Rose Tattoo | tattoo artist/single dad!calum

chapter 7

tw: creep at a bar. 

Stevie bit her lip as the man to her left - some asshole from accounting that couldn't take a hint - continued talking. He'd zeroed in on her the moment she arrived at the bar and had stuck to her like a shadow. She didn't particularly want to be at the party in the first place, she was only there because it was a celebration of Noah's promotion, and the man (Malcom, maybe?) was only making her mood worse.

"Lighten up," he huffed, reaching out to touch her thigh once more even though she'd shifted away from him and stopped pretending to listen to his rambling. "Don't be a bitch. I'm just trying to be nice. It's not like you have anyone better to talk to."

Stevie felt her skin heat and knew that her ears were red in both humiliation and anger as she tried her hardest to ignore him. She wanted to reach for the abandoned fork on the counter and stab him in the hand in hopes that he would leave her alone, however, violence was not the answer - not if she wanted to keep her job - and she didn't want to cause a bigger scene than necessary.

So, she pulled out the oldest line in the book. "I'm waiting for my boyfriend. Leave me alone."

"Boyfriend? Where is he, then? Stuck in traffic?" Stevie had hoped that telling him she was waiting for someone would be enough. It usually was. However, this guy seemed persistent and she imagined that it would take an actual miracle for him to leave her alone unscathed.

She opened her mouth to retort, to tell the man that it really didn't matter, but before she could say anything, she felt an arm wrap around her waist. "I'm sorry I'm late, love," a voice that she immediately recognized as belonging to Calum - it was hard to mistake the raspy voice and hint of an Australian accent - cut through the din of the music. "Traffic was a nightmare."

Stevie glanced up and caught the look on Calum's face. He looked as annoyed as she felt - she knew he'd overheard the taunting from the accountant - and she felt him squeeze her side as a gesture for her to play along. However, she didn't need any prompting as she melted into his embrace. He was warm, warmer than her even though she'd been trapped in the stifling heat of the bar for over an hour, and he smelled like cigarettes and a cologne that made Stevie want to bury her face in his t-shirt and get lost in the scent.

She decided that that would be taking Calum's kindness too far and simply leaned into him as she sent the accountant a sickeningly sweet smile. "It's no problem," she assured Calum, glancing up at him with a real smile, "I had company." She paused for a moment, wondering if she should be as petty as she wanted, before she decided that she had nothing to lose. She shifted her gaze from Calum to the accountant and asked, "What was your name again? You told me but I didn't care to remember it."

Stevie felt Calum's chest reverberate with a stifled laugh as the accountant turned a garish shade of purple and sputtered a response. She couldn't make out what he said as he slammed his glass onto the counter and left his stool but she imagined that it was for the best as she watched him stomp through the crowd and away from her. She and Calum remained intertwined for a moment, him with his arm around her waist and her with the back of her head pressed to his chest, before they both moved away from one another.

"Um, thanks," she mumbled as she turned to face him with a sheepish smile. "He wouldn't take no for an answer. I don't know why that's so hard for some people."

Calum frowned at her response and shook his head. "No, you don't have to thank me. That guy shouldn't have been an asshole." Calum hesitated, his eyes narrowed in thought and his eyebrows furrowed, before he added, "The name thing was brutal, though. I didn't know you had it in you."

"Yeah," Stevie laughed before she took a sip of her drink and shrugged. "There are a lot of things you don't know about me."

Calum smiled at this and shrugged as he shoved his hands into his pockets. "Maybe I can get to know some of them." Calum glanced around the room, Stevie wasn't sure at what, before he returned his gaze to her. He scrutinized her for a moment - his stare should have made her feel vulnerable, his eyes were intense and his gaze was heavy, but it didn't. She felt oddly at ease with him and wasn't surprised when he added, "I don't really feel like partying. You want to go get some coffee?"