Sweet Romance14 min read
My Ex Sent Me His Gifts. His Girlfriend’s Uncle Tattooed My Name.
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I was minding my own life—tattoo ink, bad coffee, and a shop that barely paid the bills—when a box meant for my ex showed up at my door.
It smelled like cheap perfume and regret.
"Who ordered red lingerie and an expensive bracelet to this address?" I asked the courier without looking at him.
He shrugged. "Label says your name."
I unwrapped it because curiosity is a cat and cats hate rules.
Inside, a scarlet lace set and a bracelet that could have bought my rent for two months. My mouth twitched.
"You found what you were looking for?" I typed one-handed and, because revenge was a flavor I appreciated, I took him off my block at 5:20 a.m. and sent, "Wow, I said it in passing and you actually bought it?"
Then I turned my phone off.
The next morning the courtyard smelled faintly of garbage and karma. Wade Cash, my ex, showed up exactly like an apology in human form—mussed hair, eyes bright with shame, and the sort of hand tremble that begged to be pitied. He carried a ragged, apologetic face and a heap of trash tactics.
"Where's the gift for Xian?" he demanded, breathless.
"Throw it away," I said with a slow smile.
"Why would you—" His finger jabbed a hair's breadth from my forehead. "You like the bracelet. You could've bought it yourself. Why are you acting like this? Now my girl thinks we are... you know."
"She's your girlfriend," I said. "Not mine."
He puffed up and, in a move perfected by men who practice entitlement, pointed behind him at a mountain of bad attitude disguised as a man.
"This is Xian’s uncle," Wade said with a flourish. "Talk to him."
The man behind him leaned forward. Tall, black jacket, a scar across his brow that made him look dangerous in a handsome way. He had the kind of face that could be a headline. He smiled like a secret, like he knew a plot twist.
"You coming to explain?" Wade asked.
"I don't owe you explanations," I told him. "If you want it, it's at the east gate—three minutes ago the trash truck came. You can fish."
He cussed, bolted toward the gate, and left a comic blur of flailing limbs. I almost laughed. Almost.
The tall man stayed.
"You're not going?" I asked.
He shook his head, amused. "Your ex is dramatic. He does not strike me as credible."
"That's nice of you to notice."
He leaned closer. A dangerous smile. "I'm Griffin Wood."
"Adelyn Larsen," I answered, because the shop had a rule: never give your whole life away for free.
"You a tattoo artist?" he asked.
"Yes."
He sat down as if he had always belonged in my chair. "Then put my name there."
"You want what?"
"Your name. Three letters. I like it."
My hand froze on the needle. "You want my name tattooed on your chest?"
He shrugged, as casual as a man requesting a coffee. "Yes."
"That's... ridiculous."
"I like ridiculous." He unbuttoned two buttons and showed an expanse of bronzed skin. "Here."
My brain ran every possible protest. My job is to turn personal pain into art; it's the only time I let strangers' stories live on my skin. But the idea of my name—Adelyn, shaky and alive—inked onto him felt like the first tiny revenge rattle.
"Are you sure?" I asked.
He steadied his breath. "Put the needles in. Don't let me back out."
I couldn't name the exact second I decided: whether it was because Wade flushed like a clown in the trash, or because the idea of someone else carrying my name made my chest light, or because I liked the way Griffin watched me—pure, intent, like a man watching a comet.
I tattooed "Adelyn" across his collarbone.
Halfway through he laughed through the pain. "You know," he grinned, "I didn't expect to like seeing your letters. But I do."
"Expensive tastes," I said, and smirked. "Tattoo costs one-eight-eight-eight. No discounts."
He tapped the air between us. "Fine. Scoundrel."
A half-hour later I handed him a mirror. He tilted his head, and with a grin that widened something inside me, he said, "Adelyn."
"You just did something stupid," I told him.
"I like it stupid," he said, and paid before he left a bill that made my heart race as much as my bank account.
