I grin and lean forward to take her lips one more time. “You can take me anytime you want, baby girl. I’m yours to command.”
Her eyes sparkle with mischief as she says, “Don’t worry, I’ll take plenty of what I want later.”
Three burgers and twenty minutes later, I’m finally able to focus on something other than my insane need to call off this whole plan and take Hailey home to see exactly what shewants. It takes seeing her squirming nervously on the tattoo bench to switch from animal-Jax back to caring-Jax.
I take a seat next to where Hailey is perched on the edge of the chair and wrap an arm around her waist. I pull her against my side and press my lips against her hair.
"Relax," I murmur. "It doesn't hurt as much as you think it does, and it'll be over before you know it. Just take a deep breath and remember why you're doing this."
I can feel her relax in my arms. She takes a deep breath, then another, and then smiles gratefully at me.
My heart feels like it wants to fucking explode at the sight.
"Hey, guys, how we doing tonight? Jax! Hey, man!"
I turn to look at Tyler, my usual tattoo artist. Not that I have a bunch of ink, but when I do commit to something, he's my guy.
"Tyler, what's up, man? How's it going?" I extend my hand for a fist bump, which he meets with a big grin. All of the fighters at the gym get their tattoos done here, so the running joke is that we keep the shop in business; all of the artists are always happy to see one of us walk through the front door.
"Ah, you know, can't complain. Remy actually just called me and set up an appointment for some crazy back ink next month. What're we doing today? Are we finishing the color on your back?"
I shake my head with a chuckle. "Stop trying to put color on my designs, man, you know I only do black and white."
Tyler raises his hands in mock-surrender, though a guilty smile appears on his face. "I had to try. That thing would look dope with some color."
I laugh again but turn toward Hailey. "I'm actually not your customer today. Hailey wanted to get some ink."
Tyler turns his attention to Hailey and notices for the first time that my arm is around her. "This your girl?" he asks with a kind smile.
I squeeze Hailey tighter to my side, just as that word squeezes something around my heart. I know I look like a grinning idiot right now, but I couldn't give a flying rat's ass. All I manage to get out is, "Yeah, she is."
Hailey's eyes are wide as she looks at me, but she doesn't say anything to correct me. I know we haven't put a label on what's going on between us, but I don't think either of us could deny that 'my girl' sounds more right than anything else we could've called it.
"It's nice to meet you, Hailey," Tyler says, interrupting my silent conversation with Hailey. "I'm Tyler. What were you thinking of getting today?"
Her nerves immediately return, so I give her a reassuring squeeze to remind her I'm here. "Umm, I've always wanted to get a compass tattooed on my ankle. Something medium-sized, not anything too big, but I do have a few details in mind. I have a design I can show you, I just need to find it on my phone—"
"I've got it," I interrupt. I pull my phone out of my pocket and swipe to the picture, then hand it to Tyler.
"You remembered which design I wanted?" Hailey asks, surprised. "We talked about it years ago."
I shrug as if it's no big deal. "I looked it up when I made this appointment. I knew you wanted a very specific design." I don't mention the part where I spent almost two hours searching through compass tattoos, just so I could find this particular one.
"This is great, we can definitely do this," Tyler chimes in after looking at the design. "How big are you thinking? Can you show me on your ankle?"
Hailey stares at me in shock for another moment before tearing her gaze away to look at Tyler. She pulls her right ankle up across her opposite knee and tugs her socks down so she can estimate a circle with her fingers. "Umm, I'd like something about this big if you can still keep the detail. I don't know how small or big it has to be."
"That size is fine, I can still get the details in. Why don't you take your shoe off and lie back on the chair while I go print the stencil for this? I can have you out of here in about an hour."
Hailey does as he says, and by the time Tyler comes back a few minutes later, her nerves have gotten increasingly worse. He goes through the process of setting up the ink, cleaning her skin, placing down the stencil, by which point she's breathing heavily and squeezing her hands into fists.
I pull a chair up on her opposite side and reach for her hand. I gently pry open her fists so I can take her hand in mine and give her a reassuring squeeze.
"Breathe, baby," I murmur. “I promise it's not that bad."
"Ready?" Tyler asks gently.
Still wide-eyed and looking more nervous than I've ever seen her, Hailey just nods.