I’m In It
Tammy Falkner
Night Shift Publishing
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Foreword
Wren
Mick
Wren
Mick
Mick
Wren
Mick
Wren
Mick
Wren
Mick
Wren
Mick
Wren
Mick
Wren
Mick
Wren
Mick
Wren
Mick
Wren
Mick
Wren
Mick
Wren
Mick
Wren
Mick
Wren
Mick
Wren
Mick
Wren
Wren
Mick
Wren
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“I thought what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her… until it did.”
Chapter 1
Also by Tammy Falkner
Copyright © 2017 by Tammy Falkner
I’m In It
E Edition
Night Shift Publishing
Cover design by Tammy Falkner
ISBN-13: 9781634550383
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.
Created with Vellum
For Madge, because she knows the Reeds almost as well as I do.
And to all the readers who have stuck with this series, I offer my most sincere thanks. When I wrote Tall, Tatted, and Tempting, it was just going to be one book. It was just a crazy idea I had, but people loved it, so it grew. It became a family, and the readers have too. Many thanks to you for hanging in there.
Foreword
Mick fell in love with Wren at the worst possible time. She was in the midst of something wonderful, and then she wasn’t. Her life changed in the blink of an eye. In this situation, it wasn’t a change for the better. He can still remember when she felt the first cramp, when she pressed her knees together tightly in the front seat of his car as though she could hold that life inside herself by sheer will alone. If will were all it took, she’d have succeeded.
But she didn’t succeed, and they were over before they began. She was too hurt. She was too raw. She was wishing for what could have been, while he was wishing for what was. And what was… well, it was nothing. At least not to her.
Wren
I push through the doors of the tattoo shop with my heart in my throat. Paul Reed looks up, and I’m stunned, just like every other woman who looks at him is immediately taken aback by all his ink, the piercings over his eyebrows, the metal in his ears, and the blue of his eyes. Startling. There’s no other word to describe him. Except for kind. Kindness seeps from Paul Reed’s pores. You just have to be willing to look past the gruff exterior to see it.
His back is bent over a client as he works on a tattoo for a man who has almost as much metal on his face as I have on my car.
Paul smiles at me. “Hey, Wren,” he says. “What’s up?” He lifts his tattoo machine for no more than a moment, and then he looks back down and keeps working.
“Hey, Paul,” I reply. I swallow hard.
“What can I do for you?” Paul asks. He’s the only one in the shop today, since it’s early in the morning.
“I was hoping Friday might be here,” I say tentatively.
He tilts his head toward the back of the shop. “She’s cursing in the office right now, trying to balance the bank account.”
I hear a filthy curse come from the back room, and I bite back a grin. “Is it okay if I go back to talk to her?”
He nods. “If you’re brave enough.” Then he lets out a heavy sigh. “She threatened to chop my dick off when I took her a cup of coffee. So, proceed at your own risk.”
“Thanks.” I walk toward the office and stop when I see the door is cracked. I rap my knuckles lightly and call out her name. “Friday?”
She looks up and blows a lock of dark hair from her eyes as the door opens just a little. I’m always startled when I see her looking like this. She doesn’t have a swipe of makeup on and she’s in jeans and a t-shirt. There are no high heels, no short skirts, no fishnet stockings, and no kissable red lips. She’s just Friday.
“Hey,” she says. She smiles at me. “Come on in.”
“Are you sure I’m not interrupting?” I step into the room and drop hesitantly into a chair across from her desk.
“I needed a break anyway.” She puts her pencil down and crosses her hands on her desk. “You doing okay?” she asks, her voice soft.
“Oh, yeah,” I say with a breezy wave. “I’m fine.”
“Good,” she says with a nod. “I’ve been worried about you.”
I bite my lips together.
“So, I’m guessing you didn’t just come here to shoot the shit.”
I scratch the tip of my nose. “I was wondering…” I heave in a breath. “I was hoping you might draw a tattoo for me.
Her brow rises. “What did you have in mind?”
“Just something simple to remember the…you know.”
“The baby?” she clarifies, her voice a lot stronger than mine.
“The miscarriage,” I say, clearing the lump that’s suddenly clogging my throat.
“The baby,” she says again, staring hard at me.
“Yeah, that.” I lift my thumbnail to my teeth and rip a piece of it off. I was almost three months pregnant when I miscarried. That was two months ago.
“Did you have something in mind?”
“Well, there’s no marker, no grave…no baby. Not really. So, I want something simple. Just something to mark that he was here. It was an early miscarriage, so some people might even argue that he never existed. Since he never took a breath and all that.”
Her eyes narrow. “He may have never taken a breath, but he existed, and you were one hundred percent pregnant. You’re allowed to feel one hundred percent of the grief.”
Tears sting my eyes and I blink them back.
“I’ll draw something up for you and let you take a look. Want me to text it to you?”
I nod. “That would be great.” I get up and start for the door.