Then Wade returned. He looked like someone who'd been to war with a dumpster and lost.
"You found it?" he gulped.
"Yeah," I said, calm as a lake. "Three minutes too late."
He glanced at Griffin and, for a second, his face had a strange mix of anger and awe. "You're her uncle? You really came just to... You helped me search."
Griffin tapped his chest like a kid claiming a prize. "She asked me to tattoo her name on me. I like her."
Wade blinked. "You tattooed—her name?"
Griffin slid his fingers to the collarbone he now wore like a medal. "I did."
Wade's eyes narrowed and then bulged, understanding stitching across his features. "Why? Why would you—"
"Because I like her," Griffin said simply, then fished his phone and, with a casual flip, transferred a sum that blinked onto Wade’s screen like a verdict.
"You paid for a gift?" Wade sputtered.
Griffin smiled. "I paid for it. Here's the money back. Leave her alone."
Wade turned several colors and then all at once collapsed into a ridiculous, furious sound that I recognized from our break-up days. He'd wanted control. He got a tattoo and a bank transfer.
He stumbled away, eyes on Griffin, and then there was that delicious moment when high-and-mighty titles fall.
For me, it was delicious because I could smile and keep the ringlets of pain in my chest from opening up.
Later that night, Wade called and ranted. "Adelyn, you better not—"
"You saved my life years ago," I shot back before I could think. "And you took it again when you cheated. I don't owe you anything."
He tried to guilt me with old favors. He dredged up a rescue from some long-ago darkness—the one where he had supposedly pulled me from a rough place and earned my gratitude. The memory felt like a splinter under my skin.
Then Griffin appeared on my doorstep the next day like moonlight. He didn't sneak. He knocked politely.
"Do you consider our arrangement off or on?" he asked.
"What arrangement?"
He grinned. "Half an hour boyfriend. You agreed to it earlier."
"That was dramatic and temporary," I said, stiff with laughter. "I never meant—"
He interrupted me with a look that made my heart hop. "You said you wanted to make him squirm. I can help with that. Keep me."
The idea of using him like armor felt wrong. The idea of keeping him as armor felt dangerously right.
We went to his birthday party. I swore I was just there to annoy Wade, and maybe to eat the crab.
It was a loud room dotted with smoke and men who looked like they were carved out of action movies. Griffin's friends circled me, and jokes bounced off the walls.
"Wow, the uncle's wife is hot," one bellowed in a tone that made half the room snort.
Griffin laughed and draped his jacket over my shoulders. "She gets cold in air conditioning," he lied.
"Is that how you treat every girl?" I asked, half amused.
He tilted his head, the scar at his brow catching the light. "Only the ones I want to keep."
In the middle of the party, someone tossed a plate and anger flared. Cheryl Ford—the girl who'd stolen me and married the easy way—screamed and flailed. She tried to act like I was a villain in her fairy tale. She called me names and threw dishes.
"How dare you come here and seduce my uncle!" she screamed.
"Excuse me?" I said. "You stole my boyfriend."
She slammed the plate down hard; porcelain shattered. A shard nicked my jaw.
People froze. Time stretched like a rubber band.
"Enough," Griffin said, cold as concrete. He took Cheryl's wrist, and the room leaned in.
"In my house," he said, "you don't treat my guest like that."
I moved, heart thumping at the confrontation turn. He was the thunder in my chest—protective and dangerous.
He said one sentence and the room's eyes changed.
"Adelyn," he said to me softly, "hit her back."
For a heartbeat my brain threw off all its armor and logic. Then anger, thick and hot, filled me like heat from a stove. The five years of betrayal, the nights of pretending, the way Wade had used me and left—everything collected itself into one clean motion.
I slapped Cheryl.
It was a slap that landed with a sound of salt.
She reeled. Her mouth opened and then shut. Her face flushed red and stung.
The room erupted.
Cheryl's fury turned to a high-pitched shriek. "You hit me? You'll pay for that!"
