Shattered Ties Read online

  I raised a hand in greeting. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” the guy grumbled.

  Okay then. It looked like this guy wasn’t up for much conversation.

  I got comfortable on my seat as Rick applied the outline, and then he had the guy check it out in the mirror. It was the first good look I’d seen of the guy, and I had to admit that he was scary as fuck. He had a long beard and even longer hair that was tied into a ponytail at the base of his skull. A bandanna covered much of his head. Both of his arms were covered in ink as well as the side of his neck. When he stood next to Rick, he was several inches over Rick’s six feet four inches. Between his size and his appearance, he was one scary dude. We never questioned clientele, but I would have bet my paycheck that he was a biker and not the ride-for-fun-on-the-weekends kind of guy. This guy was the hardcore biker-gang type. There were a few of those gangs just north of us, and we saw them from time to time. They always made me nervous, but Rick didn’t seem to mind them.

  “Look good?” Rick asked.

  “Yeah,” Wendell said as he settled back onto the table.

  It was a cool piece that would take more than one appointment to complete. It was a dragon wrapped around a sword that started at his shoulders and stopped just above his pants line.

  I paid close attention as Rick dipped the tip of his gun into the black ink and started the outline. It would take a while to trace it, probably most of this appointment, if not all.

  Outlines weren’t that hard to do, so I started to get bored as time passed. Wendell never once flinched as the ink went under his skin, even when it was over his spine. I didn’t have any tattoos on my back, but I knew a lot of customers would complain of discomfort when they had tattoos in that area. It was the second-worst spot after feet.

  Two and a half hours later, the outline was complete. Even without any shading or coloring, it looked amazing. I stood and walked back to the front counter to start closing up as Rick finished with the guy. As soon as he was out the door, I locked it behind him and started shutting off the lights.

  “Do you know who that was?” Rick asked.

  “Not a clue. Why?”

  “That was one of the leaders of the gang a few towns over. He’s bad news.”

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  Rick gave me a mysterious smile. “I have my ways. Good night, Jesse.”

  I had often wondered if Rick was part of some gang, but I never had the guts to ask him. We weren’t located in the best part of town, but as far as I knew, there had never been even one break-in. Something told me that had to do with Rick’s connections to the gang world. I waved good night as he let me out of the side door before he locked it behind me.

  Once I was in my Jeep, I pulled my phone from my pocket to check my messages. I had a few from Andy and one from Emma. She’d sent it while I was watching Rick.

  Emma: Dear Lord, my mother is having some stupid fancy dinner, and I have to go. Why couldn’t you have let me drown? It would’ve been kinder.

  Me: That’s not funny. Sorry you were stuck at a party all night. :P

  She replied back almost immediately.

  Emma: It’s not the fun kind of party. I have to pretend I care as these pompous asshats go over and over their achievements. I’m trying to think of an excuse to go to bed. I feel a migraine coming on. ;)

  Me: You could always tell them you have a date with a surfer.

  Emma: I thought you didn’t go on dates.

  Me: I don’t, but I might make an exception for you.

  Emma: Well…you could always invite me over for dinner tomorrow. I’ll help you deal with your mom’s boyfriend.

  I frowned. I refused to think of Mark as my mom’s boyfriend. He was simply some asshole who wanted to visit. I also didn’t want Emma to come to my house. I wasn’t ashamed of living in a trailer, but I didn’t want to give her a reason to look down on me.

  Me: As tempting as that is, I can’t. We could meet up afterward though if you want. It’ll give me an excuse to leave.

  Emma: Works for me. Want to meet at that burger place again?

  Me: Sounds like a plan. Night, Emma.

  Emma: Sweet dreams.

  Yeah, there was no doubt I would have sweet dreams tonight that would feature a certain strawberry blonde in them.

  My mom knocked softly on my door before opening it. “Jesse, Mark is here.”

  “Great,” I mumbled as I shut off my stereo. Might as well get this over with.

  I stood and walked down the hallway to the kitchen. Mark and my mom were already sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for me.

  Mark stood and held out his hand as I walked to the table. “It’s nice to meet you, Jesse.”

  “Likewise,” I lied as I shook his hand and sat down.

  I looked him over as he took the seat across from me. He looked out of place in our small trailer. He was wearing a dress shirt with a tie and slacks. I noticed that his shoes were black and polished when I sat down. The guy screamed money, and I instantly disliked him because of it.

  “Who wants to say grace?” my mother asked.

  I stayed silent. I hated saying grace, but it was something that my mother was adamant about.

  “I will,” Mark piped up.

  “Jesse, bow your head,” my mother scolded.

  I rolled my eyes as I lowered my head, and Mark started the prayer.

  “Heavenly Father, I want to thank you for the blessings we have received, for the food in front of us, for the roof above our head, but most of all, for blessing me with the presence of the beautiful woman beside me. Amen.”

  I looked up to see my mother blushing. Give me a break. This guy was a total suck-up.

  “That was wonderful, Mark. Thank you.”

  “My pleasure,” Mark said as he picked up the bowl of salad and used the tongs to put some of it on his plate. “So, your mother tells me that you’re enrolled at Hamrick. How do you like it so far?”

