Shattered (Koa #5)

15. Asher

Chapter 15

Asher

I watch some movies on Sunshine’s TV once she goes upstairs. While my leg feels fine enough, I’m not leaving her here alone after this morning.

After a few hours, Sunshine appears at the bottom of the stairs. She’s changed her clothes, and I swear she must be mocking me. She’s wearing a knee-length soft yellow dress with thin straps. It’s tight up top and flows out on the bottom. She’s not wearing a bra, and I can barely see her nipples trying to poke through.

“Trying to give someone a black eye?” I ask, motioning to her dress, and she rolls her eyes. “Was the yellow necessary?”

She flashes me a tight smile. “If it irritates you, then yes.”

A knock on the back door interrupts us, and Sunshine crosses the room to let Bane inside .

“You guys alright over here?” Bane asks.

“Yeah. Sunshine was scared they’d come back, so she wanted me to stay here to protect her.”

She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, that’s what happened.”

“I drove around for a while but didn’t see them. Not sure where they are now,” Bane says.

“I don’t get it. Why come all this way just to fuck with us? They already got enough revenge on me.”

“I don’t know, but I don’t like it. I picked up three security systems, one for the shop and one for each house. I’m not taking any chances. These guys are too unpredictable.”

“You’re right,” I agree.

“Look, I’m not trying to piss on your leg, but you’re not gonna be able to do this, and I’m supposed to have Jared in an hour.”

Fuck. I forgot about that. “We should probably cancel for today.”

“He’s got to be halfway here by now, and I think the brothers are gone.”

“I could do his tattoo, but I don’t want you here by yourself in case those pricks show up again.”

“I’ll be alright. It’s not me they’re after, remember?”

I wouldn’t say I like it.

“I can ask my friend Edgar to cover you,” Lila tells Bane.

“He’s the cop?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

Bane turns to me. “Okay, you do Jared’s tattoo, and I’ll take care of this. Want me to send you the design I have ready?”

“Yeah, I’ll use it as a base and fuck with it. ”

“Well, he’s due at the shop soon, so you’d better move your ass. I’ll head out now.”

Sunshine calls her friend Edgar, who agrees to come by and station in front of our houses. With all that sorted, Bane takes off, and now I have to haul my ass next door and shower.

“I can go stay with a friend today,” Lila says.

“No, you’re coming to the shop with me.”

She scoffs.

“Don’t argue. Just for today, okay? This place isn’t secure yet, and I wanna know where you are. I’ve just gotta shower, and we can go.”

And my leg fucking hurts, and the stairs at my place are absolute shit.

“Promise not to bite my head off?” she asks.

“Why?”

“Would it be easier for you to shower here?”

I’m not a dumbass; I know she tricked me into staying here this morning, not that I would’ve left anyway. And now this? It’s weird.

“It’d save time.”

“I noticed. Go shower, and I’ll make us some coffee.”

“Yeah, if you wanna be my little slave this morning, that’s fine with me.”

She rolls her eyes perfectly. “Do you want help up the stairs?”

“I’m fine,” I say, my tone shorting.

“You landed pretty hard; you’re allowed to be sore,” she fights back.

“No, I don’t need help up the fucking stairs.”

I’d rather die.

Sunshine wanted to change out of her dress, but I forced her to keep it on. It looks cute on her.

Jared’s nearly half an hour late, which is fine by me. Bane sent over his design for Jared, and I use that time to alter it to a style more like mine. When I’m done, the enormous dragon head is entirely different.

Sunshine’s a little more relaxed around me now. When I sat down at the desk, she pulled another chair over and sat close, watching over my shoulder while I fucked with the design on my tablet. She’s not tense or bitchy, she just seems calm. Despite how fucked up it was that Rocco and Rooney showed up, it broke some of that icy wall between us, and we actually had some conversations without yelling at each other.

“You like?” I ask, offering the tablet to her that she’s been pretending not to look at for the last half hour.

“This is so cool. Where is it going?”

“It’s a full back piece.”

She studies the design carefully, her mind going. “Can I make a suggestion?”

“I guess.”

“You should put some trees or something at the bottom of the piece for scale. It’ll make the head look so huge it’s terrifying.”

I had considered something like that, too, but hadn’t gotten there yet. “You don’t make a commission off ideas around here, you know.”

“You’d better pay me something if you’re holding me here against my will. ”

I know she’s joking based on that devious twinkle in her eye. It doesn’t falter when my eyes narrow on her.

“Oh, trust me, Sunshine. I can really hold you here against your will if that’s what you want.”

She chuckles. “Shut up and work on your dragon.”

While I continue to work, she flips through another binder, examining each page.

“This looks similar to something I did in high school.”

I look at the piece she’s talking about. It’s one of my more recent designs, the skull biting into the apple I did on Jared. I usually remove the design from my binder when it’s been used, but I hadn’t gotten around to taking that one out yet, due to the shit show that went down right after he left the shop.

“Yeah? You like art?”

“I used to,” she starts. “When I was in school, I took as many art classes as possible. But I fell out of it when I went to nursing school. Did you do these yourself?” she asks, delicately tracing her fingers over my inked arm.

