Beneath This Ink (Beneath #2)(54)

This is a mistake. I should go home. But by now my father would almost certainly have found my note. I was somewhat surprised that my phone hadn’t lit up with calls from him demanding to know where I was. But I supposed he was letting me be. Adhering to my stipulations.

I should be happy about that. But something about it bothered me all the same. One night after my narrow escape from a carjacking and he wasn’t concerned that I was out and about.

I shook it off. I was thirty years old, and my thoughts were ridiculous.

Moving on.

I uncurled my grip from the steering wheel and pushed aside any lingering doubts. I was here. And as much as I shouldn’t want to, I wanted to see Con. It had nothing to do with a deed and everything to do with needing the strength and protection he’d offered me last night.

Pushing open the back door of Voodoo, I straightened my shoulders—and the lines of my navy jersey wrap dress. My low-heeled gold sandals clicked on the black and white checkered linoleum floor as I made my way to the front counter. I felt odd coming in the back way. Like I was special somehow—when in reality I was probably only a few steps above a trespasser.

I wondered if I’d find Simon’s Charlie sitting there, but it was the same woman I’d seen before. Delilah. Tonight her dress was black with silver moustaches printed all over it.

Her eyes widened when she saw me. If I’d come through the front door, it would’ve been like déjà vu.

She didn’t wait for me to speak.

“Con, visitor.”

“I’m busy,” he called from the direction of his room.

“You might want to get unbusy—” she started, but I lifted a hand.

“It’s okay. I can wait.”

But the buzzing had already quieted, and he rolled backward out the door of his room. This time, it was Con’s eyes widening.

He stood with a quick, “I’ll be right back,” to whomever was in the room, and came toward me.

He jerked his head toward the break room, and I preceded him inside.

“I’m sorry. I should’ve called first.”

“What are you doing here?”

Well, that wasn’t exactly an effusive welcome.

“I…I don’t know,” I replied. Because honestly, I didn’t.

“So why are you here then?” His welcome wasn’t getting any warmer.

“I don’t know,” I said again, before stopping and starting over. “No. That’s not true. I know why I’m here, but I’m not sure what I’m actually doing here.”

Con frowned and crossed his arms. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know.” My words came out louder and an octave higher than I’d planned. “None of this makes any sense. I shouldn’t be here. But there’s nowhere else I wanted to be.”

His frown slipped away, and his expression turned unreadable. I expected a response. I wasn’t sure what response. But I expected more than the silence I got.

I could’ve stamped my foot, but that would’ve been too humiliating. Instead, I asked, “Don’t you have anything to say?” I rubbed my hand down my face. Maybe I was just overwrought. The last twenty-or-so hours had been too much. Maybe I was going to succumb to honest-to-God Southern belle vapors.

Now wouldn’t that be embarrassing.

“You good with waiting?” he asked.

That’s it? That’s all he’s going to say?

“I wasn’t exactly expecting you to drop everything.”

“You drive here?”

“Yeah, but it’s a loaner. No one would know it’s mine.”

“Another flashy Benz?”

“What’s your point?”

“You care if it gets stolen?”

“Not particularly.” That was the least of my worries tonight.

“Then go upstairs. I think you know the way. I’ll be up when I get there.”

“That’s it. That’s all you’re going to say?”

He gestured with his latex-clad hands. “I’ll have more to say when I get there.”

I huffed out an expletive, and a smile ghosted over Con’s features. “Got a feeling I’ll have a wildcat on my hands if you’re this worked up already.”

I didn’t deign to reply. I spun on my heel and grabbed the handle of the first door to the right and yanked it open. Con’s laughter followed me up the stairs even after I slammed it behind me.

Men.





I might’ve expected a wildcat, but what I found when I finally made it up to my place an hour and a half later was closer to a kitten.

Curled up in the center of my bed, Vanessa was dead to the world.

I shook my head at the turn of phrase. After last night, it was too real a possibility—one too narrowly avoided—to consider.

The whisper of her even breathing was the only sound from inside my apartment. Outside, the noises of the city faded away, because my only focus was on her. I’d walked up the stairs expecting to f*ck her senseless, but now all I wanted to do was sit and watch her sleep.

And yeah, I knew that was f*cking creepy.

The entire rest of my session, one where I’d finished a portrait of a man’s dead wife on his arm, I’d thought about her words.