But I’ve been studying his face for weeks, and I know the difference between his neutral and his controlled. What I see right now is controlled, with something underneath it that hasn’t decided yet whether it’s going to be anger or damage management.
“What is it?” I ask.
He sits up, hands me the phone.
The screen shows a sports blog I’ve never heard of, with a large enough following to matter. The post is time-stamped eleven minutes ago. The photograph is grainy, shot from across the street at night, but entirely clear enough, the angle of the studio door, the streetlight, a man in a Wildcats cap stepping out of Ink District at eleven forty-seven on a Tuesday.
Reece. Leaving my studio.
The caption below it reads…
Is Wildcats ace, Reece Steele, receiving special treatment from a connected insider? Sources confirm the coach’s daughter runs Ink District Studio, where Steele has been a regular late-night visitor. With contract negotiations underway, questions are being raised about favoritism, distraction, and what exactly is being traded for access.
#Wildcats #ReeceSteel30 #CoachBishop
I read it twice.
Then I set the phone face down on the bed and get up.
My robe is on the back of the door. I put it on because I need the armor of having something on, some layer between my skin and the specific quality of exposure I’m currently feeling. I stand at my bedroom window, looking down at the street below. It’s empty, ordinary, the same street it was an hour ago, and I try to locate myself inside this moment.
‘Coach’s daughter.’
‘Special treatment.’
‘What exactly is being traded for access?’
The last one sits in my stomach. I’ve had my work reduced before, dismissed, condescended to, the assumption underlying every conversation with a certain type of person that a woman running a tattoo studio in a sports neighborhood must have gotten there some way other than being extraordinary at her craft. I’ve built a counterargument to that assumption over years of work and a reputation I’ve earned without anyone’s help.
And now there’s a caption. On a blog with forty thousand followers and growing, because Reece’s name generates engagement, the Wildcats are in the middle of a season, and contract negotiations are public knowledge. There’s a caption, and it implies I have traded something, something beyond skill, something beneath it, for proximity to a famous client.
“Ava.” His voice from the bed is quiet.
“Give me a second.”
“As many as you need.”
I press my forehead to the cool glass. The street doesn’t offer anything useful, so I straighten up.
“How many outlets?” I ask.
“Three that I’ve seen. Mack’s texting me. Probably more by morning.”
“Is Lena’s name on any of them?”
“Not yet.” A pause. “The photo is hers. Same framing as the one she sent me last night.”
Last night.
He knew she had a photograph last night, came here tonight, and didn’t open with that, but I understand why. We needed to have the other conversation first, to eat the food and sit across from each other and say the real things before the crisis arrived, but I also feel the sequence of it like a small puncture.
He knew, and I didn’t.
I turn around.
He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, phone in his hand, shirt back on, watching me with the careful attention of someone who understands the ground has shifted and is waiting to find out exactly how much.
“You knew she had a photo of you leaving,” I say.
