"You sure that's where you want it?"
"I'm sure."
"Last chance to put it somewhere only I see it."
"I wanteverybodyto see it, Spur."
I nod.
Gloves on. Needle cartridge open. Gun loaded. I turn it on and the buzz fills my small kitchen.
She doesn't flinch.
I take her wrist in my left hand and brace my right on the kitchen table the way Ernesto taught me—elbow planted, wrist loose, the weight of the gun carried in my palm and not my fingers.
I dip the needle in the ink. Tap once on the edge of the cup to clear the excess.
"Breathe, baby."
"I am. Are you?"
I laugh.
The needle touches her skin. She makes a small sound that isn't quite a gasp, then settles.
Her breathing goes slow on purpose, in and out the way she breathes before she asks Jaeger for a complicated turn.
I lay the first line. The ink goes under her skin and her skin opens to take it, the bead of blood rising and being wiped away by my thumb in the same motion I've done many times before with five other people, and her wrist stays steady in my hand.
She doesn't pull. Doesn't tense. Just watches me.
I look up at her once. She's looking at my face. Not at her wrist. At my face.
"What?"
"You're focused like I've never seen you."
"Don't say things like that while I'm holding a needle, Dakota."
She laughs, small and real, and I go back to the work.
The first letter takes nine minutes. The second goes faster. By the third I've found the rhythm I find when I'm working—gun an extension of my hand, ink an extension of the gun, breathe in time with the buzz and the press of the needle.
Her wrist stays steady. Her breath stays steady.
Sometimes she makes a small sound when the needle catches a more sensitive spot, and every time she makes the sound my body answers it before my brain does.
"Almost done, baby."
"Spur?"
"Yeah?"
"Look at me when you finish it."
I look at her.
I lay the last letter—the r at the end of my name—with her eyes on mine and her wrist warm in my hand and the morning light through my kitchen window falling across the side of her face.