  “It’s fine,” I replied, not wanting to discuss my life with this stranger.

  “Just fine? People would murder to be enrolled there.”

  “If they want to be enrolled with a bunch of stuck-up assholes, then it’s the place for them. For me, it’s boring.”

  The table went silent. Neither my mother nor Mark knew what to say to that.

  “So,” my mother said, trying to find something to say, “why don’t you tell Jesse what you do, Mark? I’m sure he’d love to hear about it.”

  “I work as a mine safety inspector. I go into the mines and make sure that everything is up to regulation. I’m usually in West Virginia or Kentucky, but the office brought me out to California for a few months to help them update some of the regulations and train new employees.”

  “So, you won’t be here long?” I asked, hopeful that he would be gone soon so that I didn’t have to deal with him.

  “I will be here for another month or two, and then I head back to West Virginia.”

  “I thought people in West Virginia had accents. Why don’t you have one?” I asked. I could hear a bit of a twang to his voice, but nothing like they had on TV.

  He laughed. “I’m from Northern West Virginia. Our accents aren’t as noticeable as people from the Southern part of the state.”

  “I see. Do you miss home?” I asked, hoping that he did and would decide to go home early.

  “I do. I travel a lot, but West Virginia will always be home. I have to admit that this is the farthest I’ve been away from home, and it’s a bit of a shock. It’s fall now in West Virginia, and I keep expecting to see the leaves on the trees changing colors.”

  My mother smiled. “I bet it’s beautiful there this time of year.”

  “It is. You’ll have to go there sometime and see it for yourself. We could spend a weekend, just driving around.”

  “That would be wonderful. I grew up in Kentucky, and I miss seeing the leaves change,” my mother said excitedly.

  Whoa, wait a minute. Why are th
ey talking about my mom going to West Virginia? It was clear across the country.

  “Why would you ever fly all the way over there to look at leaves? Google a few pictures, and call it a day,” I grumbled.

  “Don’t be rude, Jesse.”

  “What? I’m just saying that it’s stupid to go that far away for a weekend. How are you planning on paying for the plane ticket? You have a secret hooker fund that I don’t know about?”

  “Jesse, enough!” my mother said as she shot daggers at me.

  I stayed quiet through the rest of dinner, listening as my mom and Mark told stories about people they worked with. I was bored out of my mind, and I was anxious to meet up with Emma. I’d texted her earlier this morning to tell her to be ready when I texted her tonight. I planned on suddenly remembering that we had a date as an excuse to make a quick escape from Mark.

  My mind started to wander back to the beach and Emma, but I snapped back to the real world when Mark mentioned the word date. It seemed he was planning on taking my mother someplace fancy the following night.

  “Don’t you have to work?” I asked my mom.

  “I can have Lynette cover for me.”

  “And lose the money? You know we can’t afford to take days off,” I replied.

  I watched as my mother’s face turned pink. I felt bad for embarrassing her, but this guy couldn’t walk in here and screw everything up for us. We needed money too bad for my mom to start taking days off.

  “I’ll figure something out,” my mom said.

  No, she won’t. She’d go out on her date, and our electricity would get shut off or some shit like that.

  I turned to look at Mark. “Listen, I’m not trying to be an ass here, but you can’t just walk in here and throw everything into chaos. Unlike you, my mom and I can’t afford the finer things in life. We have to work constantly to keep this craphole we live in. I don’t know what game you’re playing with her, but try to remember that as you sweep her off her feet.”

  “That’s enough!” my mother yelled.

  She was mad, madder than I’d ever seen her.

  “I know that you don’t like me, Jesse, but it’s not my intention to come in here and then just disappear. I really like your mom, and if you two need money, all you need to do is ask,” Mark said calmly.

  “No one just hands out money. Try again,” I replied.

  “If I get to spend more time with your mother, then I’ll give you both every dime I have.”

  I snorted. “Whatever. I’m out of here.”

  My mother called my name as I grabbed my keys, but I ignored her. I needed to get out of here. I texted Emma and told her to meet me, and then I pulled out of my driveway.

  I had to wait a few minutes in Joe’s parking lot for her to show up since she had to driver farther than I did. As soon as she pulled in, I hopped out of my Jeep and walked to her door. I opened it and pulled her out. I hugged her as soon as her feet hit the ground.

  “Um, hi?” she questioned.

  “Don’t ask. Let’s eat.” I’d barely touched my food at home, and I was starving.

  “Okay…” she said.

  I took her hand and led her into the diner. We sat in the same booth as before. We both stayed silent until after the waitress had come to take our orders.

  “I take it the dinner went bad?” she asked.

  “Yeah, you could say that. They were talking about leaves and dates and all kinds of bullshit stuff.”

  “Leaves?”

  “Yeah, he wants her to fly to his place in West Virginia, so they can look at the fall leaves or some crap like that. It’s complete bullshit. This guy lives thousands of miles away, and he acts like they can have a real relationship. As soon as she falls for him, he’s going to pack up and go back home. All he’s going to do is hurt her.”

  “If he wants her to go to West Virginia, maybe he’s serious about her. Maybe he wants her to go with him. Did you ever think about that?”

