I pull a pack of cigarettes from my pocket, sliding one between my lips as I drop onto the planter with a shake of my head.
I shouldn’t have gotten on that plane.
Through the glass door, I watch Connor and Jules play with Drumstick and Koda, kicking a small fabric ball back and forth between each other while the two of them battle to catch it.
Thisis my family.Thisis what matters.
Even still, I’d be lying to myself if I tried to say it didn’t fuck me up a little bit.
Chapter 33
CONNOR
It’s been too quiet today, with only two clients in the ten hours that we were open; not counting CJ’s drop in for some lunch and to make a phone call to his daughter in Bradenton. I’ve spent the last half of the day filling a silence that has made me want to crawl out of my body and be anywhere other than here.
Swiveling in my seat, I push myself away from my desk, stretching out my arms as I lean against the chair’s backing to crack my aching joints. I stand, taking the few steps necessary to cross the shop to Tripp’s station, where he’s busied himself with spraying too much disinfectant on every surface around him, both ears stuffed with earbuds to keep out any unwanted sound or conversation.
“Tripp,” I call out.
Even after waiting a few beats, I get no answer from him. I tell myself that he’s just in the zone as his arm works in furious circles against his tattoo chair, but I know that it’s a lie. Carefully closing the distance between us, I reach forward to gently pluck an earbud from its place.
His head snaps in my direction, and I offer him a lopsided smile, dropping my palm onto the chair to support myself as I lean against it.
“I want a tattoo,” I tell him.
“You want to talk about my folks.”
“Yeah, and I want a tattoo.” Reaching for the sketchbook on his table, I hold it toward him. “Pick something for me.”
His eyes stay on mine for too many moments too long, his jaw hardened, as he thumbs through the pages of the sketchbook. When they finally move down and toward the pages in his hands, he offers a doubtful shake of his head.
“You don’t like the shit I draw,” he mumbles.
“Maybe not, but I likeyou,” I shrug. “You might be able to lie to Jules about it, because she wants you to be okay so badly that she’ll take whatever you say at face value, but you can’t lie to me. You’re not okay.”
Keeping his focus on the paper in front of him, he offers a dip of his chin, the tip of his tongue pulling his jewelry into his mouth.
“I know.”
My hands reach behind me to pull my shirt over my head, and I toss it onto the floor before pushing up the back of the chair and dropping onto it to straddle the seat. Tripp quietly rolls an arm rest into place for me to drop my forearms onto.
He disappears for a while with his book, back into the office with his computer and all of the equipment that we can’t sterilize. Returning a few minutes later, he preps his hands so he can put the stencil onto my skin.
His touch is gentle as he applies and reapplies the stencil, perfecting its position as if I care one way or the other where or what it is. When he’s satisfied with it, he drops onto his chair with a metallic clunk, heaving a sigh before offering me only one word.
“Thanks.”
As the machine makes contact with my skin, I start in with small talk. Who did you see, how’s your niece doing – innocuous questions that will let me test the waters before I dive in for anything of substance.
We’re an hour into the tattoo when I finally brave asking him, “What did they say?”
“Everything yours would never say to you,” he answers. A humorless chuckle forces its way past a wall of tangible pain. “I don’t know why I expected it to be any different than it always is.”
Carefully shifting my body between strokes of the machine, I reach behind me to rest a hand against Tripp’s knee. He rolls his chair, just a little; just enough to push himself more firmly into my grip, and I massage my fingers into his skin through the rough fabric of his jeans.
“I confronted Jeff about what he did to Nash,” he offers. “Maybe it was a dick move, I don’t know. He said a watered-down version of the same hateful shit he said back then, and when I told him about us—”
There’s nothing careful about the way that my head whips to my side, to where Tripp is perched on his chair. He lifts the machine off of my skin to wipe the area, seeming to intentionally keep his eyes off of mine.
