“She’s asking if you’ve been an apprentice before,” Dario says to Charlie who is deep in a creative headspace. He comes out of it just enough to shake his head and get back to work.
“È americano?”
“Si.”
“Adesso vive qui?”Does he live here now?
Dario’s heart speeds up. “Lo spero.”I hope.
“What are you saying about me?” Charlie asks.
“Nothing bad,” Dario reassures him as Charlie holds his sketchbook to his chest.
“Do you want to see what I’ve come up with?” Charlie asks.
Dario shakes his head. “I want to be surprised.” He reaches out for Charlie’s chin and gently tugs him in for a chaste kiss.
The tattoo artist—who eventually introduces herself as Marcella—finesses Charlie’s sketch and properly sizes it. Once Charlie is happy, they run it through a thermal imager to create the stencil that they will transfer to his skin. Dario was unaware of how many steps went into this process. Enough to make himsecond-guess this a few times over before reminding himself that Charlie knows what he’s doing.
Dario strips down to his undershirt. Dirty thoughts practically float out the top of Charlie’s head. Dario bites back a smirk.
“Va bene se ascolto musica?” Dario asks. Is it okay if I listen to music?
Marcella agrees as she opens a single-use razor pack and tenderly applies a light coating of shaving cream on the upper area of his bicep. Slow swipes of the razor remove any stray hairs that might get in the way of the needles. The cold alcohol wipe she uses has a pungent stench that burns Dario’s nostrils.
From his phone’s music library, Dario selects a recording of his mother singing various opera arias. Charlie immediately seems enchanted by the ebb and flow of the music. The instrumentation is lush, yet it’s the athleticism of her voice that has always made Dario most proud.
“Your mother is very talented,” Charlie says.
“I couldn’t agree more.” Dario misses watching his mother perform. If all goes well with his exposure therapy and the possible wedding, he’ll be sitting front row with Charlie by his side the next chance he gets.
Marcella removes the needles and tubes from their sterile casing, and she sets the ink caps out. A bit of ointment is applied over the purplish stencil, which Dario refuses to look at.
The whir of the tattoo machine starting up scares him, so he turns the music up a little higher to drown it out.
“I bet she sang you some pretty epic lullabies when you were a kid,” Charlie says. Dario sees this for what it is, a bid to distract him.
Dario dons a nostalgia-smeared smile. “My brother and I got whole concerts instead of bedtime stories. Divas never miss an opportunity to perform.” As he runs down a whole setlist ofsongs performed before bed or at parties, he barely registers the pain of the first line being drawn on his skin.
Thirty minutes later, Marcella is done. Dario checks his first tattoo out in a handheld mirror.
The image is a partially unwrapped Amorina bar with a wide-open, cute Cyclops eye in the middle.
“Eye candy,” Dario says, delighted. Charlie clearly knows his tastes enough to have drawn him a tattoo that he would cherish, which bolsters his already-flourishing feelings for him. Dario is also pleased with himself for choosing spontaneity over retreat. He could’ve forced them back to the boat as soon as Marcella said they couldn’t stay in the parlor, but he opted to take a chance over falling back into old patterns.
“And?” Charlie asks. “Where’s it placed?”
“My arm? Oh. Arm candy.” He laughs.
“It’s to remind you how sexy and delicious you are, Candy Man,” Charlie says as Marcella sprays and gently wraps the piece. “Do you like it?”
“Of course I do.” Dariolovesit, but he worries about uttering that word too soon.
“You’re not just saying that because it’s now forever inked on your body?” Charlie asks.
Dario leans on his arm before wincing from soreness. “I’m saying that because it’s exactly what I would’ve asked for had I known to ask for it. You read a part of my mind I’ve never even accessed before.”
“Good, because it’s my turn,” Charlie says, helping Dario up so they can switch places.
