“Do you have any?”
I nod. “On my calf and on my shoulder. I keep them out of sight.”
“Because of your profession?”
I nod. “Yeah. I’m still old school like that, I guess. I had a hard time being accepted at first. This baby face of mine makes it hard to be taken seriously. One nurse even thought I was some kind of prodigy.” I shake my head as I hand Van a plate. “I thought visible tattoos would make that harder.”
“I get it. I always wear dress shirts so my patients and their caregivers never see them.” He nudges me with his elbow. “But you’re free now. Would you get more?”
“I’ve been toying with the idea.” I wipe my hands on a dish towel while Van closes the dishwasher. “I saw this cool idea online a few years ago. It’s a face, but half skeleton half normal. It was done with a lot of realism. Maybe it appealed to my fascination with human anatomy.”
“It sounds cool. You should do it.”
“Maybe. I’ve been so busy I haven’t thought about it much lately.”
Van leans against the counter, his eyes lighting up the way they always did when we were kids. He’s about to suggest something wild. I just know it.
“We should find someone while I’m here and get some ink together. It’ll be like…” He shrugs. “Like renewing our friendship.”
“That sounds cool. We should check into it.” I glance at the living room. “Want to go sit?”
“Yeah.”
I take our wineglasses as Van carries the bottle back to the living room and we get situated on the couch.
“Nice place,” Van says, propping his feet up on the coffee table. “Much nicer than my apartment in the city.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s not a bad place. It’s a good neighborhood, but it’s small and older. I didn’t want to spend all my salary on rent, you know?”
“Yep.”
“And buying a house is out of the question. I’m not home enough anyway.”
“What do you do besides working?”
His brow creases and he shifts slightly. I may not have seen him in years, but his tells are the same. He’s nervous about something.
“I happen to have a very active social life.”
I chuckle. “That so?”
“No.” He laughs. “I do a lot of advocate work on the side.”
“Oh. Well, that’s good.”
“Yeah. Somebody’s gotta do it.”
“Are you happy, Van?”
He momentarily looks confused. “Um, dang, no one’s asked me that in a long time. Guess I haven’t really thought about it.”
“Your work is fulfilling, right?”
“Definitely. The, um, the extra stuff I do takes up a lot of time, but it’s good. It’s important.”
“What kinds of things do you do? Is it like a Big Brother thing or something else?”
