Page 70 of Speechless
ChapterTwenty
Maverick
My hand was shaking as I opened the door to Codie’s shop. I hadn’t seen her in three months and I made an appointment with her under an assumed name. She could easily make a scene and toss me out on my ass. And I wouldn’t blame her.
Amanda, who was sitting at the front desk, raised an eyebrow and cast a nervous glance over her shoulder when I walked in.
“Hey, Amanda. Your boss around?”
“Uh, yeah. She’s just finishing up with a client. Can I get you anything to drink?” She blushed. “I mean, a coffee or water—”
“No, I’m good, thanks.” I tapped my knuckles on the desk. “Don’t tell her yet, but I’m her 3:00 appointment.”
“Oh, shit,” she whispered. “I don’t think she’s gonna like that.”
“She still hates me, huh?”
“No.” She shook her head. “She still loves you. And that won’t make it easy for her to tattoo you.”
Hearing that she was still in love with me gave me a little more courage to follow-through with my crazy plan. I’d respected her wishes and hadn’t reached out to her once in 90 days, but it was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. Even abstaining from alcohol paled in comparison to quitting Codie.
“Do you know what you want?” she asked. “I mean, the kind of tattoo?”
I took a folded sheet of sketch paper out of my pocket and handed it to her. I’d been a pretty good artist in high school and I’d spent hours on my tour bus perfecting this design.
“Oh wow,” she whispered. “This is incredible, Mav.”
“Thanks.” I put it back in my pocket, and asked, “Think she’ll agree to do it?”
“Um, I don’t know. It’s asking a lot, given how she feels about you and how hard this has been on her, y’all being apart.”
I appreciated her best friend being so honest with me, because I wasn’t sure Codie would have been. “I’ll try to respect her wishes, if she says no. But Codie is the best. If anyone is going to give me this tattoo, I want it to be her.”
She nodded. “I get that. And you’re right, she is the best.”
“I hear you and my brother have been keeping in touch.”
“Yeah, he’s great.” She reached for her oversized coffee mug with bright pink lips emblazoned on it. “Who knows, if he ever decides to accept a job in Nashville, maybe we could see where things go.”
I knew my brother was considering coming back to our hometown. He’d left to get as far away from our folks as possible, and I couldn’t blame him. But he was all grown up now and knew he didn’t need to keep running from them.
Codie was giving her client, a middle-aged woman with a blonde pixie cut, a hug when she spotted me. Her eyes widened in surprise before she crooked a finger at me and gave her client one last parting smile.
“Guess it’s go time,” I said to Amanda.
She winced. “Good luck, Mav. You’re probably going to need it.”
“Hey, Codie—”
She raised her hand, silencing me. “Not here. In my office.”
It was then I noticed all of her tattoo artists and their clients were watching me. “Uh, sure.”
I followed her down a narrow hallway to a closed door in the back. Her office was small, but tidy, with a desk, swivel chair, two black leather armchairs and an antique bookcase. She had framed family photos lining an antique credenza and half a dozen with friends I didn’t recognize. I wanted to know the people in those pictures. Who they were, what they meant to her. Whether she’d ever talked to them about us.
She folded her arms over her chest and leaned her backside on her desk, facing me. “What are you doing here, Mav?”
“I’m your next appointment.”
