Time Out of Mind (Suncoast Society #43)(70)

“No, that’s okay,” Mevi quietly said. “I want them exactly like that.”

“Your dime.” He placed the template while Mevi watched. “Love your music. You’ll need to be careful the next couple of days when you play. Wear a sweatband or long sleeves or something. Something that small will heal fast, but you don’t want to mess it up.”

“How’d you know I play?”

“Dude, I have all your albums. It’s cool. You were never here. I do a lot of celebs.”

“You do?”

“Yeah.” He glanced up, smiling. “They hand out my name, but if anyone asks, I never confirm nor deny. Not unless they tell me it’s cool to advertise. That’s how I get so many celebs. That, and I’m good.”

“Are those pics out there all your work?”

“Most of it. The chair over there, the artwork over her station is her stuff. She’s a friend of mine. What do these mean to you, if you don’t mind me asking? I mean, I know why people get the semi-colon. I’ve done a bunch of those.”

“The rune is for safe travels, and the semi-colon means my story isn’t over.”

“Cool.” He prepped his equipment. “You ever get ink before?”

“No.”

“This is going to hurt. Especially there. Imma need you to hold still. No room for error on something this small.”

An involuntary snort escaped him. “I’m good at holding still for pain.”





Twenty minutes later, they were back in the car and heading away from the shop. Clark dropped him at his condo, but Mevi wasn’t planning on staying there.

His car was parked in its spot in the garage. It hadn’t been started in a couple of months, and Mevi wondered if it’d even run.

Fortunately, it did.

It felt…more than weird to be driving again.

With traffic, it took him over an hour to get to Bonnie’s. He made a wrong turn on his way, and by the time he got straightened out and found the right street, it was close to dark. Bonnie hadn’t changed her gate code, either. When he drove in and pulled up in front of her house, she must have been alerted, because she opened the front door when he got out.

He stared at her for a moment before walking up. “Can I come in and talk?”

“Why?”

“Please?”

“You drunk?”

“No. I’m sober. I haven’t had a drop since that night here.”

She finally opened the door wide enough so he could walk in, closing it behind him.

“What do you want to talk about?”

She stood with her arms crossed over her chest, her blue eyes filled with mistrust. Today she wore her hair pulled back off her face with a hair band and stray locks fluttered around her temples.

“About us.”

“You made it clear there wasn’t an ‘us,’ Mevi.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for a lot of things. Too many things to list. And I’m sorry most of all that I hurt your feelings because I do love you as a friend.”

She didn’t move from the door, and she wouldn’t look him in the eyes, either. “Is that it?”

“No, but I won’t force my apology on you.”

“I don’t know if I’m ready to accept an apology from you yet.”

“That’s fair.”

“Are you really sober?”

“Yeah.”

“Even after losing Doyle?”

He nodded.

“Do you even remember that f*cking night here? Or do you just know what happened because of the video?”

“I remember some of it.”

“You said you were going to f*cking kill yourself, Mevi. That you were sick of the world and everyone and everything in it. Including me. You drove drunk to get here. You could have hurt or killed someone.”

His face heated. None of that had been on the video, but she hadn’t started taping as soon as he got there.

“I’m sorry. I can’t make any excuses except I was hurting and in pain. You deserved bet—”

“How do you think that made me feel, huh? That the man I loved didn’t give enough of a shit about me to want to fight to stay in this world?”

He didn’t know what to say, so he remained silent, waiting.

She suddenly stepped forward and shoved him, hard. “You f*cker. Get out. I don’t want your f*cking apology. You know what? Fuck you, f*ck your recovery, and f*ck all that bullshit you put me through all these years. I’ll see you in Europe, but right now, I’ve had it up to here with you and your f*cking crap. Get the hell out.”

He nodded, giving her a wide berth as he left. He heard her lock the door behind him and for a moment he stood there, staring out at the darkening horizon. From where she lived, you could see the Pacific in the distance, like tonight, on a good night when smog and smoke levels were low.

He wondered if that night when he showed up here if he took any time to appreciate the gorgeous view she had, or if he’d been too blasted.

He hated that there was time missing in his brain.

He hated that he could have hurt or killed someone.

He hated who he’d become.

He hated that it had taken losing nearly everything to make him wake up and realize that he never had started living or escaped his father’s constricting views of life.