"No," Griffin said. He held her wrist tight enough to hurt. "I will not let you stab my niece."
"You're not her uncle," Cheryl spat, nearly venomous. "You're just a—"
"She is my guest," Griffin repeated, and everyone quieted.
This is the part where many stories run away from the delicious part. Not us.
"Hit back, Adelyn," he commanded.
So I did.
I hit her again, and the mood in the room shifted from gossip to spectacle. Men whistled. Women gasped. Phones lit up like a constellation as a hundred live streams began.
"Call the cops!" Cheryl sobbed with the drama of a queen betrayed. "He assaulted me. He battered my wrist!"
Griffin looked at her with a face I could not place exactly—hurt, protection, disgust at being toyed with. He released her hand.
"Do it," he said, soft. "Tell them everything."
Cheryl's performance began to crack under the crowd's attention. Someone showed her the CCTV footage on a phone and her eyes widened as her fairy tale came undone. The footage didn't show the two-sided story she wanted. It showed her flinging a plate, it showed the shard nicking Adelyn’s jaw, it showed her instigating.
"How does it feel when your stories are live?" Griffin asked the room.
People murmured. Phones recorded. Friends who had once nodded at Cheryl's small manipulations felt the scales fall from their eyes.
Cheryl's mask dissolved into a raw, human scowl. The woman who had screamed of victimhood now looked small. Her voice fluttered between bluster and desperation.
"My uncle—" she began.
"She's not your uncle," Wade said in a voice shredded with the attempt to command. "She should not be here."
"You're the one who cheated," I said. "You were the one who bought gifts for someone else and then expected me to explain it. You called your girlfriend's uncle to threaten me. You came for a fight."
Then the room leaned forward as I pulled out messages.
"Everyone," I said, voice steady, "here are screenshots. Wade sent me texts. Cheryl posted videos claiming she and Wade were romantic at nights when she was his snuggle in the rain. She stole five years. She plastered our life all over her feed like it was hers."
A hundred devices swallowed my words, and then the screens flashed. A hundred streams spread.
Cheryl's mouth opened, closed, opened again.
"I... I was only... I—" she stammered. The room began to close in.
"She stole my life," I told them, and suddenly I wasn't just speaking for myself. I was speaking for every woman who'd had to smile and hide the wounds. "She claimed memories that were mine and turned them into her brand."
"What about you?" someone shouted. "Wade, you piece of—"
Wade tried to speak and failed. The room's attention had turned on him like heat searing meat. People who had once admired his neat jaw now saw the man he'd become.
Then Griffin pulled something from his phone.
"Watch this," he said.
He handed his phone to the nearest table. A dozen faces leaned in. The live feed that had been rolling suddenly showed footage from years ago—fuzzy, raw, the night I had been taken to the edge of something dark. There I was, the camera catching three silhouettes fighting and a fist flying. It wasn't Wade in the footage fighting those guys. It was Griffin. He was the one who had ripped me free when I was teenager-caught in the wrong place. And there, in the corner of the footage, a red string dropped from bare hands.
Wade's face, which had been an actor in that narrative, drained.
"That was you," I said, shock and a strange, bitter gratitude swapping places in my chest. "You saved me. Not him."
Wade's palms went white. "I—I—"
"Stop," Griffin said, voice low. "You are not the hero of this story."
Cheryl's narrative—shiny, curated, unearned—collapsed under the weight of what people had seen. The crowd started to turn on her.
"Why did you post our moments as yours?" I asked softly.
She refused to answer. Her fingers trembled as people around them recorded, snapped, and commented. A woman near the door laughed angrily then turned away in disgust. A friend of Cheryl's who had sat on her side left, saying nothing, phone in hand, sending footage.
Cheryl tried to rally, tried to play the victim. She screamed, pleaded, cried. But the room no longer believed the version she offered.
