The Fear Of Faith [2]

2. Cal

We were both doing our own thing to meet our aspirations and it was a good feeling to be living the normal life that other people lived. A happy couple, living together in a homely apartment, working hard to achieve their career goals. It wasn't a life I had ever pictured for myself.

For me, I had always imagined that I would be alone until I died. There had never been a single person in my life who had made their way into my heart and being alone in my cabin was my comfort zone. I worked odd jobs to keep a living and did my tattoos on the side of it, never earning a lot of money from it; there weren't many people in Leiper Falls calling my phone to book in for appointments with me.

Now, I had my shop. A legit business that Bethan's parents had helped me open and already it was thriving. I rented out one of my stations to a guy named Charlie so that he could take on some of the bookings and ease the workload off me but they kept coming in and we were both doing overtime.

Taking the late bookings meant getting home late and even though we had only been living here two weeks, most of the nights I'd gotten home late to find her already passed out in bed. It was a disappointing moment when I had missed her for the evening, but I made up for it by pulling her close to me until I could talk to her the next morning.

My love for Bethan was growing stronger everyday and even though I told her I loved her all of the time, she really had no idea just how much I did. I could never find the words to tell her just how much I loved her; she consumed all of me and she had no idea of just how perfect she was.

I spotted myself in the mirror as I stepped out of the shower, quickly dropping the subtle grin I had at the thoughts of her and continued to dry myself off before heading to get dressed. Once I was ready, I quickly moved through the apartment, tidying up a little and grabbed my things before heading out and locking up.

I moved down the elevator and out onto the street where Bethan's father's car was parked right outside the building. It was nothing on my bike; an exchange between Ted and I that had me drawing the shorter straw but I had to admit, it was more practical and better for bracing the cold city air.

I climbed inside and started up, glancing around before I pulled off. It was going to take a while before I got used to the crowded city; I'd usually have the road to myself as I rode my bike through Leiper Falls but here, it was crazy. People stepped on and off the road without warning, drivers were ruthless and my road rage was evident through it all.

On our first few days here, I'd bashed my fist on this steering wheel more times than I could count and it was frustrating having to deal with the city traffic when I wasn't used to it. Bethan found my reactions amusing but she did try and teach me a few calming techniques to keep myself composed when the roads got crazy; even though I know she'd just googled them.

I smirked as I remembered her words of wisdom as she told me to count and breathe and funnily enough, a small percentage of the time it worked a little.

I moved my attention back to the road as much as I was unable to remove the smile from my face as my mind flickered by with thoughts of her. I allowed myself to think of her and picture her high-pitched, hearty laugh that made her wrinkle her nose and the thoughts never left my head the whole time as I made the 20-minute drive to Brooklyn.

...

'Hey dude.' Charlie gave me a nod as I entered the shop.

'Morning,' I replied before giving the client he was currently working on a nod. 'Hey there.'

She returned a smile and resumed her eyes to her wrist where Charlie was needling some sort of heart-shaped symbol.