A Boy I Used to Love (A St. Skin Novel): a bad boy new adult romance novel Read online

  And hurting for years was something I knew all about.

  I was in my world. The existence made just for me. A piece of flesh, some ink, and a story to tell. The story wasn’t mine to tell, but it was mine to share. The woman’s name was Carrie, and she was getting a gecko tattooed on her leg. She wanted the colors to be bright green and orange with bright blue eyes on the thing. It was a symbol for her brother, who died in a motorcycle accident six months ago. They had grown up in Florida and had geckos as pets. She said the only time she ever remembered her brother being truly happy was when they were kids, chasing lizards around. They got into some argument a while back, and he bought her a gecko as a make-up gift.

  The gecko was named Tim and died two months before her brother did.

  I had some good vibe, reggae-style music coming from the speakers in my room. I let Carrie hook her phone up to my speakers to play the music she wanted. She was on her back with her hands folded on her belly, staring up at the ceiling.

  I worked hard, started with the outline of the lizard, then went into the shading. I wasn’t used to using such bright colors and meshing them all together. It was such a happy-looking tattoo for such a sad story. As I was about to wrap things up, an idea came to me. It took me an extra couple minutes, but I added something extra and special for Carrie. On the back right leg of the gecko—the matching leg of the one she had the tattoo done on herself—I snuck in her brother’s initials. You wouldn’t see it unless you knew what to look for.

  After I cleaned it all up, I helped her to sit up and let her have a look. She smiled, her eyes glossed over, and she turned her face to me.

  “It’s better than anything I could have imagined,” she said.

  “Now, I’ve mentioned it before,” I said. “I’ll tell you again. The bright colors. They’re going to need to be touched up here and there. So come see me when you need to. Okay?”

  “Yeah. Of course.”

  “There’s one other surprise here,” I said.

  I showed her the initials.

  She gasped and covered her mouth.

  “You good?”

  “Yes,” she said with her hand over her mouth. “It’s perfect. It’s…amazing.”

  “Good.”

  I helped Carrie to her feet after bandaging up her new tattoo. She threw her arms around me and thanked me for bringing her vision to life. That meant a lot to me. That’s why I did what I did. It wasn’t a money game. It wasn’t about getting shit posted online. It was about bringing those stories to life. A story that was there forever now.

  I sent her on her way and hung back in my room to clean up. I had two more appointments to round out another busy day at St. Skin.

  My door opened with a hard knock, and Axel stood there. He was a fucking giant of a guy, and for some reason, he took to me.

  “Break,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  I followed him out back, and he was quick to light up a smoke. He then shook his pack of smokes to offer me one. The tip stuck out, calling my name.

  “Nah,” I declined.

  “Still holding back?” he asked. “Nice. You must really like that woman.”

  “I broke up with her today,” I said.

  “You did what?”

  “Don’t start,” I warned.

  “She was gorgeous,” Axel said. “What happened?”

  “Nothing happened. I just wasn’t feeling it.”

  “Feeling what? Her ass? Her tits? Her pu-”

  “Axel, fuck off,” I said.

  “I don’t get you, man. I’m sorry. You get these women. And then you dump them right around the same time. What is it?”

  “Nothing.”

  “It’s something, brother. I see it. I know you’ve been here for a couple years now, I see shit going down. You run every year. Then you come back, and you’re angry. You’re hurt. Then you find a new woman. Things go great. Then you just cut the cord. I mean, you could at least be an asshole and make them hate you a little.”

  I shook my head. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “I don’t,” Axel said. “I’m just curious.”

  “You ever been in love?”

  “Brother, I’m divorced,” Axel said. “I rode the whole damn ride, okay? Getting together. Committing. Figuring out the feelings, the right time to propose, everything. Getting married. Figuring out life. Then having it all crash down. Been there, done that.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “Then you get it. There’s someone that I made a promise to. And I’m not sure if that promise will come through on her end.”

  “Wait,” Axel said. “Tell me this is some bullshit high school love story.”

  “No,” I said. “It’s a little deeper than that, Axel.”

  “So you’re waiting for some woman to come back?”

  “That’s one way to put it.”

  “What kind of tampons do you use?”

  “What?”

  “Didn’t know you had a pussy,” Axel said.

  “What?” I yelled louder.

  “You’re waiting for some woman to come find you? Why don’t you go find her?”

  “Trust me, it’s not that simple.”

  “Everything is simple, if you look at it the right way.”

  That was why I didn’t talk about things to people. It wasn’t about just finding her and showing up. That was the easy way to do it. But it wasn’t the way we agreed to do it. What we’d agreed was to meet up at a certain spot at a certain time. The night she left, I was too drunk to remember the time but I knew the spot. So I made it a promise to myself to show up there every damn year and always be single. Because when I saw her again and I got my hands on her, there would be no letting go.

  She was mine. All mine.

  She was my…

  Lacey

  PRESENT DAY

  “Lacey!”

  I turned, and Becky was racing up the driveway, her hands flailing in the air. I stopped, confused.

  What the hell was she doing here?

  I waited and when Becky caught up, she dropped her bag to the ground. She was out of breath, but forced a big smile and grabbed my wrist.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “I was thinking the same about you,” I said.

