Hide: Downunder Ink Book 2

  HIDE

  by Bronwyn Stuart

  Cover design by Bronwyn Stuart

  Copyright © 2021 Bronwyn Stuart

  Kindle edition

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be resold or shared. Thank you for respecting the time and energy an author puts into the books you read and love. All mistakes are my own and are not intentional. Sometimes shit happens but please feel free to reach out and let me know if it bothers you.

  Find out about other works at www.bronwynstuart.com

  Content Warning. This book contains adult content and dark themes including but not limited to light slapping on the page, domestic violence off the page, loss of limb, talk of drug and alcohol use, and it does contain sex. A lot of consensual sex between two adults who have flaws and kinks just like every other person in the world...

  Chapter One

  Meet Jen

  Jealousy roars through me as I watch my sisters splashing around in the waves. I take up two fistfuls of hot, white sand and squeeze hard, hoping for pain, but it doesn’t come. Not to my hands anyway.

  I miss the ocean.

  I miss being carefree.

  I miss being close to people.

  What I wouldn’t give to go back in time. To pre-empt my sister’s danger. To not drink those beers. To not get in the car knowing I was likely over the 0.05 blood alcohol limit.

  I can’t even rest easy knowing I saved her. The police told me I could have called them. I didn’t need to get behind the wheel and drive across town to the home she shared with that arsehole. They said I was lucky to only be losing my license, not that I need it now anyway.

  They didn’t know the feeling of getting a phone call like that. At first the whispered cry for help came down the line. Next it was the splintering of timbers, the crash of the door, the bloodcurdling screams that followed. Each time I start to fall asleep, safe in my bed, I hear those sounds again and again. Followed by the sickening crunch of metal, the screech of bitumen against the roof of the car as it flipped and slid. The physical crush of being upside down in the car as the metal crumpled, pinning me under the dash, the engine coming through to do the last bit of undoable damage.

  Some lucky people never remember the moments before or during a car accident. Some don’t even recall anything from the entire day. I’m not some people though. I was fairly drunk and I still remember. I remember every single moment.

  Hanging upside down in my seatbelt, I couldn’t move my legs or get free. I could twist my head enough to see Jo’s seatbelt had come undone. She was dead still on her back where the sunroof had shattered, a stick right through her side, blood everywhere. Glass everywhere. A McDonalds bag of rubbish upended next to her head from the back seat footwell.

  After that, I got nothing. I don’t remember being extricated. That’s a term I never used before that night. Limb removal sounded like a tree cutting exercise. It’s not…

  When Ash lifts Jo free of the surf and spins her around, I don’t see her scars from this far away but I know they’re there. So does Ash, and he doesn’t seem bothered by them at all.

  Maybe if she can bare all to the world after such a horrible journey, there’s hope for me yet…

  Chapter Two

  Jen

  I never really understood it when someone said their days were blurring into one. Once upon a time I lived every single day like it was my last. Care and responsibility free.

  Maybe that’s where I went wrong? Twenty-four-years-old and still drinking and partying like a teenager. Now I’m twenty-five and everything is different. My days are blurring into a haze of boredom, of pain, of pity. It follows me everywhere, more a cloud than a haze, dark and looming.

  Damn it. I have got to snap out of it today.

  He’s coming. Mr I’m-better-than-everyone, with his long, lean legs, his tan from surfing on the weekends and his starchy polo collar for the weekdays. I’ve never been into a guy in a polo shirt in my whole life but there’s something about the way it stretches over his shoulders when he’s helping a client in or out of a wheelchair, helping them loosen and remove prosthetic limbs so I can assess the skin beneath, the damage they want covered with my ink.

  He wears shorts too. The other occupational therapists at the local VA centre wear cargo pants or chinos. I’m glad he doesn’t wear chinos. They’re almost velvety and I might give into the urge to touch their softness. Or his.

  Who am I kidding though really? He could wear newsprint from the daily rag and I’d still want to see what lies beneath.

