Page 30 of Dirty Roulette

“What the hell...” She huffs and scratches the back of her neck. “That’s it! We’re hanging with Noah. Put something decent on and grab a swimsuit. You’re not ditching me tonight!” She swings open the closet and tosses a top at me with a pair of leggings.

I put my big girl panties on, wipe the tears off my face, and change. Luckily, my cell screen didn’t combust as I snatched it from the floor. Ryder’s name pops up again, and this time I power off the phone, yelling at myself to keep it off. We leave ten minutes later and get into Charlie’s Civic.

***

It’s a thirty-minute trip down the freeway to a random neighborhood with cars littering the street. In the distance, the pounding of drums shakes the metal of the car. The different strings of a guitar playing hit my bloodstream.

I climb out of the car to the wet concrete with little streams running along the sidewalk. Cold rain and wet soil hit my lungs when I slam the door. A three-car garage is wide open, with a complete drum set and guitars connected to speakers.

Charlie takes the lead and I follow her to a group of guys huddled in the garage.

Noah sits on top of a speaker with a notebook and pen in his hand, and a computer resting on a stool.

“I dig this cinematic beat. It’s like the song can be put into a movie.

” Noah clicks on the mouse pad, then lifts his head up.

“Hey, you!” He pushes himself off the speaker and wraps his arms around Charlie’s neck, planting a kiss on her forehead, then heavy on the lips.

“Hey, I remember you.” Noah’s friend with the man bun lifts his chin up at me.

“Oh yeah. I never got to introduce you to Omen.” He holds out his hand while Omen waves at me with a friendly smile.

“We should probably take a break. We’ve been messing with this song all day.” The guy sitting on the drum set taps his foot, playing a low thump on the bass, then dribbling his sticks across the snare, toms, and crashing into the symbols.

“That’s Vince.” Noah dips his head to him, as he swirls the sticks between his fingers.

“Tony.” Another guy with a tangled beard hanging down his chest chimes in. He lifts his hand. “We should grab some drinks.”

“I haven’t eaten since this morning. Let’s order some hot wings while we’re at it.

” Vince slides off his stool and pushes back his chocolate brown hair.

It’s not as long as Noah’s mermaid disaster that gives my hair a bad name.

Vince’s wavy mess falls to his shoulders.

Tattoos climb up his neck, and he has sleeves on both arms.

“Hey, you wanna get a tattoo? I see you staring at Vince. I can draw you one right now?” Omen asks me.

I bring my shoulders up to my neck and shrug. “I have no idea what I’d get.”

“What do you feel like right now?” Omen opens the garage door and I step into a dimly lit living room.

A faint hint of pot and smoke fills my lungs.

A black lab whines and paws at the stained-glass door leading to the patio.

Noah and Charlie weasel outside. The dog barks, leaping up and down, licking her to death as she pets him.

“I don’t know, maybe I’m depressed.”

“Aren’t we all?”

I stroll with him into the kitchen. He pries open the empty fridge with condiments and rows of beer cans. He pulls one out, and cracks it open. “I’ve always wanted a tattoo,” I say.

“Well, if you let me paint a canvas on you, the beer is off-limits.” He slurps, “But it’s up to you.”

“Do you always ask people if they want a tattoo?”

“No, but it would look hot on you.”

Empty beer cans lay all over the kitchen counter. A faucet drips steadily on dishes stacked up to the brim in the sink.

“Come look. I got a room set up.”

“Okay.” I stroll down the dark hallway into a room with lights a shade of blood red.

“So, this is where you murder people?” I ask.

“Haha, no!”

I sit on the black leather chair and stare at a wall covered with framed designs of diversified tattoos. There has to be over a hundred options, from flowers to dangerous animals, lettering, and crosses.

One piques my interest. “The dandelion one is cute.” I point a finger at the picture. The wind blows through the fluffy seeds, carrying them off. There are small butterflies tangled within them, flying off into the sky.

“I drew that last night. You like it?” He pulls the frame off the wall.

“Yeah, it’s cute.”

“I’ll do it right now. All you gotta do is let me take a picture of it to gain some attention on my page.

” He says. I’m already numb, and doing dangerous new things seems to be on my bucket list of bad decisions.

I think a needle piercing my skin will ease all the demons caged inside.

Maybe it will perform the long-awaiting exorcism I’ve needed for centuries.

“Yeah. How about getting it here?” I rub against my upper arm.

“Hell yeah! You’ll need to remove that sleeve.”

