“Did you feel uncomfortable at any point?” Cherell inquired.
“No, and he was a complete gentleman each time. He didn’t even kiss me.” Eri placed the pillow on her lap. “He won’t until I ask,” Eri grumbled.
“Do you plan on asking him?”
“No, but…” she trailed off.
“You want him to.”
She shrugged one shoulder. She could admit to herself that she wanted Elias to, but saying it aloud made it too real. It also felt wrong for her to want that.
“It would be unfair for me to want him to when I don’t know what I wantfromhim. When I’m not sure exactly where this is going.”
“You like him. So why do you need to knowexactlywhere it’s going?”
“If I know, I can’t get hurt.”
“You can’t know because taking the journey is what dating and relationships are. You go into them, willing to see where it takes you together, to build trust and understanding. Being hurt is a fear for everyone. I’m sure he doesn’t want you to hurt him. But as I like to say, everyone is going to hurt you.”
“You just have to find the ones worth suffering for,” Eri supplied, but she didn’t want to suffer.
Cherell shook her head. “No. You just have to find the ones willing to put in the work not to, and the effort to mend you if they do.”
The room grew quiet, and Eri let that sink in. She liked that version much better. It was far more hopeful. She would prefer to think he wouldn’t hurt her on purpose if she stopped fighting with herself and allowed the avenues of their lives to intersect.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
“How much longer?”
Elias refrained from rolling his eyes as he shaded in a section of the tattoo he was working on. He knew people had different pain tolerance levels, and he was always honest with his clients. When needed, he gave them a firsthand feel of what they were getting into.
He was usually better with his patience and ability to empathize, but the man sitting in his chair was working on his last nerve. They were almost an hour over when he’d predictedhe would finish, and it was because the man kept squirming, and he was getting the piece in one of the least painful tattoo spots. He’d jumped so bad a few times that Elias had damn near fucked up the line work.
“Two minutes less than the last time you asked me,” Elias responded because he was tired of giving a running countdown. Even more so when what he wanted to say was that they could have been finished by now. What would have been an hour and a half tattoo would take him three, possibly more, if the other man didn’t sit still.
Elias continued to work on the tattoo, focusing on the buzz of his equipment and not shading outside of the design with every jerk the man made, but when a third one came in as many minutes, he lifted the needle from his skin.
“We can finish this another time if we need to.”
“No, no. I’m committed to getting it done. I can tough it out.”
Elias wasn’t so sure that he could. Physically, his skin wasn’t raw, Elias wasn’t using more pressure than necessary, and the shading wasn’t meant to be deep. In that aspect, he could tough it out. Mentally, Elias wasn’t so sure. The pain he felt, while real, was likely compounded in his head, and the body had a strange way of playing tricks on you, of giving way to conjured thoughts when they were convincing enough.
He recommenced tattooing, and almost an hour passed before he was finished. He let the man survey it in the mirror while Elias disposed of the needle. He’d already been paid, and once the work was reviewed, Elias sprayed it and covered it. He couldn’t have been more relieved when the man was out of the door five minutes later.
“I just knew he was going to tap out,” Javier said when they were alone.
“Is it bad that I was hoping he would?” Elias asked as he started cleaning his equipment.
“Nah, I think we’ve all been there.”
“I know one thing: I will never tattoo him again.”
“I can’t say that I blame you. I get needing a break, being nervous, or it hurting worse than they thought, but you let him test the pain level beforehand. He should have realized what he was getting into,” Javier replied.
“People think they can handle it until they can’t,” Elias countered.
“True. You only had those two today?”