  Fuck!

  I’m going to snap out of it, really I am.

  I slide my tablet across the white, timber bench of my workstation and the edge catches on a rough patch of dry paint and I nearly drop the whole thing onto the black and white tiled floor. Our tattoo shop was broken into a couple of weeks ago and my sister, Jacqueline (Jack) decided to paint the joint while we were already repairing the other damage. It defies logic that a team of tattoo artists who can leave intricate, bright, near-perfect art on skin, can’t paint a bloody work bench without stuffing it up.

  I swear again and decide today is going to be like a dog shit sandwich. Looks good from first impressions, normal sandwich, normal day, but if you get too close, you realise it’s a dog shit sandwich and you should have stayed in bed.

  Only, in bed, I don’t get to stand next to Mr I’m-better-than-everyone-else, smell his cologne, hear his deep voice and imagine running fingers over his permanent five o’clock shadow. He’s easily years into his thirties and acts like I’m some dumb kid but there’s something about him that calls to me. I don’t think it’s his age because apart from that one English teacher I had that time in year nine, I’ve never been into older guys.

  I shake it off and bring up the plan for Trevor’s session today. He lost his leg in an IED explosion in Afghanistan. He wants a flesh torn, robotic limb in place of the scarred and puckered flesh sitting where his ankle and calf used to be. Eventually he wants me to tattoo the other leg too. Both in the style that looks like the skin is pulled back to reveal robot parts underneath. It’s not terribly unique but neither is losing a leg in a warzone and I don’t judge. If it’s what he wants, I’ll give it to him. He’s been through enough without anyone telling him what he can’t have.

  Except for Mr I’m-better than-everyone-else. He’ll watch on with those judgey eyes of his. Green, like a rainforest. While I’m loading up the ink and needles, cleaning down the site, making sure we’re good to go, he’ll be doing his last-minute bit which mostly consists of, ‘Are you sure you want to do this, man? You’re still healing, body and mind. Don’t make a snap decision for something permanent you might regret later’.

  I always snort and try not to tell him to piss off when the routine starts. These guys know what they want. Most of them have tattoos already, what’s another one going to hurt? Or maybe it’s because Mr Perfect has no scars? Maybe there’s not a blemish on his entire body he wants to cover up so he doesn’t have to see the wreckage anymore? One less reminder of something lost.

  Oh. My. God. I can’t stop today. Can’t stop feeling sorry for myself. I’m going to blame it on the terrible night’s sleep. I’m weaning off the pain killers and it’s not easy. Some part of me knows I don’t need them, but some part of me also knows they help and it’s that part that’s making the stopping harder than it needs to be.

  “Good morning, Jen,” gets sing-songed at me and I automatically scowl.

  “What’s so fucking good about it?” I growl but then I catch myself. That isn’t me. “I mean, good morning, Jo, lovely day!”

  My sister is on cloud nine and it shows. She’s wearing a face-splitting sm
ile and a neck hickey and not even my grump will erase what must have been a good night with Ash.

  “I bought coffee,” she says, placing the tall paper cup on my bench. “Triple shot latte with extra vanilla and a dash of chai.”

  “Legend,” I tell her with my first genuine grin of the morning. “Three sugars?”

  Ash, our resident artist from the UK who just happens to be banging my oldest sister, comes to stand next to Jo and says to me, “How do you have extra vanilla and three sugars? Do you even taste the coffee?”

  The short answer is no. The long answer is I don’t even really love coffee but I need the caffeine. “Brew shaming my coffee, Ash? We can’t all take it straight up black.”

  Jo chokes on her own tongue, splutters a bit. Ash just laughs like I didn’t just make the worst joke of the day since he’s almost black and all. “Once you go black…” he taunts, and I guess it’s okay for him with his Caribbean heritage and dark olive complexion. I don’t want to say I never looked, but he’s packing and everyone knows it.

