branded (phantoms mc #2)

six: in which she is probably just cursed

"I come alive when we're together" – XYLØ, Alive

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Bree was looking at me fuсking funny.

Two weeks had passed since I'd stupidly opened my mouth to her, and she still couldn't stop staring at me weirdly with those big blue eyes. Openly judging me.

I didn't have time for her ѕhit, but since she worked at Zen, she was a permanent fixture in my life. I couldn't just avoid Ghost's tattoo shop—even if he was avoiding me. Again.

Ghost was...well, ghost. I felt his absence like a bullet to the chest.

"I can't work with someone fuсking staring at me over my shoulder," Ripper complained to me while he worked on the arm of a man whose bicep was as thick as a thigh. His olive skin was already covered in some pretty impressive ink—Ripper's artwork—but Ripper was doing a cover work of some ѕhitty tribal tattoo on his arm.

"You don't mind that I'm here, do you?" I asked Tribal Tat, batting my eyelashes at him.

He let out a rumble of laughter. "No, sugar. I don't mind." He was definitely from out of town. Nobody ever calls me sugar.

"There ya go," I said triumphantly, perching on a stool in one corner. Definitely too far away to stare over Ripper's damn shoulder.

"Go bug my wife," grumbled Ripper. "Don't you two have a lunch date today?"

"You know why I'm here."

"I really fuсking don't."

I raised a brow. Well. Tried to. That was an expected response, but still... "Jeez. Who ѕhit in your cornflakes?"

Ripper let out an aggravated breath. He paused, tattoo gun in hand, and glanced at me with annoyed hazel eyes. "I'm just not in the mood to get in the middle of whatever bullѕhit you have going on with Ghost, is all."

"I'm not asking you to," I muttered through clenched teeth, feeling slightly embarrassed.

"Yeah?" He was smirking, the asshole. "Then those peanut butter cups you brought with you aren't an incentive for me to talk?"

"You watch too many movies, Jake," I informed him, his real name sounding weird to my ears.

His attention was fully on his client. "Listen, man," he said to the other guy. "These two fuсk like crazy, fight like crazy, and possibly...possibly love like crazy. Would you wanna get in the middle of the weird ѕhit they have going on?"

Tribal Tat chuckled, giving me an appreciative once-over. "Sounds like a marriage to me."

I snorted, slightly pissed that Jake thought he could sum Ghost and me up with the adjective crazy. That word always hit too close to home.

"They might as well be married, man," Jake went on. "They make me feel like their innocent kid caught in the middle."

Tribal Tat was laughing again. Jake didn't know—couldn't have known—what his words could mean. Their innocent kid.

I hopped off the stool. Suddenly, I wasn't really in the mood to casually ask Jake about what Ghost had been up to these past few weeks he'd gone quiet.

"I'm taking the peanut butter cups," I mumbled, snatching the brown paper bag off the table.

"Aw, don't be like that, Pusѕy," he protested, looking wounded.

I ended up giving his treat to Kai, the guy out front at reception.

"I'm allergic," he complained once he saw what was in the bag.