Draw Me In by Regina Cole Regina Cole Read Free Book Online

time halfway through the first ring.
    I chucked the phone at my pillow, my chest so tight that it felt like my ribs would crack at any moment. Dad had done the screwing up, not me, so why had Mom abandoned me, too? It wasn’t fucking fair.
    Dry-eyed, I stood. Enough was enough. Nobody had the answers to my problems, and it was definitely time to stop begging for them. Dr. Fields had to be wrong. This was the way I was supposed to go. I was supposed to work at Sinful Skin, and I was supposed to get my degree, even if I never spoke to my parents again. If Dr. Fields could find me a job as his assistant, I’d turn it down. I couldn’t make enough money there. Right or wrong, I was keeping my job at the tattoo shop.
    I grabbed my bag and left the dorm room, slamming the heavy wooden door behind me. I’d head over to the art building. It was late, so there wouldn’t be many people there. A perfect time to work with some watercolors and get my mind off this shit. So what if the project wasn’t due for three more weeks? I needed to create, to move, to ignore the chaos my life had become.

Chapter Four
    Neill
    The angry buzz of the tattoo machine surrounded me, making a comforting, familiar sound blanket that dulled the outside world. I finished the thin black line at the edge of the bird’s wing and carefully wiped away the excess ink and smears of pinkish blood. I glanced at the girl’s face. She was lying on her back in the tattoo chair and staring at the ceiling, her mouth pressed into a thin line.
    “Doing okay?”
    She nodded, glancing over and giving me a tight smile. “I’m good.”
    I’d warned her that this would be no picnic—a decent-sized, intricate piece over a rib cage could make Navy SEALs cry. But I had to hand it to her, she was a trouper. Two hours in and she hadn’t shed a single tear. The outline was nearly complete, though it would take close to another hour to do the inner shading.
    “I’m going to take a quick break, okay?” I laid my machine down on the silver tray, snapping off the black gloves and tossing them in the small trash can that sat beneath the counter. “You might want to go ahead and pop another couple ibuprofen, and we’ll try to get the last part in one go.”
    She nodded. The woman beside her moved forward quickly and helped her to sit up. My client whispered her thanks as I left the room. She’d have sat there and taken the pain, but dammit, the girl needed to breathe. Ten minutes to rest would probably be enough, and then I could knock out the rest of the tattoo. It was always nice when a beautiful piece ended up on a good person, and from what I’d seen of this client, she was a badass worthy of some epic ink.
    I made my way through the busy lobby of the shop, glad to see clients milling around, waiting for their turn with an artist or heckling their friends from outside the semi-private tattooing studios. For a Friday night, it was a good crowd. Karl would have been happy if he’d been here to see it. With a friendly wave to a regular, I ducked into the break room to grab a bottle of water.
    “Hey, boss, that girl you’re working on, is she single?” Roger, one of the other artists at Sinful Skin, was already seated at the round table, twirling an empty bottle in his hands. Rocking his chair back on two legs, he gave a predatory grin. “She’s fucking hot.”
    “Sorry to disappoint you dude, but A—she’s not single, and B—I’m pretty sure that’s her girlfriend with her right now.” I yanked open the white refrigerator door and bent down. The whole top shelf was devoted to bottles of water for the staff and the occasional client. The lower shelves held various lunch bags and a few pieces of fruit with Tasha’s name on the sticker. I grabbed a bottle of water and let the condiment-laden door swing shut.
    “Shit, man,” Roger groaned as he tilted his head skyward. His ladder-backed chair thumped to the floor. “Sure they’re not just good