“What I could. Bane did the rest, using my design. I did most of the snake except the back I couldn’t reach.”

“I like them,” she says, paying particular attention to the snake.

“So why are you a nurse and not an artist?”

She shrugs. “Practicality, I guess? I tried to pick it back up at one point, but then I met my ex-husband, Ian. Things with us moved so quickly that the rest of the world sort of fell away.”

“What happened with him? Was he a deadbeat?”

“No,” she fires back quickly before softening a little. “Ian’s a good man. Sexually, we didn’t click. ”

“He didn’t treat you like the slut you are.”

She rolls her eyes. “No, he didn’t.”

“Now THAT I can believe,” I say with a smirk. I can’t imagine Sunshine being with anyone who doesn’t use her up like the slut she is. “How did you not know you weren’t compatible before you married him?”

She hesitates, averting her gaze, which only makes me more interested.

“Come on, Sunshine. Spit it out.”

She rolls her eyes, her voice coming out short. “We both saved ourselves for marriage. Our wedding night was the first for both of us.”

“And that is exactly why that saving yourself for marriage shit doesn’t work.”

“Yeah, well, I know that now,” she says, angry. “Ian’s engaged to my friend Allegra, a dominant woman.”

“And how do you feel about that?” Once the words are out of my mouth, I feel like a dumbass. I don’t give a fuck.

“I’m happy for them. But all my friends are giving me grief and treating me like I’m heartbroken when I’m not. I really am over Ian.”

Our conversation is interrupted by a knock at the door. Before I can move, Lila jumps up from her chair to answer the door. I can see her hesitate when she spots Jared’s face in the doorway.

“That’s him,” I say. Smart girl.

Jared eyes her up as he walks in, blatantly looking her up and down, and I snap my fingers at him, grabbing his attention.

“Down, boy,” I say.

Jared grins, walking straight past Lila and up to my desk .

“I hate to tell you, but you’re stuck with me today,” I tell him.

He grins. “Oh no, what ever will I do?”

Rolling my eyes, I hand the tablet to him, and his jaw drops.

“This is fucking sick!”

“My assistant suggested we add some small trees for scale.”

Lila bristles, just like I knew she would. “Your assistant, my ass!”

“Short fuse on that one,” Jared says.

“Yeah, but she’s more fun when she’s fired up.”

Before she can open her mouth again, I reach under the desk and grab a sketchpad and some pencils, offering them to her, and she takes them.

“Here, to draw on while you’re stuck here.”

She nods a thank you before her eyes narrow on Jared and the tattoo on his arm, and her face lights up excitedly.

“Is that the same skull?”

“Yeah, it is.” I turn to Jared. “She got her first tattoo the other day, a tiger under her tits.”

Jared smiles wickedly. “I’d like to see that.”

Sunshine’s eyes flicker to mine. They’re wide, but it’s such a lie. I know that if I forced her to take her shirt off and show Jared her tattoo, her cunt would flood this shop.

“Yeah? Maybe later.”

The shop is officially open as of today. The new doors and windows were installed, brightening the place with white borders and clean glass. The walls are properly painted, though we haven’t hung any designs yet. The front desk is set up, just a hollow counter with chairs behind it and a laptop sitting on top with the cash. There’s a leather sofa by the door for walk-in customers to sit and wait or take breaks. In the back, our stations are set up, one in each corner, with rolling chairs for us and a stationary chair by each for a support person. We opted for one tattooing chair and one table, and we can easily switch them when needed. There’s a big wooden cabinet in the center of the back wall where all our supplies are kept, and a door on either side that leads to a bathroom and a kitchenette.

I expected Sunshine to wait at the desk, but she doesn’t. Instead, she waits in the chair beside my station, drawing on her sketchpad while I prep Jared. He’s face down on my table with his shirt off. I clean and shave the area first before applying the stencil. When he gets up to check it in the mirror, I notice Sunshine steal a glance at his chest.

Once I start the line work, Sunshine pulls her chair closer, and I notice her watching with complete focus. Usually, if a support person is getting too close, I’d tell them to back up. But the way I can see her so enthralled in my periphery makes me bite my tongue.

About two hours in, Bane shows up with the cop and another guy. This one is younger than us, maybe mid-twenties, and a bit shorter than the cop, with a decent amount of muscle and teased brown hair.

“I fucking love this guy,” Bane says, motioning to the cop. “Helped me put both systems in and even called his boy toy to help.”

I fucking called that.

“I have a name that’s not boy toy,” the younger man says gruffly .

“This is Nash and Edgar,” Sunshine says. I stop tattooing to lift my head and watch her greet them with a warm smile. The cop, Edgar, grabs her for a hug.

“You hangin’ in there? I heard you had some unwelcome visitors this morning,” Edgar says worriedly.

“Fine. The guys want to be cautious,” Sunshine says.

That grabs Jared’s attention, and he turns to side-eye me. “Whoa, who?”

“Rocco and Rooney.”

Jared smirks. “I don’t know what you did, but you thoroughly pissed them off. Seriously, what did you do?”

“Shut up and put your head down,” I growl.

Thankfully, he does.