  “Bev told me to stop by today.”

  “You know that Jenny is mine,” I said.

  “Well, you’ve been floating for a while so…”

  I sighed. “I’m here right now. I would never miss an appointment. I think everyone knows that.”

  “I’m not saying a thing,” Becky said.

  She was a cold and calculating bitch. Everyone hated her but nobody could ever actually ignore her. She was always in your face and forever in the way. I worked in private nursing and took care of those who were on hospice care. I’d been coming to Jenny’s house for almost two years. I’d seen her through the worst of her cancer and treatment. I’d sat there at the table with her and her family with the doctor on the phone as they made the decision to stop treatment and let nature take its course. Yeah, I had dealt with my own personal tragedy since that time, but that was life. I wasn’t quitting. I wasn’t giving up or giving in on anything. When I needed time off, I made sure to make arrangements.

  I stared at Becky and knew there was no winning this.

  “We can go inside together,” I said.

  “That’s fine,” Becky said. “Let me shoot Bev a text. Just so she knows we’re both here together.”

  Kiss ass.

  I opened the door and took a deep breath. This was one of the hardest parts of the job: that initial walkthrough of the house. You never knew what you’d find. It had happened to me many times before, finding out that someone had passed.

  But Jenny was a tough cookie.

  So tough that even at the age of seventy and being almost crippled from cancer spreading through her body, I found her standing on a chair with a duster, cleaning off a ceiling fan. The sight shocked me. I knew
better than to scare her, but Becky was right behind me.

  “Oh my goodness!” Becky yelled.

  Jenny let out a yelp and dropped the duster. It smacked her right in the face and she started to fall back. I dove forward and somehow made it just in time to keep her from falling. If she had fallen, everything would have broken. She was that brittle.

  My hand pressed against her back and all I felt were weak bones. I grabbed her hand and she looked down at me.

  “Jenny, it’s me,” I said.

  “Lacey!” she said.

  Blood trickled down the bridge of her nose from where the duster had smacked her.

  “Why don’t you come down? Let me help with that.”

  “Mrs. Vennerson!” Becky yelled. “You cannot be doing this on your own!”

  I got Jenny off the chair. She looked at Becky. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Becky. I’m here to help.”

  Becky was talking loudly as though Jenny were deaf and unable to process words.

  Jenny looked at me. “Why’s she yelling at me?”

  I smiled. “We need to get you into bed. How do you feel?”

  “Not so good,” Jenny said.

  She looked pale. She looked tired. Her eyes were almost hollowed sockets. She had gone bald a long time ago but since stopping treatment some had tried to grow back. It didn’t come in clearly or evenly, but she wore her illness and scars proudly. Hell, she wore death proudly.

  “You need to get back into bed,” Becky said. “We need to check all her stats. Mark this down. Call it in. I’ll get the paperwork. We might need to discuss having someone more permanent here if she’s a risk.”

  “I’m a risk?” Jenny asked.

  “That’s okay,” I said. “Let’s get you settled.”

  I gritted my teeth as I helped Jenny to her bed. I hated Becky. She was crazy.

  Jenny kept a tight grip on my hand after she was settled. “Are you leaving me?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Then what’s that moron doing here?”

  I laughed. “She’s good at her job. They were worried about me not being here.”

  “Because of Kyle,” Jenny said. “You still grieving?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “We were close…”

  “You two were days away from marriage.”

  “Not quite that, Jenny,” I said.

  Kyle had been the one as in the one who filled a hole in my heart. I never expected things to draw out as long as they did, though. I was probably the perfect woman for him: never asking about marriage, kids, a house. All that stuff I had once dreamed about. I wasn’t a good person, though. Not for how long I let it all go. And certainly not for the way it all ended.

  Kyle was dead and I never got the chance to tell him the truth.

  Becky came into the kitchen and her face was red.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “She just called me… a cunt.”

  I almost spit water on the floor. I swallowed and coughed. I patted my chest. “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Don’t take it personally. She’s dying. It’s painful.”

  “I was trying to help her.”

  “She’s not used to you. She’s a very family-oriented person. It took a while for me to break through her shell.”

  “Well, I can’t work like this. I have to talk to Bev.”

  “Becky, please. Stop. You have no idea what that woman has been through. Go outside for a breather. I’ll take care of this.”

  When I opened the door to the bedroom, Jenny was sitting up. She was holding a magazine that was six months outdated, one she had read ten times.

  “Jenny,” I said.

  “I meant what I said to her,” she said in a weak voice.

  “Okay. Let’s forget about that. Tell me how you’re feeling.”

  “Like death.”

  I sighed. She was sick, in pain, and in a bad mood. The cut on her nose was bleeding a little. I tended to her, dabbing a tissue to her nose to heal it up a little.

  “I’m really sorry about today,” I said. “You deserve better care. I’ve been a little out of it lately and changing my schedule. This is my fault. I would never change on you, though. You’re my favorite.”

  “Oh, stop that,” Jenny said. “You tell that to everyone.”

