He’d come to me several months back. Said he’d been with Mom before I was born, and that it coincided with the time of my birth. At first, I was in utter disbelief, but then I remembered how indifferent he was on my birthday – and it was him realizing the date – and how sad he’d been when I’d first let him know I was Joanne’s daughter. I understood why Norman hated him. He might not have known he was my father for sure, but I’m sure now that I reflect on certain events that he suspected it.

We took a paternity test and, lo and behold, he was. I had a fucking father. It was good to know that after all that time Frank wasn’t a creep after all, but a man who’d been staring at his daughter wondering how to broach the subject to me.

So there I sat, bleeding buckets out of my vagina, feeling the most exhausted I have felt having endured the worst pain in my life… and I’d never been happier. This was my family right here. My husband of three months cradling our creation, a woman I’d always regarded as my mother, a best friend who’d always been there for me, a father who was actually making an effort to be a part of my life, and a daughter… Oh, God, a daughter that I swore I would never, ever, ever hurt.

“What did you name her?” Lexi asked, wiping away her own tears.

Jaxon smiled at me and then turned to his mom. “Lucy. Short for Lucinda.”

Lucinda covered her face and cried her heart out.

And, right on cue, our little Lucy did the same.

REMY

Upon walking into the parlour, he breathed the air and wrinkled his nose. Place smelled like a combination of stale cigarettes and antiseptic wash. And something else…

He followed the floral scent until he was standing in front of a beautiful blonde girl sitting behind the counter. She was on the phone setting up an appointment and pencilling it into a moleskin notepad.

He’d been in enough tattoo parlours to know that most of them didn’t warrant a receptionist. Judging by her flawlessly untouched skin, she was certainly not a tattoo artist herself. He wondered for a moment what inked up Muppet employed her, because hiring girls that looked like her for jobs that weren’t required in a place like this… Sniff. That shit smelled like bullshit.

As she wrote the date down with her left hand all curled around the pen, he scanned the parlour and was pleasantly surprised that it was a slow day. Which meant he wasn’t going to have to worry about witnesses – and after a long day dealing with the petrified whimpering of a broken down Daniel Hale, all he wanted was to get this next job done. Quick and easy.

The girl put the phone down and casually looked up at him. She stilled for a brief moment, taking him in with a pleasantly surprised look on her face. She was admiring him, and while Remy might have taken advantage of this any other day, today was not one of them.

“Hello,” she smiled widely. “I didn’t see you there. Do you have an appointment?”

“Yeah, with some guy named… Bobby.” He watched her face contort to confusion.

“Bobby? I’m not sure… We don’t have anyone by that name. Guys here like to use nicknames.” She rolled her eyes as if there was an annoying story in there. He didn’t give a fuck.

“What kind of names? Maybe that’ll juggle my memory.” It wouldn’t juggle shit, the lying fuck.

“There’s Buzz and Ped–”

“Buzz, yeah, that’s the name.”

She nodded. “Okay. He’s in the backroom finishing a tattoo off right now. You might have to wait a bit.”

“I got all the time in the world.” No he didn’t.

She smiled again, going crimson at the way he was looking at her. Remy wanted to roll his fucking eyes. He didn’t want to play this shit game. He just wanted to get this job done. Poor girl didn’t know what was coming in a matter of hours.

“You look familiar. Have you been here before?”

He shook his head. “No.” Shit, he didn’t think he’d have to worry about her recognizing him.

“What’s your name?” he then asked. To distract her from finding out, he could play this flirting game – the fucker was good at it. “You look familiar too. Those green eyes are fucking gorgeous.”

She laughed and played with her hair. “Christy.”

“Beautiful name,” he smiled, and it was the fakest fucking smile of his life.

Cue more annoying blushing. Did the girl have skin problems? “Thank you. So what kind of tattoo are you looking to get.”

“More like wanting to cover up a tattoo,” he answered, raking his eyes curiously at her happy nature wondering why, of all the shady people in the world, she was on the list.

“Oh. The guys are great with that stuff. Some of the designs they do are crazy.”

“Not looking for a design. Looking to completely cover it up. Big black box over something I want to forget.”

Her eyebrows shot up, completely oblivious to what he really meant. “Oh. Well, that sounds like it’s going to hurt like a bitch.”

He smiled bitterly as her face echoed in his memories. No longer the pussy-whipped moron, he nodded and said, “Yeah, well… Some pains are worth enduring.”

THE END