Chapter 8
8
NOVA
“What do you have against pumpkins?”
“I’ve got nothing against pumpkins. I just don’t think we should fill the fountain with them.” A pause. “How do you even fill a fountain with pumpkins?”
“You stack them, you idiot. I saw a picture on Pinterest. It looked very artistic.”
“You’re on Pinterest?”
“I like art.”
“What do you know about art? You can barely write your name.”
“Art is in the eye of the beholder. Right, Nova?”
I ignore Gus and Montgomery’s bickering and flip another sheet of paper over in my stack. I decided to print résumés for the receptionist position, because apparently I’m a sadist. I thought it would be easier than a screen, but the giant stack of paper just makes me feel like I’m on a hamster wheel that leads to nowhere while simultaneously destroying a forest of trees. I feel wasteful and I feel like I’m behind on everything.
And still distracted by Charlie. Exceedingly distracted by Charlie, actually, since we unlocked sexy texting . I’ve gotten a string of pictures over the last day and a half. Charlie in a thick white cozy-looking sweater. Charlie with a chocolate hazelnut cupcake halfway into his mouth. Charlie’s boots standing by a pine tree. A ladybug on the tip of his thumb. A close-up of his face, absolutely delighted by the ladybug on the tip of his thumb. A seven-second video of him yelling into the phone about the ladybug on the tip of his thumb. A full body shot of him in front of the bathroom mirror at the farm guesthouse, the top three buttons of his shirt undone, his finger at the buttons the same way mine were in the photo I sent him.
I wanted to see what Charlie might do if I push. I guess now he’s doing the same.
“That’s not true. Some art is crap. I went to an exhibit at the Visionary Art Museum—”
“You what?”
“—and there was a giant pink poodle. A poodle. Made of tulle. I’m pretty sure it had wheels. How is that art?”
Gus gasps like Montgomery just pulled out a knife and stabbed him directly in the heart. “I know you’re not talking about Fifi.”
“Who the hell is Fifi?”
“Fifi is a kinetic sculpture at the Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore,” I offer without looking up. “And I don’t understand what she has to do with pumpkins in the fountain in the middle of the town.”
I’m starting to regret signing up for this committee. At the time, I thought it would be a good way to integrate myself with local businesses. I grew up here, but I want people to see me as more than little Nova Porter, the girl who used to spray-paint the sides of barns in middle school.
I want people to see me as a serious business owner. This might not be my first official studio, but it’s the first one that truly feels like mine. My studio on the coast is part of a co-op with other artists, an open space we all share. I rented my chair in the back corner and worked my client base through the co-op system. This studio is all me. My first actual location.
Ink it’s rickety because Barb is too cheap to fix it. Best bagel sandwich I’ve ever had and If you get there before four on Saturday, you can snag a good table.
Some sheets are faded and yellowed with age, and others are crisp and white. I flip to the very back and trace my fingers over the latest addition—a logo I drew myself of twisting, crawling flowers. Ink & Wild in long slanted letters. No notes yet, but I hope that changes soon.
“Alex is closing up.” Charlie stands in the doorway with his shoulder propped up against the wood, one hand braced on the frame and the other in the pocket of his coat. “Let’s get you home.”
I close the binder with a sigh and raise my arms above my head. I’ve been sitting too long today. “You don’t have to walk me home.”
“Obligation has nothing to do with it,” he says with a small smile, eyes fixed on the line of my arms above my head. His gaze drops back down to mine. “I’d like to.”
I can hear Alex puttering away in the shelves, flicking off lights and straightening books. He calls something to Charlie and Charlie laughs, low and deep. It rolls over my shoulders and settles at the small of my back. A gentle touch nudging me forward.
“Watch it,” he says over his shoulder, “or I’ll tell Abuela.”
“Snitch.” Alex snickers, finishing an ongoing argument. He winks at me over Charlie’s shoulder. “Good night, Nova. Make sure you lock up when you go.”
He disappears up the steps that lead to his apartment above the shop, and it’s just me and Charlie and a single string of globe lights at the front of the store. I watch him watching me in the open doorway. Strong shoulders. Long legs. Loose limbs. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so still.
“All right,” I say, tilting my head. “You can walk me home.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
I stand and shrug on my coat, one of the sleeves twisted at my wrist. “What?” I ask, struggling harder the longer he stands there watching me.
He blinks once. Slow and heavy. “What, what?”
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?”
Like he’s just won some argument I wasn’t aware we were having. He steps forward and wraps his hand around my forearm, lifting my sleeve and untwisting it with careful fingers. My hand pokes through, and he grabs it.
His hand is so much bigger than mine, my inked fingers a sharp contrast to his unmarked skin. He presses our palms together, comparing their size, his thumb tap-tapping at the side of my palm.
