Thanks for checking out my story, guys! I forgot to mention last chapter, the title and inspiration for this story comes from a Florida Georgia Line song by the same name. If you're a country music kinda person, check it out!

NWNWNWNWNWNWNWNWNWNWNWNWNWNWNWNWNW

He traces rose petals on her shoulder as she lays tangled in his bed sheets. She told him once that it was her mother's name – Rose – and she got the tattoo the day after her mother checked into the hospital she hasn't checked out of and probably never will.

Her wrist rests over his heart, the one that says Always. He likes the thought of Always, but he knows in the back of his mind that she lays like this against his brother, and Always is over that heart, too, and it's probably not true for either of them. Which is fair because his brother never should have started things with her to begin with, and he should have stayed away once he learned the truth, and she deserves so much better than either of their selfish asses.

But she comes back and she stays, so even if he doesn't deserve her, here she is.

"Why don't you ever tell me to leave?" she asks into the darkness.

He knows he could just not answer and she would drop it, and he debates doing just that, but the answer is so obvious and so simple that he has to at least say something. "You know why."

At least, he thinks she does.

"But you know you should. This is a mess. And you're an angel, and you don't need me fucking you up."

No one has called him an angel before, and he's not sure that she's right, but he's more worried about what she is saying about herself. He rolls onto his side so he can see her face, look into her eyes, say without saying that she is the angel and there is no one he would rather be in a mess with than her. He sees her understand, sees the switch in her eyes as they widen that little big with realization and soften with agreement. Feels her soft lips seal their fates with a slow kiss, his favorite kind, the kind that tells him this isn't just a physical thing for her, either. That this is real for her, too.

They don't say "I love you" often, but they say it then. Just whispers, so quietly that they can pretend they don't hear but know that they do. But there are affairs and families and every reason to keep it quiet and pretend that this isn't happening, that they haven't fallen in love as everything around them is on the verge of falling apart.

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"Well, I'm just glad that Sig is taking an interest in a neighbor for once instead of complaining about them not taking care of their lawns or something. I'm just impressed she can make such a nice living doing tattoos."

June glowed in the evening sun, as usual, as she poured herself another glass of wine and nudged her husband playfully.

"Mom, I think she's got family money or something, I don't think it's all coming from tats," Mandy corrected. "She mentioned something about an uncle maybe. I don't know, she's can be super vague sometimes. Maybe Dad knows?"

But Sig was staring off towards that little blue house on the corner, which was quiet now. June had mentioned that Saturdays were Becca's busy days, when she was at her tattoo parlor pretty much dawn 'til dusk.

"Dad." Mandy snapped her fingers in front of Sig's face. "Wake up!"

"Hmm?" Sig snapped his head around. "What do you want, child?"

"Becca! She had some rich uncle or something, right?"

"Oh." Sig sank back into his chair and rolled his eyes. "Hell if I know. She doesn't say shit about her life. Good kid, though."

"She's, like, 30, Dad," Nina snorted. "She's not exactly a kid."

"Yeah, you're a kid, Neens," Mandy teased, earning herself a rude hand gesture that she returned, stopping only with a stern look from June. Edgar smiled, the sun warm on his face. Damn, he loved this little family. Almost made him wish he'd had one of his own, but it's hard to have a family when your wife leaves you after a couple years. Most fishers can't luck their way into what his brother found, after all. But that was all a long time ago, and these crazy nieces of his could fill that hole and then some.

"Well, she's a kid when you're my age. That's why I'm…" he waved his hands like he did when he couldn't find the right word. "Coaching her."

"Yeah, because an 80 year-old crabber has so much wisdom to give a 30 year0old tattoo artist," Edgar teased. Hey, his nieces weren't the only siblings around.

"Be nice, June scolded. "Sig's only 79." After a chorus of laughter at her husband's express, she added, "If he doesn't take care of her, he'll go back to bothering you, Ed."

Edgar slapped a hand over his heart. "Dear God, no, please, anything but that."

"That's enough of your shit," Sig warned.

"But you seemed pretty cozy with her at the barbeque, Uncle Ed." Mandy nudged him with a big, fat, dramatic wink.

"Oo, do we have a crush on the neighbor?" June giggled

"Girls, c'mon, don't be ridiculous," Sig grumbled. "He could be her father."

"Oh, lighten up, Sig!" Edgar laughed, brushing off his brother's bad attitude as always. "It's not like we talked about anything serious. Like you guys said, she's not big on the personal stuff, just her shop and moving in and stuff. I wouldn't have even spend any time talking to her if Sig hadn't gone all Captain on her."

"Daddy! Be nice!" Nina exclaimed.

"I was nice!" Sig snapped. "She's got a hard head, 'sall."

"Oh, yeah, unlike anyone we know," June quipped, sharing a conspiratorial wink with Edgar. "You'll just have to make it up to her when you take her car shopping this weekend. I"ll make a coffee cake or something."

Sig waved his hands hastily. "No, no. I, uh, think she's got an allergy to, uh…something. Nuts, maybe? Don't make her things. I'll apologize. Now, can we eat?"