  I poke my tongue out and say, “I wouldn’t know!” But instead of being all laughter and flirts, the words come out of my mouth almost sad.

  Jo takes my hand and squeezes my fingers. “Tinder. Just do it, Jen. Get back on.”

  It occurs to us both that Ash is still standing there, watching this exchange with a puzzled expression on his hot face. “Why did you get off it?” he asks. Innocently. Out of the loop.

  I swing my gaze to my sister so fast I think my neck pops. “He doesn’t know?”

  Jo shakes her head. “Not my place to say anything.”

  Guilt occupies the space between us and it’s like a living, breathing thing that never goes away. “You can tell him.”

  Ash clears his throat and it’s awkward. “Tell me what?”

  Unless she doesn’t want to? Unless she doesn’t want Ash to pity me because she pities me already and one more person in the pity party could break me? I open my mouth to spill the beans that won’t help anyone at all but Jo beats me to it with, “Not here. Not like this.”

  I nod and don’t say anything but only because I’m biting down on my tongue hard enough for it to bleed. Why hasn’t it come up? I know Jo told Ash about the accident because he’s seen her scars. Why wouldn’t she want to tell him about mine?

  Chapter Three

  Ben

  The highlight of my day. Her. Not.

  I push the wheelchair from the stinking hot pavement into the cool, dim exterior of Downunder Ink despite the fact Trevor can do it himself. Trevor can do a lot of things himself now, which is great, another job well done for me as an occupational therapist. I mentally high-five myself but there’s no enthusiasm. Inside or out.

  “It’s too soon,” I tell him again, quietly, over his shoulder so no one else will hear but I don’t care if they do anyway. I’m not here to win friends. I’m here because Trevor is my client, I drive the rehab centre’s disabled van, and I think he’s making a rash decision. Another one.

  “It’s not. Jen says it’s fine. She wouldn’t start the piece if she thought there was a risk.”

  I hear the frustration in his voice and I get it, I do. No one wants to be told you can’t, or you shouldn’t, especially not an adult who went off to war and came back missing a piece of himself.

  “Why can’t you wait? Six months, tops. Give your body a chance to heal some more?”

  Trevor gives me a scowl over his shoulder and wears his fuck-off look. “All I do is heal. And stare at this goddamned stump. When I have to look at it, I want to see something cool, not something mangled.”

  I’m about to ramp up my argument, maybe throw a guilt trip in for good measure but then she turns up. Out of nowhere. She’s a tiny little thing and blends in well despite her loud ink and her many piercings. “Does this church boy routine ever work out for you?” she asks me, leaning against the edge of the cubicle where she spends her days permanently marking young men and women who shouldn’t be making life-long decisions just yet. I try to ignore the way her bicep pushes on the side of her boob and makes her cleavage look even deeper, sexier.

  I remind myself that I don’t particularly like her. I’m not smiling as I reply, “I’m working on about an eighty/twenty average.”

  “I’ll take your eighty,” she says with a shrug before turning her attention to Trevor. “Ready to get started?”

  Trevor flips me the bird. “Absolutely. I feel like I’ve been waiting forever!”

  I want to tell him he’s been waiting about five damn minutes but she’s watching me, waiting for it. I don’t give her the satisfaction. She grins.

  “You want my cubicle or the private room in the back?” she asks him.

  Trevor looks around the place and while it’s empty now, I’m guessing he knows it’s going to get busier. He won’t want to be treated like a spectacle at a sideshow.

  He predictably says, “Back room.”

  She nods and walks ahead with a slight limp I’ve never really noticed before. I narrow my gaze. Is she even wearing shoes? The hem of her jeans is frayed beyond recognition as it brushes the floor and I see a glimmer of hot pink runners. Interesting choice of footwear but then again, it matches her. Everything about her is bright, flamboyant, loud. Annoying.

  Trevor hits the wheels with the palms of both hands and throws back at me, “I got it from here.”

