Her statement hung in the air.
“I do, too, Mom.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Nine hours and one shift at the café later, Drea entered Second Circle.Loud music was playing as always.Eric was tattooing the side of a young woman’s finger while her friends looked on taking photograph after photograph.Trent’s client was getting a lion tattooed on his shin.Drea cringed at the thought of needles so close to bone.She was no closer to wanting a tattoo, despite her attraction to a hot and sexy tattoo artist.
“Here to try out my station, Shortcake?”Cujo asked.
Drea squealed, jumping in surprise at the sound of his voice in her ear.“Christ.Give a girl a heart attack, why don’t you?”
He picked her up in his arms and dropped her down in the black leather chair near the front window of the studio.
“No.”Drea giggled and tried to stand, but he rested his hands on the arms of the chair blocking her way.
“I promise I won’t get my equipment out and turn it on,” he said salaciously, winking at her.“Although I know exactly what I’d do if you’d let me.”
“Are we still talking tattoos?”she asked, reclining in the chair.
Cujo’s eyes wandered lazily down her body and back up.“Can’t remember.”He laughed.
“This isn’t Amsterdam,” Pixie shouted.“No sex in the studio window.”
Cujo stood up and offered his hand to help her up.“You looked good there, babe,” he said, tilting his head back toward the chair.
“I’m not sure I’m ever going to do anything other than sit in it,” she replied.“Although the way you bake so much meaning into your art is really clever.I love my slot machine.”
“Yeah, well, I think I’m going to add a couple more to this arm, inspired by you and us,” he replied.
“What made you put it here?”she asked, rubbing her hand up his bicep.
“I never wanted a relationship, but before the cancer, I’d made a decision to never ink this arm randomly.It leads from my wedding ring finger to my heart, and the only person who deserved to be on it was… well, you.”
“Cujo.”It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever heard.“Oh, I love you.”Drea threaded her fingers into his hair and pulled him toward her.The sweep of his tongue along hers did her in.Saying the words didn’t feel as strange as she’d thought it would.
“Jeez, are you two just going to make out on every available surface?”Trent commented on his way past with a handful of paperwork.“You’re over thirty now dude, rein it the fuck in.”
“Says the guy who banged his fiancé on the sofa in the office.”Cujo laughed as he pulled away from her.“I love you, too, Shortcake,” he whispered against her lips.
They said their good-byes and drove the short distance to Evelyn’s condo.
Drea took in the nondescript, drab gray building.Living in a condo just like this was in her future, and the thought was depressing.
Drea grabbed the large purse she’d brought to carry the laptop out in.They got out of the car and walked to the entrance.
“You okay there, Shortcake?”
The truth was, she wasn’t.Something had the hairs on the back of her neck standing on edge.She looked up and down the street, finding nothing out of place, nobody out of the ordinary.“Yeah, I’m okay.Just a little freaked out by all this.”
Alessandro, Evelyn’s friend, met them in the lobby and gave them the key.She told them to keep it and give it to Lynn for her to use for as long as she needed it.
They took the elevator to the required floor where the doors opened onto a long corridor.It only took a few moments to find the apartment, and Cujo unlocked the door.
The rooms were sparsely furnished, but clean and tidy.It hardly looked lived in.There was a gray sweater tossed over the chair arm, and a pair of red ballet flats on the floor next to the sofa, but those were the only signs somebody had been there.
Cujo closed the door behind them.
Spotting the hall closet, Drea tugged on Cujo’s hand.“Over here.”