“I’m just looking at you.” He lets my hand go with a squeeze. “Don’t get a big head over it.” He smiles, those damn lines by his eyes crinkling, and nods his head toward the door. “Let’s go.”
?It’s cold when we step out the front door, a gust of wind spiraling its way down Main Street and straight into my too-thin jacket. Clouds roll overhead, thick and luminous in the dark night sky. Everything glows gray and I hunch my shoulders, trying to curl against it.
Charlie peers down at me, face half hidden from behind his collar. Cheekbones and dark eyebrows. Windswept hair. “Want my coat?” he asks.
I give him a look and he laughs. “All right, no coat.” He swings his arm over my shoulder and tugs me close instead. He’s like a space heater beneath all that thick wool, and I give in to temptation and burrow myself closer. His body tightens in surprise as he gently urges us in the direction of my house, but I wrap my arm around his waist to turn us the opposite way.
He stumbles over the change in direction but quickly corrects. His eyes dart toward the pizza shop at the end of the street. “Didn’t we just have pizza at the bookshop?”
“No pizza.” I pull my arm back from around him and clutch the business binder to my chest. “I need to stop by the tattoo studio and drop this off.”
And reassure myself that it’s still real, still standing, and everything is in the proper place. I have trouble sleeping if I don’t check in on it at least once a day, the culmination of years of hard work and the foundation for all my hopes and dreams.
Charlie has been by the studio plenty of times to drop off paperwork or to flirt with me, so I don’t think too much about it as I fit my key in the lock. He stands at my back, doing his best to block the wind while I fumble with the keys. I can feel the warm puff of every exhale against the back of my neck. The brush of his heavy wool coat. It isn’t until I elbow my way inside and flick on the lights that I realize he’s the first person to see the finished product. The tattoo studio of my dreams. The first one that is wholly mine and mine alone.
Beckett has been nagging me for ages, but it hasn’t felt ready yet. Too much of my head and heart poured into this tiny space for him to wander around before everything is perfect. I want so badly for Beckett to like it. Him more than anyone else. He invested in me first, and I couldn’t bear it if he didn’t like it.
“You put the lights up,” Charlie points out, a smile in his voice. “And the flowers too.”
My heart trips over itself and my palms turn clammy as Charlie strolls past me into the open space, head tilted to the side as he takes it all in. I want to grab him by the back of the coat and drag him into the alley. Clap my hands over his eyes and scream at the top of my lungs.
Charlie tips his head back to look at the ceiling and the oversized baskets of greenery that hang from the exposed beams. Eucalyptus and pothos and ivy overflowing in a canopy of green. An entire floor-to-ceiling wall of plants at the back of the studio, succulents peeking through a veil of cascading ferns. Living walls between each tattoo station, bursting with greenery. It turned out exactly as I planned it. Plants everywhere. The wild part of Ink & Wild.
“It’s not what I expected,” he says quietly.
My stomach drops as I walk over the reception desk, dropping off my binder and paperwork. I slap a sticky note on top and ignore my shaking hands, scribbling out a note to call the top three candidates tomorrow. “What were you expecting?”
Oblivious to my nerves, Charlie wanders around the space, hands behind his back. He stops in front of the display wall where I’ve re-created all my favorite tattoo designs in delicate white paint on giant gilded mirrors. I had to borrow Beckett’s flatbed to get them. Drive three towns over and pull them out from beneath a stack of crab pots at a flea market.
Charlie gently traces the edge of a leaf with his finger and glances over his shoulder with a grin.
“I don’t know. Something cool, obviously. But this is…I can’t believe you keep saying this place isn’t ready. It looks ready. It looks incredible,” he says. He turns back to the largest of the three mirrors and points at a snake twisting around the thorns of a rose. “I want this one.”
Relieved, I meet him at the mirror. In the reflection, our differences are almost comical. The top of my head just barely reaches his chin. His knee-length wool jacket is probably designer, and I got my oversized bomber from the back rack of a Goodwill. He catches my eye and grins.
“What do you think?” He holds up his arm, flexes, and smacks the inside of his bicep with his palm. “Right here.”
“You’re not getting that.”
His bottom lip juts out in a pout. “Why not?”
“I thought you wanted a Taz. That character from Looney Tunes.” I make a whirling motion with my finger and poke him once in the center of his chest. “Right there.”
“Can I not have multiple tattoos?”
I step into his space and let my finger drag down the buttons of his shirt. Flirting with Charlie is fun, and a solid distraction from the anxieties bubbling up in my chest. “Maybe if you’re a good boy, I’ll pick out something special for you.”
He makes a low sound of interest and wraps his hand around my wandering finger. “Is that what you like? