Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 126589 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126589 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
“I think it’s really admirable,” she said, after taking a deep breath. “What you’ve been doing for those women.”
The hard line of his mouth softened somewhat and he acknowledged her words with a curt nod.
A thought occurred to her. “Why are you seeing them here? When you say you have a studio in Sea Point?”
“An electrical fire wiped out the entire building. The studio, and my apartment above it, were both gutted. That’s why I had to move in here.”
She covered her mouth in shock, eyes wide as she stared at him. And all this time she’d thought of him as a loser who was leeching off his best friend, when he had lost everything in a tragedy.
“I’m so sorry, Gideon. Nobody told me.”
He shrugged. “Probably for the same reason nobody told me your bird died.”
“We really haven’t been fair on our friends, have we?” Beth reflected in a moment of humbling self-awareness and he sighed.
“We could’ve been less combative,” he admitted.
The silence yawned between them and—because lapses in conversation tended to make Beth even more nervous with the resultant self-consciousness wreaking havoc on her speech—she said the first thing that popped into her mind.
“Is it legal to run a tattoo parlor from a private residence?”
Even as the words tumbled from her lips—gloriously clear and stutter-free—she knew it was exactly the wrong thing to ask. Especially after the brief moment of solidarity that had preceded it.
His spine straightened and his lips thinned. “Why? Are you planning to report me? Think it’s your best chance to get rid of me?”
“N-nuh no I—”
“Tough shit, Lizzy-bit,” he sneered. “Cam knows about it. I have a special permit and have passed all the health and safety inspections. You’re a fucking piece of work, you know? I didn’t think you were serious when you said that thing about blackmailable knowledge. I decided to place some trust in you—despite the fact that you didn’t see fit to trust me with a real secret—and your first instinct is to try and figure out how to screw me over with the information I’ve given you?”
She took a deep breath, determined to set him straight, but as she opened her mouth to speak, he got to his feet, gave her another glare, and left.
She managed to choke out his name, just as he slammed the front door behind him. There was so much force in the gesture, the panes rattled slightly.
Beth buried her face in her hands. Well, she’d botched that up pretty badly. Never in a million years would she have expected him to divulge something so personal and now she felt like a tool for not being equally as forthcoming, and—of course—for believing his stupid gigolo story for even a second.
“Damn it,” she breathed into her palms, before moving her hands up to smooth back her hair. She couldn’t leave it like this. And much as she hated the thought of ever speaking to the man again, she knew they had to work this out. If for no other reason than Cat and Cam needed them to.
Gideon was pissed with himself. Why the fuck did he even try? The woman was as poisonous—wait, no… venomous—as he had accused her of being earlier. Only Lizzy would ask such a cold, calculating question after everything he’d disclosed to her. Of course, that would be her only takeaway from his story.
The truth was that he’d only recently received the official all-clear to work here. And that on an extremely limited basis. In the months before that, he had set up shop here illegally. But only to work on Kenny’s patients.
Quite frankly, while he found working with the cancer survivors rewarding, it was the only aspect of tattooing that he enjoyed anymore. He had been feeling this way for a while and when that fire had wiped out his shop, he’d been almost relieved to walk away from that life. He had a few of Kenny’s patients to finish up with, after which he would refer his sister to one of his former colleagues. A woman who did some amazing watercolor tattoos that he thought her patients would respond well to.
Which meant Gideon truly was on a fast track toward becoming the aimless loser Lizzy—like his father—already had him pegged as.
He had a few freelance illustration gigs lined up—bread and butter jobs—they paid the rent and kept food on his table. Enough work to keep him comfortable for the next six months. Nothing exciting or remotely interesting. Several brochures, a couple of pamphlets, and a small design project for Cynthia’s magazine.
Gideon had had such lofty aspirations after graduating art school. He would make it as an illustrator, he’d prove to himself that he didn’t need to lean on the family or his inheritance to survive. He could live off the fruits of his own labor. But nothing had gone quite right. Jobs had fallen through, expected contracts had never quite materialized and all the while he’d had his father telling him to come home, get a real degree. In law/business/medicine like his siblings.