  Actually, I hadn’t. The thought of her moving all the way across the country for some guy was ridiculous. My mom was smarter than that. I stopped and thought about the way she’d looked at him at dinner. Maybe she really is that stupid.

  “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. How was your party last night?”

  She groaned and dropped her head to the table. “It was awful. I could barely fit in the room with all the overly inflated egos in there. At least Todd and Lucy were there with their parents, so I had someone to talk to.”

  “Todd was there?” I asked.

  “Yeah, and it would have been nice if my mom and his mom hadn’t tried to play matchmaker all night. And Todd went right along with it. I could have smacked him.”

  “Do you like him?”

  “Todd? Yeah, he’s a nice guy. I just wish he’d tell his mom to back off.”

  “I meant like him as in like him. I could have sworn you had a crush on him that first day.”

  Her face flushed. “I did have a crush on him then.”

  “Did? What changed your mind?”

  She picked up her napkin and started shredding it. “You.”

  “Me? What did I do?”

  “You’re different, and I don’t know. I guess my like switched from him to you.”

  “So, you like me?” I teased, but secretly, I was on cloud nine.

  “Oh, shut up. I don’t need to deal with someone else with an overinflated ego. I have enough of them on my side of town.”

  “You like me,” I sang, causing her to laugh.

  “Oh my god. Yes, I like you. Happy?”

  “Delirious,” I teased as the waitress put our food on the table.

  “Why did you kiss me?” she asked as she picked up a fry.

  “Why’d you kiss me?”

  “Are we back to this again? I didn’t kiss you. You kissed me.”

  “Nope. I put my lips on yours. You did the kissing,” I said.

  She threw a fry at me. “Fine, I kissed you, but you kissed me the second time.”

  “True, but we’re focusing on the first time.”

  “Your lips were right there. What did you expect me to do? Lick you?”

  “I wouldn’t turn you down if you offered.”

  “Of course you wouldn’t. You’re a guy.”

  I just grinned at her as I started eating.

  “Stop grinning at me. This isn’t funny.”

  “Actually, it is,” I said through a mouthful of food.

  “So, we know I like you, but you never said if you like me.”

  I looked at her, really looked at her—not at her outside appearance but at the person she was. Contrary to the assumptions I’d made when I first saw her, she wasn’t the stuck-up princess that I’d expected. Instead, she was turning out to be one of the sweetest and most down-to-earth people I’d ever met. She didn’t care about her parents’ money or the fancy parties. She was just a seventeen-year-old girl trying to live a normal life in an unusual situation.

  Before this moment, I thought of her in a way that I knew I shouldn’t, but it took me until just now, when she’d flat-out asked me, to realize that I actually cared about this girl.

  Apparently, Jesse planned on dragging this out. I waited impatiently as he studied me as if I were a science project coming to life.

  “Well, do you?” I asked when I couldn’t stand it any longer.

  He smiled. “What do you think?”

  “If I knew the answer to that, I wouldn’t be asking. You’re a hard guy to read.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m practically an open book.”

  I snorted. “Sure you are. Stop avoiding the question.”

  He leaned back in his chair and looked at me. “I’m not sure what to say to you. I think that if we both felt something, this could go south fast. There are too many people out there who wouldn’t like the fact that we were… something more than friends.”

  “Since when do you care what others think of you?” I countered
.

  “Oh, I don’t. I just don’t see you dealing with crap just for me.”

  “I don’t think that we would be able to tell anyone—at least not for a while. I’m seventeen for a little longer, and I have to listen to my mom, or I’m shit out of luck. I don’t think my dad would care who I’m with, but he’s never around to tell me.”

  “Neither of us have much of a father figure, do we?” he asked.

  “At least I know my dad. Yours kind of just disappeared,” I said sadly.

  “Don’t act so sad about it. As far as I’m concerned, his douchery is a blessing. Would I really have wanted to know a guy who abandoned his family?”

  “That’s true,” I said thoughtfully. “You wouldn’t be half the guy you are now if he were around.”

  “Are you saying I’m a good guy?” he teased.

  “I am. Underneath all the tattoos and bad attitude, you’re a pretty decent guy.”

  “Wow. Since we’re sharing our feelings and all that warm and fuzzy crap, I guess I’ll answer your question.”

  We’d gotten completely off track, and I hadn’t even noticed.

  “Here is my vague answer. I think there’s something here, but I don’t know what it is just yet. Let’s just see where this goes, okay?”

  That was a fair answer. We were both moving into this too fast, and I didn’t think it was a good idea to put a label on whatever we were. I didn’t want either of us to feel compelled to make a relationship work if we weren’t even sure that we needed to be in one. I wanted to let things go naturally, and take it from there.

  “That sounds fair to me,” I replied.

  “Good. We’re both done with our food, so do you want to get out of here? We could hang out at the beach or something.”

  “Yeah, I’d like that.”

  I grabbed my purse and threw a few bills on the table to cover our dinner. Jesse didn’t look happy about the fact that I had paid for dinner, but I ignored the evil glare he was shooting in my direction as I grabbed his hand and led him from the diner.