Clipped Wings by Helena Hunting Read Free Book Online Page A

after all these months, I was still so broken. This man could very well be my undoing.

5

HAYDEN
    Early on Tuesday afternoon, Tenley—who still hadn’t stopped by since we hung out in the basement of Serendipity—left her apartment. The entrance to the apartments above was at the rear of the store. There was a narrow alleyway between Serendipity and the adjacent low-rise apartment building giving her access to the storefront. I liked it, because it allowed me to see when she was coming or going. Not that I was watching for her or anything.
    Instead of going into Serendipity, she turned in the opposite direction and headed down the sidewalk. She was wearing a dress that hugged her curves but still managed to be conservative. On the plus side, it ended midthigh. She had great legs, the kind I wanted wrapped around my waist, or my head, whichever. I wasn’t picky.
    After my dreams last night there was relief in seeing she was okay. My subconscious alternated between lurid fantasy and horrifying nightmares, which had been dominating my sleeping hours as of late.
    I couldn’t get the images out of my head. The bad dreams weren’t unusual; there were past mistakes I couldn’t undo. The part that was messing with me the most was Tenley’s arrival in my subconscious and the way I managed to insert her into the clusterfuck of a nightmare. Usually they revolved around the same theme—death. In this dream, though, the loser from the bar hadn’t let her go. He’d pulled a gun and aimed it at her chest. I couldn’t get through the crowd to help her. I woke up before he pulled the trigger, but it didn’t make me feel any better.
    That she had been in any kind of danger, imagined or not, left me unsettled and raw. Awake or asleep, I didn’t like the loss of control.
    “Have you heard a thing I said?” Chris stepped in front of me, blocking my view of the empty sidewalk.
    “What?” I asked testily.
    “What’s up with you? You’ve been all over the board this week.”
    “What are you talking about?” I leaned back in the chair and laced my fingers behind my head, feigning nonchalance. His rare moment of perceptiveness stunned me. I hadn’t realized I was so damn obvious.
    “If you were a chick I’d say you have PMS. Since you’re not, I’m saying you need to get laid instead, which brings me back to the original one-sided conversation I was having while you so rudely ignored me. I’m going to the peelers tonight, you should come.”
    That meant The Dollhouse. Sometimes I believed the only reason Chris asked me to come was for company in his pit of moral decay. As if my being there somehow made what he did okay. Just because I tolerated his actions didn’t mean I condoned them. Not anymore.
    “Seriously? Why there?”
    “You need to ask?”
    “I don’t know.” I wasn’t eager for a trip down memory lane, and there was a good chance I’d run into Sienna. I had successfully avoided her for the past year. I was inclined to keep it that way.
    “Come on, there’s this new waitress I’m digging. I think I’m starting to wear her down.” He flashed a grin.
    I could only imagine what his version of wearing her down would consist of, but the distraction in the form of visual stimulation might prove helpful. “I’ll think about it.”
    I swiveled in my chair, turning back to my station to prepare for my next client. Tenley was gone anyway, and I doubted she’d stop by tonight. I shouldn’t have kissed her on the cheek. It was too fucking forward, which was laughable, considering the alternative scenarios I’d been entertaining.
    It was just before closing, and I was inking an American flag on some guy’s ass. Most ass tattoos took place in one of the private rooms because the general public preferred not to show off their parts in a busy studio. But the guy in my chair flat out refused. Maybe he had a thing for exhibitionism, because he insisted on baring it all front and center in the shop.
    The only