Page 4

FOUR

A SKULL WEARING A COWBOY HAT SMOKING A CIGARETTE

Theo

There was the faint hum of conversation and the buzz of guns throughout the studio, but it was still relatively quiet for a Friday night. I had an appointment later, and it would likely pick up after ten, but until then, I was sitting up front, staring out the windows at the street beyond.

Cars passed beneath the street lights, and every once in a while, a few people walked by on their way to or from the bus stop a street over. I tried to focus on those people—I tried to think about what they were doing or where they were going. I tried to think about anything else. But it wasn’t working.

I’d already cleaned my room—which was located in the back corner of the studio—and mindlessly scrolled through social media that I rarely used for anything besides showing off my latest work.

I’d even offered to help everyone else with anything they needed in an attempt to keep my mind occupied and off the one fucking person who had begun tormenting me day and night.

It’d been a little less than a week since our run-in in the kitchen. We’d spoken briefly in passing since then, but that was the extent of our interactions.

She’d told me I made her nervous, and god , I wish she hadn’t.

I loved that I made her nervous. She squirmed under my attention, and the blush that stained her cheeks was the same shade as her lips. Plush lips that she had a tendency to bite and lick when she was nervous, too. Even during our brief interactions, I’d been able to learn that much.

She had these cute little ticks, like the lip biting, that were hard to miss once I’d finally noticed them. She tucked her long, black hair behind her right ear again and again and rambled like she had an endless amount of words and thoughts.

Her deep blue eyes flitted here and there, refusing to stay on mine anytime she was feeling apprehensive.

She was confident yet coy. She carried herself like a woman who knew what she wanted and how she’d get it, yet there were moments where she seemed thrown off and unsure.

The contrast was captivating.

I imagined that the confident woman was who most people saw. I liked to think that I was the only one who was able to make her unsteady enough to reveal the rest.

And that was the exact thinking that was going to get me in trouble. I already craved her little reactions, knowing I could easily pull them from her if I wanted to. It was taking all my self-control not to do it, which was why I decided to keep my distance altogether.

But keeping my distance didn’t prevent me from remembering her sitting at the kitchen island with her elbows braced on the butcher block counter and her tits inadvertently pushed together. No matter how hard I tried, I remembered every single breath, expression, and movement she made.

How much I wanted to talk to her was honestly the most unsettling part. The fact that I didn’t say much made most people nervous, and I was usually content to sit in silence. There weren’t many people I’d met that said anything worth responding to. Ryder had been an exception, and so had my boss, Robbie. But Natalie…she was an exception all her own.

She didn’t have much of an issue carrying on a conversation with herself if necessary, but unlike most people, I wanted to respond. I wanted to hold a conversation with her and answer her questions. I wanted to hear all of her thoughts. Maybe she’d be content in the silence, too, but I didn’t feel like silence was the only option.

And knowing that made me nervous.

As I began spiraling further into my thoughts, Robbie stepped out of his room with Cam right behind him.

“Just normal aftercare. You know the drill,” Robbie instructed, and Cam nodded.

“Hey, Cam. What’d you get?”

They donned a large smile and stuck out their arm. Robbie had really knocked it out of the park. On their forearm was a black widow spider that was realistic enough to make me a little apprehensive. The shading was perfect, and the shadow underneath it made it appear like the spider was sitting on top of their arm.

“That’s seriously insane. You’ve got some of the coolest ink,” I said, and Cam smiled wider.

“You’re fucking telling me,” they said.

Cam was covered in ink and only wanted more. They came in at least every month or two for something new. They’d even given me some new ideas to add to my legs and stomach—the only two places where I had any substantial amount of skin left to cover.

Cam waved and said their goodbyes before heading out the door.

The bell above it chimed, and Robbie looked at me.

“What are you doing up here?” the big guy asked. Robbie was a large man covered in ink he’d collected over his fifty-five years. He was the owner of Haven City Tattoos and the only person to take a chance on a stupid seventeen-year-old kid with nowhere to go.

Thanks to Robbie I only had to live in my car for about a month. After I got kicked out of the house I’d been squatting in, I parked in random lots with little to no foot traffic. Then I got arrested again for sleeping in my car. Similar circumstances and the same asshole officer. Without another option, I found a new spot in another random lot. It had been a total coincidence that I’d picked the lot behind the studio. He’d spotted my truck after he’d closed up and found me sleeping in the backseat, freezing my ass off. He banged on my window, scaring the shit out of me and waking me up out of a restless sleep. When I’d finally rolled down the window, he told me to follow him down the street, or he was calling the cops.