  “No, I don’t. You asked me about grieving before. I don’t know what I’m doing. It was shocking when Kyle went. It hurt me. It did. But I don’t think we were all that serious.”

  “You love someone else?”

  I smirked. I did not talk about my past with anyone.

  “True love, real love, whatever it is,” Jenny said, “it’s a bitch. It’s a cold-hearted bitch.”

  I laughed. “Did you always curse like this?”

  “No,” Jenny said. “But I’m two breaths from dying, so who gives a shit?”

  “That’s one way of looking at it.”

  “Hey, are you going on another a trip soon?”

  “A trip?”

  “Yeah. It’s almost that time.”

  “What time?” I asked, smiling.

  “For as long as I’ve known you, every year around this time you go on a trip. And your pictures. Remember when you brought me vacation pictures? They were always timestamped for the around the same timeframe.”

  “Yeah, they were and are,” I said.

  I always planned a trip around a set date but nobody had really picked up on it before. Except Jenny. For as sick as she was she didn’t miss a beat. She could have her eyes shut and ready to let go and if something on her dresser was out of place, she would pop her eyes open and tell you about it.

  I squeezed her hand. “I don’t have anything planned. It’s been a strange year for me.”

  “Of course, it has,” Jenny said. “I just lie here waiting to die. You’re out there living. And you had to welcome death to someone too young. It’s a shame. I never question religion and faith…”

  “Don’t start now,” I said. “What happened to Kyle was tragic. I told him so many times to call me if he ever needed a ride. He swore he knew the roads by heart, you know?”

  “So, he was drinking?”

  “Yes.”

  “Damn,” Jenny said. “I’m sorry you have to go through it.”

  “Well, it’s not like I have anything to deal with. Kyle had friends but little family. A couple cousins that live thousands of miles away. It’s like he just vanished, almost.”

  I shook my head. It only got me upset when I thought about what he could have been doing in life without me. Granted, he would have been in the same town, the same bar, the same car, and have the same fate, but still… what if he had met the right woman?

  “You wear guilt, Lacey,” Jenny said. “I don’t like that look on you.”

  “It’s hard to explain.”

  “No, it’s not. You just don’t want to tell an old hag like me.”

  “Don’t say that…”

  “Lacey, can we talk?” Becky asked as she poked her head in the room.

  I stood up and released my hold on Jenny’s frail hand.

  “Becky,” Jenny said.

  “Yes?” Becky asked.

  “I’m sorry for what I said. You’re not a cunt.”

  My nerves pinched, hearing a seventy-year-old woman say that word.

  “Thank you,” Becky said.

  “You are a bitch, though,” Jenny said with a sly grin. She then looked at me and winked. “And you, Lacey, you owe me the reason why you don’t like this time of the year. I want to know.”

  “I’ll tell you,” I said. “You just rest. No more cleaning the house. Okay? We can help with that. Or we can talk to your family about getting help.”

  “Help,” Jenny said and curled her lip.

  She was strong, fierce, and defiant. She had beaten cancer twice in her life. The third round was the losing one, but even still, she was putting up a hell of a fight. As far as I was concerned, she w
as going to pass because of age, not cancer.

  “Don’t be stubborn, Jenny,” I said with a smile.

  Jenny was quick, as always. She pointed her finger at me. “You don’t be stubborn, either. If you’re avoiding something important by taking those trips, you’re only hurting yourself.”

  I laughed and walked out of the room.

  Becky was waiting for me like a parent ready to scorn a teenager for showing up late.

  I froze. “Yes?”

  “You two are close.”

  “I’ve known her for years.”

  “You’re personal with her.”

  “And that’s wrong?”

  “What’s with this trip? Are you taking vacation time off again?”

  “Becky…”

  “Look, I’m on your side with everything here. Bev has tried but she has no patience anymore. You barely took time off after Kyle passed. We all let that slide. But since then you’ve been a flake. Sorry to say it like that. I just got off the phone with Bev. She’s pissed. It’s good that Jenny took to you but she needs to understand her situation. She can’t be standing on chairs. She can’t be mean to me or anyone else.”

  “Can we go into the kitchen?”

  “Sure.”

  I wanted to give Jenny a little peace. But when I got Becky into the kitchen, I lost my edge.

  My finger literally touched her nose, but if I didn’t at least do that I was going to haul off and slap her or punch her. And knowing Becky, she’d be the type to sue me or something crazy.

  “Stay the fuck out of my business,” I growled at Becky.

  Her eyes went wide. Her eyes were damn black, her eyeballs piercing white. I could see the eye liner around her eyes. She looked like a scared raccoon.

  “You know nothing about me,” I said. “Nothing. What I do. Where I go. Who I did it all with. That’s my business. If Bev has a problem with me she can call me. She can sit me down and tell me anything she wants. Not you. You’re not my boss. You have no personal skills, either. You wonder why Jenny calls you names? You treat her - and everyone else - like a child. A damn child. These are adults. These are humans. They’re sick. They’re frail. They’re goddamn dying, Becky.”

  Becky stepped back and cleared her throat. “Well, you can’t take a vacation. Whatever your issues are, you should seek medical help. I’m leaving. I have somewhere else to go now.”