I get myself a coffee and join him at the little wooden booth. The place is dimly lit with fuzzy, discordant rock music on the speakers, so he’s probably comfortable here. Stone’s hair is pulled back behind a solid gray baseball hat that’s worn and faded, and in front of him, a sketchpad and some pencils are laid out.
“You been here a while?”
“I had some work to get done,” he answers.
I fight the urge to pull him into a hug, but even across the table, I get a whiff of his rich scent, like dirt and ink.
“How much do I owe you for this, by the way? We’re not meeting at the studio, but I know your time is valuable.”
Stone waves his hand. “Fuck that. Get me a coffee to go on the way out, and we’ll call it good.”
I smile, flattered that he’d do me a favor outside of our arrangement. “Thanks. Well, I’m not sure what makes a good tattoo or what works for your style, so I brought in some options.” I tug a sketchpad out from my backpack and hand it to him. “These are drawings I did of Mixie over the years,” I say. “Some old photos are taped in, too.”
Stone flips through a few times. His eyes dance over the images, and I realize I’m showing him my art.
It reminds me of when he was at my apartment. His eyes steadied on the old wooden case, stuffed with figures and props I’d made over the years.
The attention is nice. It feels intentional, like he’s really seeing me, and it causes me to drag my eyes across his tattoos again, admiring their intricacy.
A little artist-to-artist appreciation is flattering, even if our work is so different.
“We can work with any of these,” he says, the depth of his voice rolling out. “Portraits are my thing.”
I nod toward his sketchpad. “Can I see?”
Stone hands me his sketchpad without taking his eyes off my drawings. Inside, I see his work, drawings and half-finished portraits of a wide range of people and animals. The styles of the illustrations shift, allowing the portrait subjects to come through beautifully. But through all of them, there’s a gorgeous, understated quality that I recognize as distinctly Stone.
“Wow,” I say, admiring an older man, smiling beneath a baseball cap with an open ocean behind him. “These are amazing, Stone.”
He shakes his head. “It’s nothing special. I’ve only tattooed a few of them onto people. My mentor Billie is strict, and the apprenticeship is slow. Mainly, that’s just practice. Homework.”
“I had to make props for a year before my studio let me move a figure. And even then it was just a worm.”
Stone chuckles, and we both set the books down. “So,” he says, even and slow, “how are things with Milo?”
I smile at him. It’s sweet that he’s asking, but I can’t lie, it feels weird talking about Milo to Stone.
Weird in a bad way. Like I’m cheating or something, even though that doesn’t make any sense at all.
“All according to plan,” I say, skipping over the details. “Thank you again.”
Stone nods and takes a drink from his black coffee. “You really love that guy, huh?”
I blink. “I mean, yeah. He’s cute and funny, and he’s my best friend, and we only ever broke up for...” I trail off. “For silly reasons.”
“What happened?”
I groan. He’s really not giving me a break here. “Oh, I don’t know, Stone!”
He holds his hands up and chuckles. “Sorry. Didn’t realize it was a sore spot.”
I frown and cross my arms over my chest. “It’s not a sore spot.”
It’s just I can’t stop staring at your lips and wondering what your spit tastes like.
“Cool. We can just talk about the tattoo if you want.”
He says it like he says everything else, like it doesn’t bother him either way.