Terrified of going to jail, I did as he asked. I followed him to his apartment and put up a hell of a fight when he offered to let me stay. Not long after, he offered me a job as his apprentice. He got one look at my notebook filled with sketches and drawings and told me that he wouldn’t let my talent be wasted.

After we negotiated rent that barely even covered his monthly utility bill, I ended up staying with him until I went to college at twenty. I had been working for him ever since.

When shit hit the fan with my roommate this time around, I’d contemplated asking Robbie to let me stay again, but I couldn’t. His daughter was living in my old room, and he’d already done more than enough for me.

That was how I’d ended up living with Natalie.

And just like that, I was thinking about her again.

Fuck me.

“Waiting for my next appointment,” I finally said to Robbie, who was tapping away on his phone.

“Somebody new or…” he said, only looking up long enough to glance at me with a knowing smile.

I rolled my eyes and flipped him off rather than answer him. He had the same reaction every time she came into the studio.

He chuckled and patted me on the shoulder. “Just don’t get caught again. I’m heading out. See you tomorrow.”

Robbie quickly grabbed his stuff from his room and pushed through the front door at the same moment Ava walked in.

“Hey, Robbie,” Ava said, batting her eyelashes in faux flirtation. She loved trying to get a rise out of my boss, and it was fun to watch her try.

He shook his head and hollered, “Be good, kids,” before the door shut.

Ava didn’t let the lack of response affect her, instead, she continued toward where I sat behind the counter.

“Ready?” she asked with a smile.

I nodded and followed her as she led the way back into my room. Half of her blonde and pink hair was in two twin buns on top of her head, and I watched them bounce as she hurried down the hallway.

Her black skirt twirled around her thighs and showed off the fresh ink we’d finished on her calf only a month before. If Ava wasn’t in my chair at least once every month or two, something was seriously wrong.

That’s how I’d met her—she’d walked in two years ago for a piece on her upper thigh, and she’d kept coming back. And after a few appointments, she’d made it obvious she was interested in more than just new ink.

We started fucking that night, agreeing that it would never be more than a hook-up. The agreement had worked out flawlessly and had been just what I needed. We almost always ended up messing around in the back of her car or my own after her session—hence Robbie’s warning not to get caught again—and I doubted tonight would be any different.

I wasn’t delusional enough to think it would completely cure my hang-up on Natalie, but it would be good enough to at least take the edge off and keep my mind focused on someone else for a while.

I turned the corner to find Ava already whipping her white T-shirt over her head and eyeing the bare spot on her inner arm where she wanted the art.

“A skull wearing a cowboy hat smoking a cigarette, huh?” I asked, and she shrugged.

Whirling around and plopping down on the chair, she draped her arm over the armrest and smiled. “I thought it was fun, and the design you came up with is too fucking cute.”

“Yes,” I said, prepping the area and laying down the stencil. “Because that’s how I want everyone to react when they see my artwork.”

She rolled her eyes and tried to reach over and smack me. I darted out of the way before prompting her to double-check my placement in the mirror.

She leaned over, looked at it quickly, and then laid back down.

“Looks good. And as long as I like it, that’s all that should matter.”

I was mostly kidding because I did agree with her—as long as the person in my chair was happy, then I couldn’t complain. Besides, I did enough big, badass pieces that a cute little skull in a cowboy hat wasn’t going to hurt my reputation.

We fell into our normal routine, her talking my ear off about her life since we last saw one another while I silently got to work. The familiar hum and vibration of the gun was cathartic. It lulled something in me and quieted my racing thoughts. All that mattered in those moments was the permanent art I was inking on my client’s skin.

When I was so wholly focused on my task and the buzz of the gun, it was easy to shut out the world. It also kept out the darkness that liked to descend upon me whenever it felt like it.

Less than an hour later, I was done, wiping the area clean and applying the bandage after she inspected it in the mirror and squealed with excitement at the finished product.

While I cleaned and straightened my area for an early start the next day, Ava lingered in the doorway. Her fingers were flying quickly over her phone screen as I closed the last drawer and turned off the additional lamp in the corner of the room.

She shoved her phone into her purse and looked up at me with a small smile. She hiked her thumb over her shoulder, and without words, I knew what she was silently asking.

Yet I hesitated. It was only for a moment, but I’d still thought about telling her no.

That one moment of hesitation was more telling than I wanted it to be. I couldn’t remember the last time I considered telling Ava no.

Quickly, I shook off the moment’s hesitation and gave her a shallow nod instead.

Shoving down any remnants of that uncertainty, I followed her out the back of the studio and across to her car, where she’d parked at the back of the lot. We were the only business still open, and there weren’t any lights that far back, so we couldn’t be seen. I contemplated telling her that we should go back to her place, but she had a weird ass roommate who had apparently walked in on her one too many times.