“Hey, Wren,” Friday calls out.
I turn back and look at her, waiting for her to speak. “Yeah?”
“Why didn’t you ask one of the guys to draw something up for you?”
I look everywhere but at her. “Well,” I start. But then I stop and bite my lips together.
“Well?” she prompts. But her face is all kindness and affection.
“You’re a mom,” I say.
She nods, her head going up and down slowly. “I am.”
“And I thought you might, you know, know a little something about loss.” I play with the corner of a poster on the door.
“I do,” she says with another nod. She heaves out a sigh. “I’ll draw something up for you, okay? If you don’t like it, we can go back and forth until we find the right memorial tattoo for you.”
“Do you think it’s stupid?” I ask quickly. I want to bite the words back as soon as they leave my lips. “Never mind.”
She gets up and comes to stand in front of me. She’s about six inches shorter than I am, but she looks dead into my eyes. “Some tattoos are about the past, and some are about the future. Some are about healing, and some just let the pain out. Some mark ha
ppy moments, and others commemorate the sadness. No tattoos are stupid. Well, except for ones people put on their dicks. I never did understand those. And since you don’t have a dick…” She finally grins and squeezes my shoulder. “I’m glad you’re doing okay.”
“It was good to see you.” I turn to walk out.
“Hey,” Friday calls out to me again. “Give your sisters a call. I know they’re worried about you too, okay?”
I nod and leave the shop, the bells over the door tinkling as the door closes behind me.
I step out onto the busy street and take in the hustle and bustle of morning in the city. I pull my phone out of my pocket and text my four sisters all at once.
Me: You guys want to go to karaoke tonight?
Finny: Bitch, it’s about time you texted us. And yes. I’m in.
Star: I’m in, if Marta can watch the baby.
Peck: Sam says we’re in.
Finny: Are we bringing men?
Peck: Sam says we are. LOL
Lark: We’ll meet you there at 7
Me: See you then!
Lark: Umm…Ryan wants to know if Mick can come.
Star: That’s up to Wren. Wren?
Me: It’s fine.
Star: It won’t be too weird for you?
Me: No. It’s fine.
It’s not fine. Not fine at all. But he’s Ryan’s brother. I can’t avoid him forever, can I?
I have four sisters. They are all blissfully happy.
Sam, one of the Reed brothers, met my sister Peck and they have a son and another baby on the way.
Josh, who works at the Reed brothers’ tattoo parlor, married my sister Star and they have a new baby, a little girl.
Tag is living with my sister Finny, and she’s pregnant. Tag already has a little boy, Benji. Tag wants to marry Finny, but she swears she doesn’t need a piece of paper.
Ryan, who also works as a tattoo artist at Reeds’, married my sister Lark. She’s not pregnant yet, but they’re trying. Lots.
And then there’s me.
And then there’s Mick.
And he was with me the day I lost my baby. And I haven’t seen him since.
And he’ll be at karaoke tonight. Shit.
Mick
I fell in love with her at the worst possible time. She was in the midst of something wonderful, and then she wasn’t. Her life changed in the blink of an eye. And in this situation, it wasn’t a change for the better. I can still remember when she felt the first cramp. When she pressed her knees together tightly in the front seat of my car as though she could hold that life inside herself by sheer will alone. And if will were all it took, she’d have succeeded.
But she didn’t succeed, and we were over before we’d begun. She was too hurt. She was too raw. She was wishing for what could have been, while I was wishing for what was. And what was…well, it was nothing. At least not to her.
My phone chimes in my pocket. I roll my eyes when I realize Ryan has changed the name I had for him in my phone again.
BestBrotherEver: Karaoke tonight at 7
Me: Why?
BestBrotherEver: My wife told me I was going. I’m going. That means you’re going.
Me: Why?
BestBrotherEver: You need to get out more. I’m worried about you.
Me: Is Wren going to be there?
BestBrotherEver: I don’t think so.
Me: Are you lying to me?
BestBrotherEver: Would I do that?
Me: Yes
BestBrotherEver: I’ll see you at 7. VIP section so the girls don’t get mobbed.
I shove my phone back into my pocket. Then I make a phone call. One that will either fix everything or ruin what was left. I’m just not sure which.
Wren
All the best stories start with “Here, hold my beer.” So, when I see Mick pass his beer to his brother Ryan and start toward the karaoke stage, I know right away that he’s in big trouble.
“Oh, no,” my sister Finny hisses at me and yanks on the sleeve of my blouse. “You have to go stop him.”
I turn to speak close to her ear, so she’ll be able to hear me over the thumping music. “Why should I do it? He has family and friends here.” I nod my head toward the redhead sitting on the other side of the VIP lounge. “And her. She can go save him.”
Finny rolls her eyes. “She’s nothing,” she bleats out. “He’s barely looked at her all night.”