I wiggle my arm out of the shirt, lay flat in the chair, and stare up at the red ceiling as he rummages around the drawers and cabinets putting everything together.

The smell of antiseptic lingers in the room as he wipes down the area on my shoulder. It doesn’t take him long to get a stencil of the design, and he places it on my arm. Once I approve the placement he rummages around for other things. The buzzing of the needle fills the air, and it hits my skin.

“That game we played was pretty nuts,” he says.

“Oh yeah, you were there.” A sharp, bearable pain shoots through my skin as his eyes are dedicated to his art.

“That guy running the show has some crazy ego shit going on,” Omen keeps the conversation alive.

“Brody... Yeah, he’s an asshole.”

“Did you really have to sleep with that guy who came into the room?” It tingles and dances on my nerves and a faint aroma of ink swirls in the air.

“You saw that? Oh my god, you saw me dry-humping him?”

“Looked like you were having the time of your life with him.”

Now I’m red in the face. I can feel it. “Umm... Well, did Charlie sleep with Noah and film it?”

“I don’t know about the filming part, but yeah she’s been coming over with him a lot.

Half the time he’s not practicing with us, they are sucking face in the hot tub.

” The buzz continues as he presses a hand into my skin.

“You know that guy you sucked face with kinda looks like Charlie... are they related?” He asks.

“Have you mentioned any of this to Noah or Charlie?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like what you saw?” I ask.

“Nah... why?”

“It’s Charlie’s brother.”

“Oh shit! No way.”

“I don’t know how I feel about any of it.

I don’t want to lose my scholarship, and I really don’t want to lose Charlie.

.. and if I lose him... I’m definitely screwed.

” There I said it. It came out of my mouth.

I repented, and Omen is now a priest. Let me do the sign of the cross and pray for forgiveness.

“I haven’t figured out how to sit there and tell her.

He’s getting over some bitch who cheated on him, but her hands are on him all the time. ”

“It didn’t look like he was hung up on some bitch, dude looked like he had it bad for you.”

“I wish it felt like that.”

I say nothing else and let him work. The buzz drowns out everything.

Eventually, there are no feelings in my arm.

Staring into space instead of my phone takes away a fragment of the ache.

At some point, I must have fallen asleep because I sat there for almost three hours when the buzz stopped, and I’m back to reality.

“Shit, that came out good.” Omen wipes a cold cloth over my arm.

The skin is raw and pink around the edges of the ink.

I glance in the mirror along the wall and see etched lines of perfection.

Omen digs around for a camera and shoots several pictures of it before wrapping it up and giving me a quick rundown on how to let it heal.

We come out of his dungeon of tattoos and into the kitchen. It’s dark outside and Charlie’s eyes glimmer and gush. She takes my fingers and pulls me over.

“I thought you were sucking him off in there. That looks hella sexy on you.”

“Yeah,” I say, ogling down at it from my angle.

“Okay, well I’m getting drunk, you’re only getting lemonade!” She giggles.

I pound four cups of pink lemonade with nothing else in my stomach.

It doesn’t take long for everyone else to get a buzz, and get infected with the giggles.

We are all chatting about music and the different songs they are writing.

Their band is called Wolves In Sheep’s Skin.

I listen to Noah sing, as they practice and him laughing when he messes up his own lyrics.

They tell stories of people in the mosh pits at their concerts – the pushing, shoving, crowd-surfing. They have over fifty thousand followers and are climbing fast.

After my fifth cup of lemonade, I realize my bladder threatens to betray me. I need to take a piss.

I hurry down the hallway to the bathroom at the far end. When I plop on the toilet, my cell falls out of my back pocket to the tile floor. It stares at me with its sinful temptation. As gallons of piss rages out of me, I hold down the side buttons watching my screen light up.

Crab: What’s with the comment?

Crab: Can you call me back?

Crab: I have to work tonight. Message me, please.

There is a voicemail and the transcription of it sends a violent storm to go rampant in my chest. Sirens announce in my brain to the world we now have a category-six hurricane.

“Hey... I’m not sure what’s wrong, or if I upset you. I’m swamped. We have an away game and leave on Friday and Coach is pushing a second practice on us daily. I know I said I’d call you to hang... I... I do want to see you. I’m sorry. Just call me when you can.”

Screw it. Let me play the same game. I flush, wiggle up my leggings, and stare into the mirror.

It’s vintage and rustic here. I dig the vibes and set up the phone to capture a picture of all my imperfections and the one thing that’s without flaw on my body.

I post a selfie with my gorgeous tattoo, type nothing but black hearts, and toss it all back at them.