“Oh. I wondered if tattoo artists ever do that, actually.”
“Not often.”
“So, why did you cancel? I thought you were excited about the piece. What was it, skulls and clocks and hearts?”
“Mafia shit.”
I laugh, thinking he’s joking. “Yeah, exactly. But the way you described it sounded kind of beautiful, actually.”
Joey grunts. “You don’t understand. I spent some time looking up all the imagery,” he tells me, eyes steady on the road. “Just googling and shit. It was all Italian mafia, real specific tattoos, a couple about murder. The guy is just some poser. He’s Irish, not even Italian, and he works at Staples, for fuck’s sake. But I don’t do gang-related tattoos, and that includes that fake mafioso shit.”
“Huh.” He says it strongly, not mad, but definite and final. I lean back in the seat as we cruise out onto the road that runs alongside Lake Michigan. “You look up every tattoo before you do it?”
He shrugs. “How can I give a good tattoo if I don’t know what it means?”
I’m impressed that he has these clear lines. He seems so firm about it, almost prickly, actually, or maybe he’s just focusing, driving through all of this traffic.
Anyway, it helps me to see a part of Joey that I hadn’t quite picked up on before. It’s not like he’s overly serious or anything. He relaxes a little more every time I see him, even if he is still clearly holding a lot back.
But there’s something responsible about him. Intentional. It makes total sense to me that he could work every job at the docks with his family and also train himself to become a brilliant tattoo artist on the side. He just seems incredibly capable, and that’s so hot to me, I can feel it all over my body.
“You can turn up here,” I say with a nod.
Joey flips his blinker. “How’s your week?”
“It’s good. I’ve just been buried in work. I hit a busy portion of the semester, and I’m trying to impress my professor for that thing at the Botanical Garden that I mentioned.”
“What’s that look like for you? Being busy?”
“At school?” I laugh. “I wish I could say it meant I spent all my time with flowers, but actually, I’m usually just reading old research or locked up in the chem lab. I will have some field work in the spring, though. I’m excited about that.”
Joey flexes his grip over the wheel. “Sounds—”
Before he can finish, a car in the other lane spins out on some ice, careening toward us. In a flash, Joey’s arm is across my chest, holding me in place while he steers us away from the spinning vehicle. By some miracle, we miss it entirely, but we’re left deep in a snowbank on the side of the road, wheels spinning.
I realize I’m holding my breath, and I slowly let it out.
“Shit, are you okay?” Joey asks, brow furrowed. “I’m so sorry about that.”
His arm is still over my chest, but after a second, he pulls it back. “Yeah,” I tell him. “Are you okay?”
He rubs the back of his head. “Yeah.” We both turn and look over our shoulders, and the spinning car is recovered, driving off like nothing ever happened.
“Whoa, you saved us. Joey, if I had been driving, we totally would have ended up crashed.”
Joey shakes his head quickly. “I just swerved.”
My heart is pounding, and my adrenaline is spiked from the flash of danger, which I guess is why I lean forward quickly and plant a kiss on Joey’s lips. His mouth opens, accepting me, and I feel the friction of his stubble right before I pull back, then laugh.
Okay, that was unexpected, but also very, very nice.
Joey turns to me, a half-smile on his face, then adjusts his sunglasses. “You mind helping get us out? I’ll push from behind while you steer and work the gas.”
“Sure, no problem.” I turn to open the door, blushing, but Joey grabs my shoulder fist.
“Your heart still pounding? You should take a minute first.”
I place my hand over my heart, and even through my jacket, I can feel the explosion of it. “Yeah, it is,” I tell him, although in that moment, I wonder if it’s always beating like this when I’m around Joey.
