I pull my boots off the desk. “How’s it going, Billie?”
After a couple intense lectures, things have settled back to normal with her, thank fucking god. Even if the rest of the shop thinks I’m a piece of shit, I really need Billie to keep believing in me.
“Good, but I’m tired as hell. You know what that means?”
“You’re going to drink too much coffee and get all jittery and weird again?” I deadpan.
Billie flashes me a middle finger. “No, it means you’re doing any boring walk-ins that come through the door this afternoon. Caesar says I can put you back on.”
I push my hair back, trying to hide how happy this makes me. “Cool. Yeah, I got that.”
Billie snorts a laugh. “Don’t play. I know you’re dying for this, cool guy.”
I smile. “Yeah, the desk is getting boring.” When Billie smiles back, I rock back on the chair legs. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”
Red comes out from the back, one hand buried in his big beard. “You putting the kid back on?”
“Why?” Billie jokes as she stands. “You need someone to do your shit work, too?”
Red barks a laugh. “I don’t take shit work at this point in my career. Just remind me to wear my headphones the next couple days. I don’t want to listen to any more of Jeremiah’s bitching.”
Everyone laughs, and a weird feeling comes over me, almost like the feeling I got at the cabin. It takes me a second before I can even place it.
I feel like I belong here, right here with this old-timer and my amazing fucking artist of a boss. I’d been so close to being out on my ass, but I must have passed some kind of test or some shit.
Cool.
* * *
All I did that afternoon was tattoo one simple star on a guy’s wrist, but I’m still riding enough of a high that I head straight to Matty’s studio after I leave Blade. I’m tired of waiting around to see him again, so I decide to just go and fucking see him already. Knowing he’s working late, I pick up some veggie fried rice from the takeout place he likes on the way.
Matty pulls the side door to the building open. “Stone,” he says brightly, then surprises me with a quick, warm kiss. “Perfect timing. I’m in dire need of a recharge.”
I swat his ass lightly as he leads me up the stairs. “We can start with dinner, see what happens next.”
He glances over his shoulder, and his eyes pop wide. “Oh my god, is that my fried rice? How are you so perfect?”
I chuckle, and a deep satisfaction soothes me. I don’t know about perfect, but I do know that this is exactly where I want to be tonight.
Inside the studio, my mouth drops open. It takes a minute to process the chaos that I’m looking at. There are props and sets and posed figures all over the place, colorful and animated even though they’re still, some gathering into partial scenes and others just scattered around. It’s a mess, but I can tell it’s the kind of mess where shit is getting done.
“Damn, Matty,” I say. “You really are deep in this.”
“Tick tock,” he says as he plucks the bag of food from my hand. “I’ve got a deadline in two weeks. And I’ve finished all the footage I need for my original script. It’s just that I realized the dog needs to live in the alley.”
I lean back on a standing desk. “How’s that?”
“Right now, the dog sneaks the alley cat into the apartment, and the cat ends up getting adopted by the human feet,” he says, waving his hand at two clay feet, each attached to the bottom of a wooden rod. “But I realized, isn’t it so much more fun if the dog and the alley cat make a new home together?”
“In the alley?”
He shrugs and then holds the carton of takeout beneath his nose for a whiff. “Where else?”
Something about his expression grabs me by the gut. Matty pretty much always has this playful light in his eyes lately. Whenever I look at him, that smile makes me want to grab him by the ass and devour him with my lips.
But seeing him here in his studio, grinning and playful and totally in his element, that does me in. The same energy pouring through him pours into the work. It looks like a damn tornado tore the place up, but I can see how intricate the designs are. I can feel Matty’s energy and sense of motion and personality everywhere around me.
For a split second, I want to ask him to be my boyfriend. This feels too damn good, and it’s a lie to act like it’s casual.
