so great. His lungs had water in them and one of the pain medications they had him on wasn’t agreeing with his stomach, so he was having a hard time keeping anything down. It was hard to see him like that, like he was just wasting away right before my eyes. Seeing him fading away from me had hundreds of questions rattling around in my mind. I really wanted to pin him down and get the story from him. The shock had worn off some and now I wanted answers. I wasn’t scared of his response anymore. There was no way Phil was ashamed or unhappy that I was of his blood.
I could’ve just hounded my mom until she gave the details up, but dealing with her was always a nightmare and I didn’t know that she could be bothered to tell the truth. Cora mentioned that her dad seemed to be privy to the insider information and she was totally open to prying the story out of him if I wanted. Her dad and Phil had been enlisted in the navy together years ago and had maintained a tight bond over the years.
I told her to hold off because I needed to give the people who’d been involved, who’d let me live a lie for so long, the right to explain their decisions. However, if Phil didn’t decide to stop stonewalling me soon, I was going to take her up on the offer and not feel one ounce of guilt over it.
I was the only one in the shop. I had to finish a zombie Hello Kitty tattoo on a girl’s leg. I was so over zombies. Every day it was zombie Elvis, zombie Marilyn, zombie Harry Potter … it was all zombies all the time. I mean I always made sure to give one hundred percent attention and dedication to every tattoo I put on a client. I owed them nothing less considering they would be sporting my artwork forever, but really I wondered if a lot of the younger clientele who ended up in my chair gave any thought to the passing trends. In five years zombie Elvis wasn’t going to seem nearly as cool as it did now, so I had to make sure it was at least an awesomely done tattoo even if the subject matter wouldn’t always be relevant.
I was just finishing up and looking at the clock that sat on the front desk to see if I had time to go to the hospital, and was surprised when the front door to the shop swung open and Rowdy came strolling in. Rowdy St. James looked like a modern-day James Dean. He had a retro-cool vibe that was all his own and he was one of the funniest guys I had ever met. He made the atmosphere in the shop more lighthearted, since Rule could be such a dick and Cora liked to cause drama and be in everybody’s business. I lifted an eyebrow at him and finished wrapping the girl and her zombie up.
“What’s up, man?”
The client paid and told me how deliriously happy she was with her zombified kitty as I showed her out and locked the door behind her.
“You’ve been pulling some crazy hours lately, dude.”
To make his point even more obvious I yawned and had to crack my neck.
“It’s my own fault. I shouldn’t have been acting like such a douche canoe last week.”
“That was some heavy shit to deal with.”
“Yeah, but I’m a grown-ass man. I was acting like a baby.”
“No one blames you.”
No they didn’t, but they should have. It took Saint showing up and telling me to pull my head out of my ass to see beyond my own churning feelings and Rule strong-arming me into acting right.
“What are you doing here so late?” I asked as I started to straighten my station up.
“I was looking for you. I stopped at the hospital to see Phil and he mentioned the new shop. That’s pretty cool.”
“Yeah. I have no idea what I’m supposed to do about it, though.”
He chuckled and leaned on the front desk while I wiped things down with strong antiseptic.
“Well, I don’t know shit about hiring a new staff, and thinking you’re going to find someone to replace Cora is a pipe dream. That mold didn’t just break, it got shattered into a million pieces on the floor. The world couldn’t handle more than one of her.”
I laughed because he was right, and stood up so I could crack my back. I sounded like I was falling apart.
“True.”
“I know a guy, he does custom renovations and stuff like that. He’s a good dude, one of my clients actually. I just wanted to let you know I had a name when it comes to getting the place ready to be turned into a tattoo shop.”
“Who is it?”
“Zeb Fuller.”
I had heard the name before. Zeb was a fellow car guy. He had an old International that he took to the same mechanic I used whenever the beast had something wrong with it I couldn’t handle on my own.
“Cool. I’ll keep him in mind. I haven’t even made it down there yet. Between trying to catch up here and spend time with Phil, I’m just running in circles.”
Not to mention even though I knew she wanted me to steer clear of her, I was still silently searching for Saint every time I stepped inside the hospital doors. So far I hadn’t had any luck, but that didn’t stop me from looking for her.
“Yeah, I’ve noticed that, and Rule is all in super-groom mode. Oh, how things have changed around this place in the last few years. I remember when we were all about a good time and a few cold ones.”