A hotel also wasn’t a possibility because I still could barely afford food.

I gritted my teeth against the thought of taking Ava back to Natalie’s house. The thought was thankfully fleeting, but it made me move faster toward the car all the same.

Ava drove an old Toyota 4Runner, so there was plenty of room in the backseat. Gripping her upper arm, I tugged her along quicker. Her boots clicked faster against the asphalt, and she didn’t argue.

I swung open the backdoor, and she immediately hopped in, tossing her purse up to the front passenger seat and settling with her back against the door across from me. Although the backseat was bigger than some, I couldn’t jump in as she had. But as quickly as I could, I slid onto the seat and locked the door behind me.

Ava didn’t delay, the moment I turned back to her, she was on top of me. Her legs straddled mine, and her hands clasped my face. Her mouth was on mine in another second, and she groaned as our tongues tangled. Reflexively, my hands found her hips and guided her to grind against me.

Then a thought, like a blinding flash of light, stalled my movements.

For a split second, it was Natalie, not Ava, whose hands were running down my chest and slipping beneath my T-shirt. It was Natalie’s long, dark hair my fingers were threading through, gripping and pulling for easier access to her mouth. It was Natalie who was eagerly grinding down on me and searching for some sort of friction and release.

And it was the thought of Natalie, imagining her under my hands, that lit a fire inside of me and made my cock harden beneath her.

She felt so good. Natalie felt so good. She was?—

Fuck . My eyes popped open, and I reared back. But Ava didn’t catch the movement, she just diverted her lips from my mouth to my neck as I tried to remain in the moment.

I looked down at her and focused on the woman on top of me. Her hands were soft and urgent. Her mouth was warm and eager. It all felt good, but for some reason, I couldn’t do it. My hands went limp, and I opened my mouth to say something, but she beat me to it.

“I already know it’s not me that’s the issue, so what the hell is going on?”

I groaned and scrubbed my hands over my face. I couldn’t even make it one fucking minute without thinking of Natalie.

“My head is just all over the place.” My voice was muffled behind my hands, but when I dropped them, her gaze was assessing and unrelenting.

“Ha!” she scoffed and peered at me incredulously. “All over the place or on someone else?” she asked, and I froze.

“Who is she?”

“Fuck, Ava. I’m sorry,” I said as she shook her head and slid off my lap.

“No, don’t be sorry. The fact that we’ve been doing this for two years and this hasn’t happened before is already crazy. But you’ve gotta tell me what her deal is since whatever it is has you so messed up you can’t even get it up for me.”

She motioned to my mostly soft dick, and I let my head fall back against the headrest. The car’s ceiling was more intriguing than her stare. Knowing how preoccupied my thoughts were, I should’ve never even gotten in the car. The hope I’d been feeling leading up to that moment was delusion.

My head was so fucked.

“It’s nothing.”

She choked out a disbelieving laugh. “Bullshit. Tell me.”

I rolled my head to the side and gave her my most annoyed expression. “I can’t explain it to you when I barely understand it myself.”

“Oh,” she said, the surprise evident in her voice.

“Oh?”

She hid her smile behind her hand and folded her legs underneath her.

“Yeah, oh . So it’s definitely something big.”

I shifted on my seat and contemplated leaping out of the car to escape her scrutiny and the vulnerability she was expecting. I hated that feeling, like someone was seeing more of me than I wanted them to.

“It’s nothing,” I repeated through clenched teeth.

She gave me another disbelieving look and shook her head. “And let me guess, you’re not going to do anything about it.”

I scoffed, which was all the response she needed to know my answer.

“Well, Theo, if the feelings are that intense, they’re likely not going to go away, but whatever,” she said and shoved at my shoulder. “Now, if you’re not going to fuck me, get the hell out of my car.”

She continued shoving me while I fumbled for the door handle and stumbled from her car into the warm night air. Ava climbed out behind me and straightened her top and skirt.

Suddenly, I felt bad for the way everything went down, and I stopped her before she could open the driver’s side door.

“Ava, I’m—I’m sorry,” I said. She smiled and patted my arm.

“No big deal, Theo. Maybe after you figure out your head we can pick up where we left off.”

I didn’t respond as she climbed back into her car, drove across the lot, and disappeared around the building. I didn’t say anything because, as usual, I didn’t really have anything to add. But I also didn’t want to tell her that getting my mind straight was likely going to be impossible.

Short of making good on all the dirty and devious thoughts, I didn’t know what else to do.

And I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t touch her.

I repeated that to myself as I walked back inside.

Keep your thoughts, and your hands, to yourself.