“Anything special about red ribbons?”
“They’re special to me,” I say, and leave it at that. There’s nothing more I want to say about this ribbon. Nobody would understand why I want it, why I need it to remind me of my mother. Because when tomorrow comes and I have to begin my penance, I need to remember that I love her.
“That’s as good a reason as any. If you’re doing something permanent to your body, it should be special. Special to you,” he says, repeating the words as he looks at me, his eyes locked with mine. Something passes between us, something unsaid in the silence. “Where do you want it?”
I push up the sleeve on my T-shirt, bunching it up, then point to my right shoulder. But the sleeve falls down.
“Let me help,” he says, rolling it up and cuffing it. “It’s better like this. It won’t fall down.”
And then the strangest thing happens. My stomach flips the tiniest bit as he touches me for the first time, and I’m not sure if I should flinch or bat my eyelids at him because I don’t usually feel, so I don’t know how to respond to a real feeling in my body instead of a manufactured one. I’ve worked hard not to feel, so I tell myself this is a fleeting moment in time. Because he’s beautiful. Or really, smoking hot would be a more apt description for Trey the Tattoo Artist my mother never warned me about.
And maybe because this night is a divide in my life, because tomorrow marks the start of going on the wagon, I decide to simply let myself enjoy the view as he preps my skin.
He pours rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball and cleans my shoulder. “Just need to make sure it’s sterile,” he says as he tosses the cotton ball in a trash can. He grabs a disposable razor from a box on the shelf, holds it up to show me. “Now this might sound weird because it’s not like you have a hairy shoulder, but I need to shave it anyway.”
“Shave away,” I say, and the words come out halfway inviting. Maybe I want to flirt. Maybe I want to feel. Maybe I could get away with one night of flirting with a boy my age. A boy I find attractive. Not an assignment. Not a job. He brings the razor to my skin, but before he shaves me, he places his hand on my shoulder. Holy shit. His skin is warm, and he feels good touching me. Not like the clammy octopus hands I’m used to.
“It’s just to make sure there aren’t any tiny hairs that could get in the way,” he says, then flashes me a smile, one of those knowing smiles that only hot guys can get away with. “You actually have quite a smooth shoulder, Harley. It’s the perfect canvas.” He leans in so close I can smell his hair, and it smells like oranges, like some kind of fresh and clean shampoo. As he shaves the nearly nonexistent hairs on my shoulder, I’m keenly aware of his nearness.
And how much I like it.
And how much I don’t know what to do about liking it.
Then he tosses the razor in the trash can, pulls on a pair of rubber gloves, wets my skin with a damp washcloth and soap, and presses the transfer paper against my shoulder.
“So, do you go to school around here? At the university?”
I nod. “Yes. I’m studying English. I’m a sophomore.”
“Cool. I’m finishing up my history degree. And working here.”
“How long have you done this?” I ask as he removes the needles and tubes from their sterile pouches.
“Started yesterday.” He brandishes the needle at me, and everything in me halts, my skin prickling with worry. Then the gold flecks in his eyes twinkle, and I sure hope they mean he’s kidding.
“You’re joking, right?”
“You don’t mind a virgin tattoo artist, do you?” he asks in a low, sexy voice, and my face flushes instantly. Virgin. Like me.
“Not at all,” I say, trying to recover my cool. “Happy to be your first.”
His eyes widen, and he hitches in a breath, and that’s when I realize I’m affecting him too. “I’ve actually been doing this for four years. I’ve done a ton of tats, and yours is going to be a thing of beauty. I promise,” he says, fixing me with his eyes. “I’m going to start now. You ready?”
I nod resolutely.
“I’d tell you to hold my hand if it hurts, but I think we both want to make sure my hands stay on the design.”
“So if it hurts, I’ll just pretend I’m digging my nails into you and transferring all the pain.”
I’m rewarded with another sweet smirk, and the knowledge that I like this kind of back-and-forth when no one is paying for me, when I’m not pretending to like someone, when there’s no exchange of power or money or goods. When we are just a guy and a girl spending an hour together on a Tuesday night in the Village in Manhattan.
And holy hell, that hurts. I bite down hard on my lower lip, almost certain I’ve drawn blood.
“Breathe,” he says. “You can do this. Your skin will get used to it.”
His voice is soothing, his smell delicious, his hands steady, so I close my eyes and let him work. “Do your thing.”
At first, I feel as if I’m being stabbed by nail scissors, but then the stinging abates and I’m left with only the consistent buzzing against my skin, like a tooth being drilled. It’s not pleasurable, not by any stretch, but I’m doing it, I’m getting a tattoo, and for some reason, I’m glad this guy is my first.
That word flicks through my brain. As I close my eyes, I picture Trey kissing me, and for the first time, I want a kiss.
2
Trey
Her wild-cherry scent floods my nostrils. I’m close to her, as close as a doctor and patient, and she smells amazing. She looks like someone my age, and she dresses like it too. There’s no earthly reason I should find her so damn hot because my type has always been that of a fine wine. Women are better with age, and I’ve gravitated toward those a few years older than me. Okay, maybe a decade or two older.
But this girl…
I’m not even going to say there’s something about her. Because it’s not some random something that makes her hot. It’s everything.
It’s her long blonde hair, her deep brown eyes, her body and the way she looks in that skirt and those Mary Janes. It’s the way she’s flirty and also reserved at the same time. As if she’s not quite sure what to do, and then she’s suddenly sure. And maybe it’s because of where I’m at right now in my life, maybe it’s because of this scar on my face and why I have it and what I’m doing about…changing my ways…that I find this girl so alluring.
Or it could be simpler. It could be that her fingers are digging into my thigh as I finish the linework and move on to the shading of her ribbon. I glance briefly at her hand. Her nails are unpolished. She’s gripping me hard as she takes deep, measured breaths. I fight the impulse to hug her, to tell her it’ll be okay. She doesn’t need that from me. She needs me to do my job, to do it well, to do it precisely, so she can have what she came here for—art on her body. I switch to a different needle for shading, but she doesn’t let go. It honestly doesn’t bother me that she’s got her hands on me. She’s some kind of intoxicating combination of sweet and sexy at the same time.