Chapter 8
CONNOR
“Hey, that wasn’t too bad,” my client says with a smile, trying to angle her eyes in the direction of her freshly-pierced nostril.
Pulling off my gloves, I offer her a small hand mirror to inspect my work.
“I told you,” I chuckle. “You did great. I’ve got some saline for you up front if you’re happy with it.”
With my client satisfied with her first - and hopefully not last - piercing, I walk her up to the front of the shop to talk aftercare and take payment. My eyes move to Tripp at his station, busy tattooing some sort of screwed-up, demonic horror show imagery onto his client’s shoulder.
I clean my station while he works, thankful for the shop’s playlist, even if it’s quiet. The hum of the tattoo machine and the guitar riffs coming through the bluetooth speaker help to quiet the growing volume of my telltale heart.
“Smoke break,” Tripp calls out to the shop as his client leaves.
I throw a nod in his direction as he reaches for a pack of cigarettes and his cell phone, taking both out front with him.
I wait, long enough that I’m sure he’s got a cigarette in his mouth, before I finally reach for my own cell phone sitting on my workstation. Julia’s name has flashed across my screen more than once today, and though that isn’t unusual, between our group chat and our personal thread, everything about her contacting me feels unusual now.
She should stay far away from me, and I need to stay away from her.
Beneath a chain of texts that I’ve left unanswered over the past week sit two new ones from today, hours apart from each other.
I should block her number and wash my hands of the entire thing.
I should make up an excuse and get the hell out of here.
I shouldn’t have slept with her.
And I shouldn’t be texting her back.
Shit.
My face pinches and my stomach lurches as soon I press send.
A chat bubble appears, bobs for too many moments too long, and disappears, taking with it what I could almost be convinced might be what was left of my integrity.
I don’t ghost people after I have sex with them. I don’t tend to have messy, drunken sex with people to begin with, but even on the incredibly rare occasion that I do, I don’t ghost them afterward. I always make a clean, clear break.
I might run away from people at an Olympic level; but I don’t ghost. Ghosting is for assholes, and up until this point, I’d never considered myself to be one.
Screwing my best friend’s crying wife on the dingy counter in one of our closest friend’s bathroom kind of changes that, though.
I hate quiet days like today, but especially this week. An hour goes by with all of us twiddling our thumbs before someone finally wanders in, asking for Tripp by name. Good.
While they move toward his station to chat, sketch, and stencil, I busy myself. My hands work constantly; rearranging jewelry displays, counting inventory, cleaning over and over again. Anything to keep me from looking in their direction.
“Schepp,” Tripp calls across the shop, and my heart makes a flying leap into my throat. “Jules lost her keys. Take her the spare for me, will you?”
Before I can open my mouth to object, a set of car keys are flying toward me.
I catch them, staring down at them as if I’ve never seen a set of keys before in my life. Tripp looks at me expectantly as he slips into a clean pair of gloves, and I swallow hard.
“I’m not sure I’m the right man for the job,” I tell him.
Please don’t send me over there.
Don’t make me tell you what I did to you.
