Innocent but worldly.
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice her breathe in sharply. I keep my focus on the needle, making small talk to distract her from the pain.
“If you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would it be?” I ask as I brighten her ribbon with a fire-engine shade of red.
A smile plays at the corner of her lips. She opens her eyes, glances up at me. “You’ll laugh, but I’ll tell you anyway.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“Because it’s not someplace exotic. Or foreign. Or the kind of place everyone wants to go. It’s just California.”
“I’m not laughing,” I say. “Why California?”
“Because it’s far away from here. Because it’s warm. Because of the ocean. Because of the beach.”
I nod as I work. Her reasons rock. “Because of the waves. Because of the sand,” I say, continuing, picking up where she left off, like we’re in some kind of perfect sync.
“Because of the sunshine,” she adds, and as I’m finishing the shading, the song playing overhead shifts to Arcade Fire.
“Best. Band. Ever,” she says as the opening notes grow louder.
“No. Questions. Asked.”
She turns to look at me, wonder in those pretty brown eyes. “Arcade Fire is your favorite band too?”
“Like that’s even a question? Hell yeah. I’d do anything to see them live. I hear their shows are epic.”
“I’ve heard that too. All those instruments—violins playing alongside guitars to make big, anthemic music. I would love to see them live,” she says wistfully.
“Maybe in California someday.”
“On the beach. Let’s have them play on the beach,” I say, and she sings a few words from “Intervention” under her breath. I join in for a line, and she smiles at me at the same moment I remove the needle from her shoulder.
“You’re done.”
Her eyes widen. “Really? I’m all done?”
“Yeah. Can’t you tell it doesn’t hurt anymore?”
“Yes. Of course,” she says, a fierce blush spreading through her cheeks. “But I wasn’t even thinking about the pain anymore because of the whole California thing.”
“Good. That’s my job. Want to see your ink?”
“Yes.”
She turns to check out her shoulder, her eyes sparkling as she surveys the design. “It’s amazing. It’s just amazing.”
“Thank you,” I say, filled with pride. I’m always glad when customers like my work. I’m doubly glad that this smoking hot girl who picked me to ink her for the first time likes it. Especially since she’s not the type to get a tat. She’s so Manhattan preppy, all lip gloss and perfect blow-dried hair, no punk vibe or badass edge to her. Maybe that’s why I like that I marked her. That she found me, trusted me, and didn’t freak out. It happens at least once in a shift. Someone comes in and they back out before the needle hits the skin. And hey, that’s the time to back out. But I’m glad Harley didn’t. She seems like she needs this, maybe as much as I need the ink that’s on my arms.
“I’ll be right back. Stay here,” I say as I head to the sink, run some hot water on a towel, and return to her, patting the towel against her shoulder to clean up. “Now it’s perfect. You want me to take a picture for you?”
She reaches into her purse and hands me her phone after scrolling to the camera icon. I snap a quick picture and show it to her. “I love it,” she says, then tucks her phone away.
I raise an eyebrow. “You’re not going to slather it all over Facebook for everyone to see?”
She scoffs and shakes her head. “Nope. I’m not a big Facebook person, but even so, this tat is for me, not the world.”
I feel a rush of heat in my veins, her words connecting with me on an almost elemental level, hitting me in the heart. That’s how I feel about my ink. I don’t hide it, but the art on my body is for me, not for show, not to prove a point, not so I can look cool. Because it means something to me. It’s how I remember those who aren’t here anymore.
I apply Vaseline to her shoulder. “This is just to protect the skin since, you know, I’ve been digging into it with a needle for thirty minutes.”
“Oh, was that all? Seemed like only seconds.”
“Oh yeah? Only seconds? Was that while you were gripping my thigh?” I ask, teasing her and enjoying the hell out of this back-and-forth I never expected to have.
She shrugs her other shoulder. “What can I say? You have a strong thigh.”
“Glad you found my leg useful.”
As I spread the Vaseline on her skin, I try to approach it like it’s my job, which it is, and try to tell myself I don’t enjoy it any more than with any other customer. But that’s a pathetic lie, because even touching her skin like this is making me want to touch her in other ways. To learn how her wrist feels against my thumb, to discover how smooth her calves are in my palms, to find out if her hair smells like that wild-cherry scent on her skin.
My head’s getting cloudy as a movie reel flashes by of how the night could play out. I want to shake these images away, to clear her out of my mind. But I also don’t want that one bit.
I don’t want this to end.
I press a bandage onto her skin, drawing out the process of patting down the corners, taking my time, trying to work up the courage to ask her something. I don’t even know what. To hang out? To go out? To spend more time with me? But I don’t date, I don’t ask out girls, I don’t have the words. I should be able to spin a thousand lines, rattle off plenty of words of seduction like I did for the ladies in my building, but she’s not a cougar and she’s not a MILF and she’s not eyeing me up and down in the brass-paneled elevator in the building where I grew up.
She’s just a girl in college, getting inked. And for the first time in my life, I feel like just a guy wanting to ask a girl out.
I don’t have a clue what to say.
“There you go,” I say when I finish the bandage.
“Thanks, Trey.” She stands up, slings her purse over her shoulder. “For everything. You made this all feel good. Or really, you made it not so painful.”
My shift is over, so I walk her to the front of the shop, running through a million stupid combinations of words I’ll never be able to say, until she reaches the door and I am scrambling for a way to spend more time with her. I blurt out, “Don’t go.”
She tilts her head to the side, raises an eyebrow curiously. “You don’t want me to leave the shop?”
I shake my head. Then I nod. Fuck, I’m a mess. “Yes. No.” I scrub a hand across my jaw. “What I mean is, do you want to hang out? Get a coffee?” Once I ask, I find my confidence returning, so I continue, getting my groove back. “Talk about music? Or just talk about where you’d want to be in California?”
Hell, this is my last night before everything changes tomorrow. Might as well spend it with the first girl my age I’ve ever been attracted to.
3
Harley
A gigantic coffee cup beckons us, the sign for Big Cup Coffee.