Page 5

Bella

For the past five years, since I got out of prison, I’ve been keeping my head down, going to work and then home with no social life in between. The only excitement I felt was from a tattoo well done, a client who let me freestyle a design onto their skin and the occasional shopping spree.

Then here comes Blade, crashing back into my life straight out of my wildest dreams, and I’m ready to upend it completely, quit my job, and move across the country?

The scariest thing about that is I don’t regret saying it.

In fact, I’m already planning the whole process in my head.

Doodie is not getting a two weeks’ notice from me, but my clients might need it.

“Do you think I’m being too impulsive, saying I’ll move back to LA just like that?” I ask.

We’re just sitting in our booth at Starbucks, I hardly had a sip of my coffee and he hasn’t touched his tea at all, but it feels like weeks have already passed. Years maybe.

He takes a while to answer, but his eyes are kind of saying, “Yes.” I think. I no longer know him well enough to accurately read the expressions on his face the way I used to be able to do.

“You know your life here better than I do,” he finally says. “So only you can answer that question.”

Always the pragmatist. I smile and reach for his hand.

“But what do you want?”

As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I want to take them back. I could be reading this situation completely wrong. So I pull my hands back into my lap before touching his.

He could be married by now, with kids. I’m too scared to ask.

Maybe he only came to see me as part of some other errand here in NYC.

Maybe he only came because he felt he had to.

Because Angel was my best friend since kindergarten and he thought I deserved closure too, because that’s the kind of guy he is.

The kind that always puts others first. Even if they smashed his heart.

He’s not answering, and I can’t read his face at all right now. Maybe I never could before either and it was just that we both wanted the same things back then.

So maybe it’s time to just come clean. Start saying exactly what I want him to know.

“I’ve thought about you every day since we’ve been apart,” I tell him. “I’m sorry I cut you off the way I did.”

“I could’ve fought harder for you,” he mutters and takes a sip of his tea.

We’re surrounded by people and noise in here.

There’s more of both outside the thick, green-tinted window.

And yet it’s like we’re the only two people in the world.

Alone in our bubble of silence filled with all the things we didn’t get to say to each other in the last ten years. And all the things we missed.

“I thought about you a lot too,” he says. “I guess I came here to see if there’s still time to fix things.”

Honesty. We always had that. I could say whatever I was thinking to him, and he always does that by default anyway.

“There is,” I whisper and finally take hold of his hands. I don’t remember the last time I felt joy as pure as when my skin touches his. He smiles and the surge of bliss from the touch makes me feel like a circle has finally been completed. Whatever that means.

It’s broken again as the alarm on my phone starts beeping incessantly.

“That’s a reminder,” I say. “I have a client coming in half an hour.”

His face darkens again. “I’d rather not leave you alone with that creep.”

“Then come with me,” I suggest as I shrug into my jacket. “You can watch me work.”

He used to do a lot of that back when it was just drawings I did. I drew him at least a thousand times and left all those drawings behind when I left him. To make new ones from memory was too painful so I never did.

“Just like old times,” he says, grinning.

“Even better. Because what I do now is make drawings come to life.”

The smile he gives me is one I do recognize. It tells me he thinks I’m quirky, but that he likes me exactly as I am. He’s the only person in the world who feels that way about me. Everyone else just wants me to change.

He follows me out into the street after holding the door open for me, then lays his arm around my shoulders. I wrap mine around his waist and actually get teary-eyed. I hadn’t had this kind of closeness in a very long time, and I didn’t know I missed it this badly.

And in this moment, my decision becomes final. I’m going back to LA. If any of my regulars want ink, they’ll just have to fly out there. No way can I be without Blade anymore. Not after today. Ten years was long enough.

And I do hear my old impulsivity behind all that.

The screaming that made me do all sorts of crazy and dangerous things in the past. Heroin used to be the only thing that could calm down my racing mind.

Heroin and Blade. And in the years that I’ve had neither I’ve just buried the screaming voice under work and nothing but.

Doogie is in the back when we reach the tattoo parlor, but he storms out, rage contorting his face.

“I didn’t think you’d dare come back,” he yells. “After the way I was treated…”

Of course he thinks he’s the victim. Guys like him always do. Never mind that he tries to kiss me against my will.

“I have a client coming and then a couple of more in the next couple of days,” I say calmly. “After that I’ll be out of your hair for good.”

Saying it feels good. And that’s all I used to go by when making my decisions. How good they felt. It only worked out about half the time. But I have a feeling this time it will.

Blade isn’t saying anything, he’s just standing next to me, as calm and tall as a wall. One Doogie could break his teeth against if he wanted to. He doesn’t seem to.

“Good, because you’re fired,” he says. “I already called some of your clients to let them know you won’t be working here anymore. They were not pleased.”

Rage is too soft a word for how I feel hearing that.

But the door opens and my 12.30 walks in… an exotic dancer named Holly whose back I am making into a beautiful and serene Japanese garden. All that’s left to do is the coloring of the cherry blossoms and then she’ll be done.

“Hey,” she says, but the smile on her face falls as she seems to sense the tension in the room.

“Should I wait outside?” she adds, eyeing Doogie, then me.

I smile at her and hold the thick black velvet curtain that separates the front room from the back open for her. “Not at all. I’m ready for you.”

“Do you mind if my boyfriend comes in with us?” I ask as she passes me.

Blade has a very shocked expression on his face and it takes me a few moments to realize why. I just called him my boyfriend. And it felt so good. So natural. I wish I could read his face well enough to know if it was the same for him.

Holly eyes him up and down, bites her lip and smiles at me. “Why not? The more the merrier.”

He’s not reacting to her obvious interest at all. In fact, he looks a little scared. Which is not something that’s easy to find in his eyes.

I continue holding the curtain open so he can follow Holly. She’s already stripped down to her waist, her back turned to us, the masterpiece I’ve been working on for the past three weeks in full view.

“Wow,” Blade says. “You did that?”

“Gorgeous, huh?” Holly says, looking at him over her shoulder and smiling. “Your girlfriend is the most talented artist in all of New York City.”

I see him get stuck on hearing the word girlfriend this time. But he nods bravely and barely misses a beat. “She’s got a lot of talent, no two ways about that. And gorgeous doesn’t even begin to describe it.”

He stands behind me as Holly lays down on her stomach on the chair. Good thing she’s not shy with her body, because I didn’t even remember that she’d have to be naked from the waist up for this before asking if Blade can sit in.

I prepare my tools and the colors, the familiar feeling of being watched—even admired—by him washing over me. I’m invincible under his gaze, safe and protected and wholly myself.

If anyone told me this is how the day would go when I woke up in the middle of the night, unable to fall back asleep, I’d call them insane. Yet here I am. Doing what I love best in the world, the man I love the most in the world beside me.

It feels like I never left him. And if that’s not a good enough sign that I’m finally on the right path in my life, then I don’t know what is.