I’m getting on a train to freakin’ Long Island. But it feels like I’m in Europe. Like I met him on a train from Vienna to Paris, and we’ve agreed to spend one more day together before we go our separate ways. Because we will part. We will say goodbye. No matter how natural this night feels, it all ends in the morning.
We head to the platform as the train rumbles into the station.
“Are we going all the way to Montauk? Riding out to the Hamptons?”
He shrugs. “Only if you want to.”
I shrug back. “I don’t know. Depends how interesting the train ride is.”
“I can definitely make it interesting,” he says as he squeezes my hand, his calloused fingertips pressing into my palm. His fingers feel so damn good that I hope and wish he’s going to kiss me on the train.
4
Trey
This girl.
She makes me feel things.
Sure, I want to tug her against me, feel her body pressing into mine, and yeah, I want to do a million more things to her. She’s making me crazy with want. But there’s something else too. I like everything about this night with her, like it’s a sliver of time, a dream moment that’s warm and hazy and that you don’t want to wake up from. It’s just sort of unfolding, like the unplanned detour on a vacation that turns out to be the best part of the trip.
The train chugs out of Penn Station, and the lights are dim. It’s nearing midnight, and the car’s mostly empty, just a guy in a rumpled business suit who’s already halfway asleep a few seats away. Harley looks out the window at the night passing by as we roll on out of New York City. It’s weird, but I can breathe easier when I leave New York. I’ve lived here my whole life, born and raised. But this place is like handcuffs sometimes, and that’s when I want to leave.
“This is so random,” she says, turning back to me. She looks happy, like she’s having a good time with me, and damn if that doesn’t make me want to ask her out again. To hop on the Staten Island Ferry at night, or go midnight bowling, or even to wander all over town. I’ve had plenty of women, more than I should have, but we never went out like this.
“Yeah, who would have thought you’d get a tattoo and wind up on a midnight train?”
“Speaking of, why are you a tattoo artist? How did that happen?”
“I like to draw,” I say, wishing the answer were that simple.
She narrows her eyes at me. “I bet there’s more to it than that. To drawing.”
“Why do you say that?” I ask, and I’m kind of liking how she wants to know me, to understand me, how she seems to sense that there’s more to me. Maybe there is.
“Because you seem passionate about it. And I think passion comes from somewhere.”
“I was always pretty good at drawing,” I say as the train rattles along the tracks, the repetitive clatter oddly soothing. “I was the kid who could do the art projects, no problem, in school, you know? When they say, ‘Draw a comic to represent an event in history,’ or something. That was easy, and I loved it. But then I started drawing more and more in high school,” I say, then stop because I’m about to paint myself into a corner. I try to skirt around the one topic I don’t talk about. “Then things happened, and I wanted my drawings to mean something.”
She holds up a hand and interjects. “What do you mean ‘things happened’?”
There’s a sharp pang in my chest, and I want to kick myself for having said anything that would even hint at what happened to my family. Too many things happened. Too many bad things. Things I can’t even begin to speak aloud.
I shrug it off. “Oh, you know. Just had some rough times. The usual Upper East Side shit. Didn’t get into the right college, and now I’m not following in my parents’ footsteps to become a plastic surgeon,” I say, trying to make light of my comments. It’s all true. I didn’t get into the college they wanted. No Ivy League med school for me. I’m not going to be the next Dr. Westin. Still, I feel like I’m lying, because those aren’t the rough times, but it’s not as if I can tell her the truth. Or anyone. I can manage something though—a glimpse. Words more true than I’ve said to anyone else. “But the reason I became a tattoo artist is that I wanted to do something more with drawing, and I figured tattoos were a good way to do that. I think most people, at least my customers, get them because they mean something to them. So I felt like I was helping people deal with the things that happened to them by doing tattoos. That, and they’re totally fucking cool.”
“They are.”
“And look, yours means something, right?”
She nods, but doesn’t say anything more.
“Will you tell me why you got it?”
She shakes her head. “Not now.”
I can respect her silence, her need to keep her reasons to herself. “I think we can take the bandage off.”
I grab a tissue from my backpack, remove the bandage and wipe off the Vaseline, then look at her ink. “Damn, I impress myself. That’s a good ribbon, Harley,” I say, and then I trace it with my finger.
Her breath catches the second I make contact, and I am in awe. The simplest touch makes her gasp, and now all I want to do is breathe her in, inhale her, smell her hair, taste her skin. I knew there was something between us, but this reaction is intoxicating. I map her ink with my finger, watching as she tries to still herself, but the look in her eyes is one of heat. I bet it matches mine.
“How did you get that scar?” she asks.
“I took something that didn’t belong to me.”
She raises an eyebrow. “You stole?”
“Something like that. Do you hate it?”
She shakes her head. “I like scars. Can I touch it?”
“Hell yeah.”
Then it’s my turn to hitch in a breath as she touches my face, her fingertip drawing the line from my cheek down to my jawline, the cut that was administered a few weeks ago, courtesy of the man I stole from. The reason everything in my life has to change. The line in the sand.
“Do you think it’s ugly?”
She shakes her head, her blonde hair moving back and forth, her breath light on my cheek. “I think it’s beautiful,” she says in a whisper, and I want to reach out to her, to put this night on repeat, to never forget how I feel right now. It’s more than just physical—there’s some kind of connection between us.
“Harley,” I say in a low rasp. “If you tell me you want me to kiss you, I will.”
She nods once, and I thread my hands through her hair as she says, “I want you to kiss me, Trey.”
The moment slows, and I’m hovering inches from her. I force myself to take a beat, so I can recall this kiss when it’s over. Because I know it’s different than any other I’ve ever had. I want to savor every second of her deliciousness.
“I’ve wanted to kiss you ever since you walked into my store.”
Then I curve my hand around her neck and brush my lips against hers. Her lips are so soft, and she tastes amazing, all sexy-sweet girl, like sugar and pink frosting, and I want to bite into her. Instead, I take it slow, imprint this in my memory since it’ll be the last kiss, last girl, last night like this for a while. I run the tip of my tongue across her lips. She inches closer, telling me with her body that she likes it. I brush my thumb along her jawline as I kiss her more deeply, exploring her full lips, tangling my tongue with hers, all while touching her gorgeous face. She lets out a little whimper, the tiniest sound, and it’s so sexy that I tug her closer, needing more of her lips, more of her taste, more of this greedy kiss with this girl I barely know, but want to know so badly.