Page 80 of Expressionate
“I love you, too,” she says, “but I need to tell yousomething.”
I move back, looking down at her. She bites her lip. I can feel her limbs shaking and I soothe her with a hand on the back of her head, stroking through the dark strands of her hair. “As long as you’re okay, I don’tcare.”
Love swallows. “He called me,” she says, her voice shaking. “You told me to be honest with you and I promised I would. No more lies, never again. I promised. I was going to tell you, but I wanted to wait until I was out of the hospital.” Her eyes are impossibly wide as she stares up atme.
“He called you? When?” I glare at the piece of shit as the head nurse directs him to be lifted onto astretcher.
“Last night,” Lovesays.
I look back at her. “Lastnight?”
She nods and then she buries her head against my chest. “I’ll never do it again,” she swears. “Because you’ll bethere.”
“That’s right,” I say, kissing her forehead. “I’ll always save you,Lovely.”
The short moments we stand pressed together aren’t long enough, but Trish finally manages to get back in the room, and when she sees the blood on the floor, along with the man being carried out, her shocked, horrified eyes meet mine. Then she turns and runs. I know exactly where she’s heading. And if Love weren’t in my arms right now, I’d join her. But if I get anywhere near Love’s stepmother right now, I’ll kill her. I hope Love’s sister does the rightthing.
Epilogue
Love
The sting sears against the inside of my wrist, but Tax holds me tight – his front to my back. It doesn’t actually hurt. It isn’t like I’ve never gotten a tattoo before. My entire back is covered in the scars of my past: the roots of my fucked up family tree and the flight of birds that circled around to my arm. No, tattooing doesn’t hurt. Sure, it feels like a pinprick of a concentrated burn scraping into my skin, but physical pain is nothing to the suffering I had endured in my own head. Still, though, Tax holdsme.
He holds me proudly. He holds me like I’m the one thing on Earth that can anchor him. I love it. I lovehim,and it feels so amazing to love someone likethis.
“Okay, so you’re coming then?” Tax’s new band manager, Brianne, repeats, her voice echoing loudly through the phone as she tries to be heard over the buzzing of the tattoogun.
“Yes,” Tax says. “Love and I will be there nextweek.”
“You’re going to be here for a few weeks,” Brianne reminds us. “What about your housing situation downthere?”
“Cross is staying behind for a week or two to finish out his current contract with the gym before he heads up. Trisha’s moving into Love’s apartment after it gets fixed up; it’ll be fine,” Taxsays.
Brianne isn’t new to the band scene – in fact, she’s a contact of Sarge’s and was representing him for a while before whatever happened to his hands. Tax told me there was some nerve damage in his fingers and he couldn’t play as well as he used to. But now his old manager is representing Tax and the guys. As she has been running their schedule, more and more venues across the nation have been added. They’ll likely be going on tour soon. They’ve gotten to know each other quite well—or enough for Tax to know that she may find listening in on our tattoo session annoying, but necessary since we have very little time for everything else they have todo.
We could have gotten the tattoos while we were in another city, but Tax wanted them now—before we left. He said it was so that no matter where I went, I would know—and likely everyone else who saw the tattoo would know—exactly who I belonged to. I smile at the older man as he continues stroking the needle over myskin.
“We’ll talk to you later, Bri,” Tax says. As soon as he hangs up, Cross’s name comes across the screen. Hegroans.
“Just answer it,” I say, bumping him with myshoulder.
“No moving,” Bill, the artist, says gruffly. I murmur a quick apology as Tax swipes his finger across thescreen.
“What do you want, man? I’m in the middle ofsomething.”
“I cut all my hours at the gym. I’m only teaching the self-defense course until we leave for New York,” he says over the speakerphone. “Ally’s packed and ready to go for nextweekend.”
I flinch as Tax stiffens against me—and not in the fun way. I’d love to say Tax’s sister was going to be around with us, but it just wasn’t fair to take a teenage girl to the big city and leave her all alone while Tax ran around doing his band stuff. I wouldn’t be able to hang out with her either since I would have to start focusing on my online editing and website design business. Even if online schooling was just as good as public, face-to-face schooling, and Taxwantedto take her, he knew it wasn’tright.
Apparently, she had known that too because several days after I came back from the hospital, she had come to him with a boarding school recommendation. Well, not boarding school—but a Governor’s school of Arts and Sciences closer to the Greenville area in South Carolina. It is only three hours from where we are currently—though it would be much farther when we head up to the Big Apple. She had been so excited to live in the dorms with other girls; even though I know Tax was worried, he had eventually agreed to sign the permissionpapers.
I crane my neck around and kiss Tax’s cheek. “She’ll be fine,” Ipromise.
“Is that Love?” Crossasks.
“Of course it is, numbnuts, who the fuck did you think it was?” Taxasks.
“Cool it, man, just a question. Besides, I wanted to talk to her,too.”
