“Really, Mom?” Brady laughs.
“What? You were a handful!” She turns to me. “When he was five, he loved to moon the neighbors. And sometimes, if he couldn’t get into the house fast enough, he’d tinkle on the bushes outside.”
“Jesus Christ,” he mumbles.
I cover my mouth to muffle my laughter. As Izzy crawls into my lap, I pat him on the shoulder. “I’m happy to report, he’s fully potty trained now. Good job!” His deadpan stare makes me grin. “Haha. Brady tinkled on the bushes,” I taunt.
His parents howl with laughter, and I have to wipe my eyes from laughing so hard.
When I turn back to the laptop, Rebecca tilts her head. “Who does she remind me of? Jonathan, doesn’t Katherine remind you of one of Brady’s old girlfriends?” Brady stills next to me. Then she snaps her fingers. “The one you took that photo with. Oh, my goodness. You should see that picture, Katherine. It was all over Boston on these billboards. They used it to advertise the tattoo parlor where he worked, and the girls lined up to get him to do their tattoos.” She laughs and shades her face. “I blushed every time I drove by it.”
God, I look like one of his ex-girlfriends? And what is this photo all about?
“Mother,” Brady warns. “It was a photo I took for an art class. My friend got lucky and sold it to my shop.”
Ignoring his obvious discomfort, she asks, “What was her name?”
I finally turn to look at him, and his hard expression as he shoots lasers at the laptop does nothing to assuage my anxiety.
He clears his throat. “Dani, and we never dated.”
“Right. Well.” His mother shakes her head and turns to me. “You should have seen him. He moped for months after they broke up.”
“Mother, I just said we never dated.”
“What’s she doing these days?”
He hoists Izzy higher on his lap. “Marrying a professional soccer player.”
Rebecca sighs. “Her loss, I suppose. I shouldn’t be in his business, but Brady was a sad panda for a while.” Her lips twist like she’s studying me. “Actually, you don’t look like her exactly. But there’s something about you that reminds me of her.”
I nod, wishing I could rewind the last five minutes of this conversation and start over.
“It was nice meeting you guys,” I say softly. “I need to go start dinner. I’m so glad to see you’re feeling better, Mr. Shepherd.”
Brady’s dad offers me an apologetic smile, and I beeline it out of there, fighting emotions I wish I didn’t have.
47
Brady
I’m really not in the mood for this shit.
The half-naked chick in front of me giggles at her friend, another blonde, and I frown as a cold sweat breaks out on my neck.
As I stare down at the woman’s bare breasts, warning bells go off in my head. You should tell Kat, I think, feeling confused as fuck about why I feel guilty I’m piercing another girl’s nipples when all I’m just doing my job.
Just like the three tattoos I did tonight on drunk frat boys, this is no different.
Except the way the blonde thrusts her chest out at me is definitely not the way the frat boys sat in my chair.
Running my hand through my hair, I wince. I’ve never thought twice about how my girlfriends felt about this. Which I’m realizing was insensitive, but am I really supposed to feel bad now? Kat and I agreed that we end when I head back to Boston.
Jesus. That makes me ill. I don’t want to leave her. And that’s what it feels like. Abandoning her.
Maybe we’ve been through too much traumatic shit together for this to be anything less than a serious relationship.
I sigh, wondering how the hell I ended up in this position.
The woman giggles again as I pull her nipple taut between the steel forceps. With a breathy little moan, she asks, “Is this going to hurt?”
“Yes.” Usually, I try to talk people off the ledge and focus on the positives, but tonight, I don’t give a fuck. It’s late, I’m tired, and I’d rather be in bed with Katherine than piercing some sorority girl, who looks like she’s one bad decision away from offering me a blow job. Between working here, Kat's gig at the diner and all the shit we have to do on the farm, I've barely seen her this week.
And it’s been a strange week.
After that chat with my parents where my mother dumped that shit about Dani all over Katherine, she’s pulled back. It’s subtle. Sometimes she looks like she wants to say something but doesn’t. Or when she would usually reach for me or crawl into my lap, she doesn’t. Almost like she’s preparing herself for the worst case scenario.
Maybe that’s the smart thing to do.
On top of that, I’ve been working all week, so we haven’t had any one-on-one time since our fuckathon last weekend. And I walk around half-hard all the time from random X-rated thoughts of her.