"What do you feel now, Cheryl?" I asked. I spoke to the whole room. "How does it feel to have every lie you told bounce back and sting your cheeks?"
Her face turned through every color. She moved from anger to denial to pleading, then to a brittle sort of collapse. She tried to point fingers at me, to say I had provoked her. The footage contradicted everything.
Wade finally spoke. "This isn't fair. I—" But he stammered, and his voice slid to nothing.
"People," someone said, "look at her account history." Fingers tapped. A timeline showed Cheryl's edits, staged posts, messages to other boys. The room's murmurs turned into a chorus of disgust. Cameras caught her abandoning the polite pretense; she looked like someone whose life had been a costume that had just been torn off on stage.
"She's been manipulating male attention for likes," someone muttered. "She posted private messages and pretended she had affection. She took his kindness and made content."
"My boyfriend—" Wade tried again. "He snatched posts, he made me apologize—"
"No," Griffin interrupted. "He cheated."
This is the place where the universe redistributes attention. Cheryl realized she'd been exposed. Her face flickered from confident to shocked to pleading.
"You hear them? They're done listening to your stories," Griffin said to her.
She started to cry, but the sound was no longer a weapon. It sounded thin. A few people stepped back; their faces were not angry—they were tired. They had been watching people perform cruelty for attention, and they had had enough.
A man in the corner recorded her; another woman uploaded the footage with a caption that made it go viral in moments.
Cheryl's reaction changed like an animal attempting to flee. First outrage, then shock, then frantic bargaining, then collapse. She tried to plead to guests, but no one cared. Her friends, the same ones who'd complimented her earlier, now averted their eyes. A few shoved their plates away and left.
The punishment didn't involve police or prison—this was not a law court. It was public exposure. It was the moment when all the small lies and cruelty met the bright light of everyone's screens and witnesses. Her reputation began to crumble like cheap cement. Where she had been queen, she now stood alone.
Wade looked as if someone had taken a marker and circled a word he'd never like: "liar." Shame flooded him and then shifted to fury at being revealed. He tried one last time to defend himself—toward me, toward Cheryl—but the room closed his mouth with a pointed look.
"You're both playing a game," Griffin said. "You wanted to hurt the person who hurt you. You wanted to control a narrative. But you forgot that truth marches like soldiers. It won't be bullied."
Cheryl's face changed to disbelief and then to a hollow, trembling anger. She reached for her phone like a lifeline.
"Please," she begged, voice shrill with panic.
People recorded. Men who had been casual with her now whispered. The room's tone had shifted to appraisal, like a jury considering evidence.
She tried to leave and found the door blocked by her own choices. A stream comment flared: "She stole her ex's life and sold it as content." The comments became a chorus. She sobbed against a wall. Live-stream viewers were ruthless. Comments flooded in: "Fake girl—exposed." "Bye-bye brand." "Control freak."
At one point she hurled herself toward me with accusations and fury, trying to drag me into another fight. But my hand on the rail and Griffin by my side steadied me.
"You wanted to be the heroine of someone else's film," I told her, voice steady. "You took scenes from my life and made them yours."
Her face changed with every syllable—shock, then denial, then the slow, ugly collapse as the crowd turned and started to murmur not with empathy but with judgment. People who had cheered her earlier clicked off their cameras and left; they didn't want to be near this dishonesty.
She begged, then tried to explain, then tried to blame Wade, then tried to cry, but all of those were swallowed by the footage everyone had seen.
By the time she left, her phone screen showed thousands of comments demanding accountability. She stumbled into the night like someone who had just had all her props taken away. She called, then texted, then called again. People in her feed whispered and sent messages that would not be answered.
Wade stayed behind, too ashamed to leave with her. His face shifted through denial, anger, and finally a kind of resigned ruin. He attempted to reconcile with me; I turned away.
The punishment had not been a public beating or a legal sentence. It was worse for them: their performative empire collapsed under witness, and everyone who had once smiled at them now recoiled. Their carefully curated lives were laid bare.