  I’ve heard that from him before. “I’ll hang around for a minute. I want to check out the design.”

  He lifts his hands but mutters something under his breath and then says, “As long as you don’t say anything about it. You hate tattoos. We get it.”

  It’s not that I hate tattoos. I’ve seen some really nice ones, intricate, with meaning. “Not a word,” I promise him.

  She snorts.

  We enter a fully enclosed room, the only view to the outside world is a window right up high near the ceiling filled with blue sky and nothing else. I wheel the chair in and hold it steady while Trevor levers himself from it and onto the table. It’s the kind we massage clients on, only heavier, more solid. Trevor lies back and she gets to work setting everything up.

  Once she’s satisfied with her gear, she snaps on latex gloves with a wicked grin in my direction. “Let’s get to it. You gonna watch?”

  She’s talking to me, trying to get me to lighten up. That isn’t likely to happen. I nod. “For a bit.”

  “Okay Trevor, I’m going to lay the entire stencil on and take some photos but today we’re just going to go with a light outline so we can see how your skin reacts okay?”

  Trevor nods, says he was born ready and that he can’t wait. Blah, blah, blah. It’s what they all say. Some of them mean it and are ready for the ink. Most of them aren’t. Most of them haven’t come to terms with it all yet. This is the part that gives me the shits. She shouldn’t be doing it, not like this.

  She ignores me as I take a seat in the corner of the room.

  Silence descends. I watch her as she sets the stencils against the puckered, scarred skin of the stump and higher. She’s concentrating so hard, her tongue hangs from her mouth, bitten between her teeth. Occasionally she gets Trevor to twist or lean or lift his leg. When she’s done, she stands back and admires her work with more than a grin. A smile lights up her entire face and pride takes over the cheekiness she usually wears.

  “Sick,” Trevor exclaims over it.

  It looks good. Even I have to admit that. Just not out loud.

  I take a breath. Try one more time. “Are you sure his skin is up to it? That last infection he had was serious.”

  She turns to face me, her hands coming up to land on her hips. “Change the fucking record, Ben. Trevor’s a big boy who can make big boy decisions. His skin is fine.”

  I grit my teeth. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” I ask her. “Outside.”

  “Sure, but it won’t change anything. Trevor here’s getting this tattoo whether you like it or not.”

  I wait for h
er to walk out the door then follow her through the shop and out into the forty-degree day. I start so she can’t. “I’m not trying to be a dick this time,” I tell her. “Trevor has all the classic signs of regressing, mentally if not physically. He’s not ready for this.”

  Her blue eyes flash fire at me. “You said that about the last three guys you brought in here and all I see are happy faces when they leave. Is this about regressing or is it about infection? I’m confused because I don’t think it’s about both.”

  “It is both. Why do you have to push this so hard? Why can’t you do the consult and then ask them to wait a bit? They’re not ready. They need time to think it through. It’s not like you need the extra clients.”

  “You sound like their dad,” she throws at me. “Like a churchy dad who thinks tattoos are the devil’s work. Did you grow up in a hippy commune or something?”

  I ignore the burn, don’t correct her. “I know Trevor’s not ready. He’s aggressive, difficult, salty. He hasn’t come to grips with any of this yet. He has to accept his loss before he should be making decisions he’ll wear for the rest of his life.”

  “The loss of his leg is for the rest of his life. He sees that every single day. He wants to change the view. I don’t blame him.”

  “Changing the view doesn’t change what happened to them.”

  The scoff she pushes from her mouth ratchets up my temper and then she says, “No. It doesn’t. So why does it matter so much to you? Stop trying to be their shrink and be their OT. That’s your job. You drive the car. That’s it. Better still, start sending them in a taxi. I’ll pay the fare.”

  She goes to walk back inside but I put a hand on the door to stop her. She glares at me and I realise there’s nothing else to say. She’s going to start the tattoo and there’s not a damned thing I can do to stop her. Or him.