Wait, did I just call Stella my girl?
“When have I ever made an appointment, Cadeon?” Her grin widened, and even though he was seated behind the counter, she eyed him up and down. “Come on, can’t you just squeeze me in? The tattoo isn’t very big. I bet you could get it down quickly but make sure you were all sorts of thorough.” She lowered her eyes, trying to look sexy, but it just made her look like she was about to fall asleep.
“You aren’t anyone special to this shop, Tally. You got in those last few times, because there were openings. There aren’t any now, so if you don’t have an appointment, you need to make one and come back then.” He didn’t break eye contact with her, because he wanted her to know this shit she thought was between them, wasn’t.
She pouted, and he wanted to tell her she looked ridiculous as fuck. “Really? There isn’t anything you can do for me, nothing that can be pushed back so I can be next?” She made one of those duck mouth expressions, and he curled his lip in distaste. She tried to act like she was still in high school by wearing clothes far too young for her and her overall almost childish personality.
“No, there isn’t anything. Now, do you want an appointment?”
She huffed and pushed away from the counter. “Fine. What is your next available opening?”
“I don’t have any. You’ll have to book with Naggie or Ziggy.” He kept his voice hard and void of any emotion.
“But I was hoping you could give me another one.” She leaned forward so much that he knew she had to be on her toes. “I miss you.” She pouted once more. “I keep thinking about you.” Before he could respond, she was talking again. “I know there is something there between us, but I understand you’re not the commitment type.”
“Tally—” He growled out her name, but she cut him off before he could finish.
“I can make you feel ten times as good as any of those other whores you sleep with.”
He stood so forcefully that his chair slammed against the wall. He heard the sound of buzzing needles stop and glanced to his side to see Naggie and Ziggy looking over at him and then at Tally. Naggie knew all about this shit. It wasn’t like he kept them in the dark.
Naggie had narrowed eyes trained on Tally. Naggie was not a fan of the woman, not after Tally had come onto her boyfriend at a bar a few months back. Drama followed Tally like some kind of lost dog, and no matter where she went or who she interacted with, that fucking drama was with her and rubbed off on everyone.
“Do you want an appointment or not?” He wasn’t about to be baited into having this conversation. It had been months since they had done anything, and he would have liked to say he was drunk when he had fucked her, but he couldn’t even use that excuse. He had just been friendly, and he was now stuck with Tally hounding him for something he wasn’t about to give her.
She shook her head and narrowed her eyes on him. It was clear she was pissed that he wasn’t getting into that with her. “Fine, what do you have open with Ziggy this week?”
He brought up Ziggy’s schedule on the computer and told her what was available. After she was set up, he told himself he’d have to make himself scarce when she came back. He didn’t want to deal with this shit again. He busied himself with his work and didn’t look up until he heard the bell ding at her departure.
“Come on, Cadeon.”
He looked over at Naggie. She was glaring at him. “What?”
“You know what. You need to tell that tramp to quit coming in here.”
He looked over at the girl Naggie was about to pierce, but the woman was busy on her cell. The client with Ziggy had a smile on his tattooed face. At least someone found this shit amusing, but that didn’t mean Naggie needed to be talking about it in front of customers. “Naggie, this really isn’t the time or place to talk about this.”
“Pfft. That tramp needs to get a life.” Naggie turned toward her client, and Ziggy did the same.
Cadeon leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. His cell vibrated, and he looked down. The way his pulse increased at the sight of Stella’s number flashing across his screen should have made him feel like some kind of pussy-whipped adolescent. But he didn’t feel that way, and he dared anyone to tell him otherwise.
10
Stella shouldn’t have been so nervous, but she was, terribly so. She had called him earlier today after not getting in contact with him for the last couple days. It wasn’t that she was purposely trying to avoid him—not really—but she had done a lot of thinking. Since leaving the tattoo shop and having Booshie follow her home, she realized this really hadn’t been just a one-time thing with Cadeon. But the one time he called her was to leave a voicemail giving her aftercare instructions.
She had been trying to think about how she was going to tell her dad about this, because it was going to seem like she had been lying to him about not wanting Cadeon. She may have wanted him, but when she had gone to see him, it really had been strictly about the tattoo. But she hadn’t told anyone yet, because she knew she had to talk to Cadeon and see where he actually saw this—whatever this was—going between them.
If he only wanted her on the side as a piece of ass, then she would need to tell him she wasn’t even going to