And for me, as the crowd thinned and hands unclasped from their phones, I felt something I had not felt in years. I felt seen. Not as a woman to be owned and curated. Not as a background character. Seen as someone who had been lived through and taken from, who now stood and reclaimed her story.
Griffin and I left quietly. His hand slid into mine, warm and real.
That night he asked me to be more than a half-hour performance. "Spend a morning with me," he said. "See the real me."
"I will," I answered. "But not because of revenge. Because I'm curious."
He smiled, one of those soft smiles that could be dangerous if used often.
Two weeks later we were out in the city. I learned that the man who had turned out to be a country-music version of protection had a history of punching when he needed to, but also a ridiculous habit of stealing bacon from diners. He taught me how to ride on the back of his bike without fear, and I taught him tattoo touch-ups and color-shading patience.
One afternoon, while we drank cheap coffee and argued over fonts for a cover-up tattoo, he asked, "Who really saved you that night?"
I cleared my throat. "I thought it was Wade. Turns out it was you."
He looked at me like it was the confession he had been waiting for. "I didn't tell you because I didn't want to be the reason you felt you owed me."
"Then why'd you let him be your hero?" I asked.
He shrugged. "Maybe I wanted you to choose me without debt."
A long silence sat between us, like a soft blanket.
"I like you," he said suddenly, without fanfare. "Not as a favor, not as a stunt. Really."
I laughed. "Brave thing to say."
He shrugged. "I tattooed your name because I liked the way it sounded on my skin."
"You did something stupid," I said.
"But beautiful," he corrected.
We kissed there in the little sunlit café like it was the beginning of something that had been waiting in the wings for years.
After that, the messy business of cleaning up a life continued. Cheryl's social life imploded. Wade's pride had been cracked, and he came to repair not the people he'd broken but himself. I stopped replaying every memory with the greedy thought of what had been taken and started to look forward.
Our celebrations were small. Griffin's family accepted me the weekend I came over for Lunar New Year. I sat at the head of a table, handed out red envelopes to the kids, and watched the way Griffin's mother smiled at me like I was a surprise she had hoped for.
Cheryl's attempts to climb back online were met with cold commentary. She tried to post the evening as if she had been the victim and the heroine at once, but her followers had seen the footage. Her engagement tanked.
Wade tried to salvage a version of himself. He apologized publicly and privately, but apologies are only words; actions build trust. He lost a lot of the social charm used as currency in our circles. People saw him for what he had chosen, and they turned away.
As for me, tattoos became a bigger business. People came to my shop because a man with "Adelyn" on his chest walked around the neighborhood like a flag. They wanted art, and sometimes they wanted stories. I gave them both.
When someone asks me now about that night, I tell them it's a story of unkindness and small cruelties. I tell them about the man who rode a bike like wind and tattooed my name on his collarbone purely because he liked the way it looked. I tell them about the slap, the plate, and the crowd.
And I tell them this: what hurt me most was not being taken by surprise. It was being reduced to a plot device in someone else’s feed.
Now my name sits on a collarbone, a little crooked in the best way. It is not a trophy or a brand. It is a memory and a reclamation.
"Do you ever regret it?" Griffin asked once, fingers tracing the letters I came to own.
I looked at the scar under his shirt and at his face, saw the man who had once been a stranger and now held my wrist like a promise.
"Only if I thought I'd miss it," I said. "But I don't. I want everything that's mine back."
He smiled. "Good. Keep it."
The seasons moved. Cheryl's posts became quieter. Wade learned what humility looks like. People who had cheered for a staged life learned to spot a real one.
When I lock up my shop at night, the neon sign flickers and the city hums like a contented animal. I run my fingers over the tattoo machine's metal and think that some names make a home on someone's skin and some names stay only in messages. Some names, like mine across a collarbone, insist on being real.
And that, to me, felt like the most civil kind of victory.
The End
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