Blowout

Callie’s rules for surviving heartbreak: avoid eye contact, avoid introspection, and definitely avoid the tattoo artist who looks like he listens to sad indie playlists with his whole chest.

Mason Reyes has hands that create art and shoulders built for emotional damage. He also sees right through Callie’s blazer-and-bite-me defenses—worse, he sketches them. In ink. On her body.

What starts as a coping mechanism becomes an unspoken question neither of them is ready to answer: how do you build something real when every goodbye carves deeper than the last?

She came in for closure.

He gave her beginnings.

This isn’t friends-to-lovers.

This is “what if staying was the brave thing?”

Spoiler: It is.