But she has been looking at him. With longing. With dreams of a future. Or at least dreams of his tongue in all her wet places.
“Frankly, I can’t believe he brought someone here,” Lark says, leaning toward me.
“It’s fine,” I say quickly. “We went on a few dates. That’s all.”
Mick takes the microphone from the guy running the karaoke machine. Finny nudges me again. “Go save him!” she whispers fiercely.
“There are about a hundred people here who could save him. Why me?” I hiss back.
“Because you’re secretly in love with him and if you let him do this, you’ll have to tolerate the shame of it for the rest of your life.”
My cheeks heat up instantly, and I shush her. “Why would you put that out into the atmosphere?” I take a sip of my water. “And I am not in love with him,” I mutter.
“But you like him,” she sings out, her tone containing a jaunty little melody that irks the shit out of me.
What’s not to like? Mick is a tall drink of water on a really thirsty night. He’s broad-shouldered, with dark hair and dark eyes, and he’s kind and considerate and…he’s not mine.
Mick trips over the edge of the stage as he walks up to take the microphone, and the people on the other side of the red velvet rope that keeps us away from the public laugh.
Finny makes a scissoring motion at them with her fingers and says, “If you snicker one more time, I will chop out your tongues.” She arches her brow at them until they both blanch, and then she turns back to face me with a sigh.
I sit with my heart in my throat as I watch Mick pick a song. I don’t know Mick very well, and yet he knows me better than anyone.
Finny jerks me out of my reverie with a loud groan. “We have to go save him,” she says. She grabs me by the elbow and jerks me out of my seat.
“Would you stop?” I say. But she doesn’t stop walking. She grabs our other three sisters too as we walk through the crowded bar toward the stage.
We form a group of five, with all our hands linked, just like we’ve always been, since the day we met at a group home for kids who didn’t have parents. We bonded. We all were adopted by the same family, and we became sisters in every sense of the word.
We came to the club wearing ball caps and casual clothes. We’re not a rock band right now. We’re not Fallen from Zero, the internationally famous rock band. We’re the Vasquez sisters.
Until we step onto the stage. I know that if we all go up there, we’ll give up our night of peace and fun and we’ll have to go home. So, I stop them at the edge of the stage. “I got this,” I say to them.
“Are you sure?” Star asks, worrying her lip between her teeth.
I nod. “I got it. Go sit down and pretend you’re not famous.”
I walk onto the stage, my boots clicking against the wood floor. Mick looks over at me and suddenly stops singing. “Hey, Wren,” he says into the mic and the room goes quiet.
“Hey, Mick,” I say, but no one but him can hear me. “Pick a song for me, will you?” I pull out a stool and settle on the edge of it. Mick turns and speaks to the guy running the karaoke machine, and a tune begins to play.
“Not that one,” I say, shaking my head.
Mick stares into my eyes. “Yes, that one.”
I get to my feet. “Not that one,” I say again.
I can hear the opening bars of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” playing softly, and it’s like Mick has just kicked me in the gut. He knows what that song meant to me. He knows that my mother, who died in a car accident, used to sing i
t to me and Star and Tag when we were little. He knows it means the world to me. He knows because I told him. I put the words of that song on the wall in the nursery I was building, before it all happened. He saw them. My mother sang the song with the wrong words, and so do I. Instead of troubles melting like lemon drops, she sang about laughter falling like lemon drops. I still sing it like that, because it’s the way I learned it. That song is special. And painful. And I can’t sing it. Not now. Not here. Probably not ever.
“I won’t sing that song,” I tell the karaoke operator.
He nods and starts to scroll through the list.
“I’m sorry,” Mick mouths at me.
I nod and avoid his eyes.
“I didn’t know.”
He knew.
“I didn’t mean to…” he says, and this time he catches my gaze. “Really.” I stare into the dark depths of his eyes until I can swallow past the lump in my throat.
“Okay,” I whisper. He looks at me. “It’s okay,” I say again. He didn’t know I’d have quite such a visceral reaction to that song. I get it.
“I wasn’t trying to hurt you,” he says.
“Okay,” I say again.
Suddenly, my sisters are right next to me.
Finny whispers something to the operator and he scrolls through his list until he finds one of our songs. I know it’s ours the minute I hear the melody. It’s the song Finny wrote about her mother, and it’s about the unconditional love you get from a family. It’s about what moms are supposed to be.
I nod. “I’ll sing that one.”
I glare at Mick and he pretends to poke his bottom lip out and sulk when we take over his song. He crosses his arms and leans against the wall, probably because he can no longer hold himself up. His eyes are rimmed with red and there’s a form of pain hidden in the dark depths that I can only begin to guess at.
The crowd goes wild when we start to sing along with the melody. Cameras nearly blind us as people take pictures of us, but we keep singing all the way to the end. Then we take a deep, dramatic bow and rush off the stage. My sisters’ husbands and significant others meet us at the edge of the platform.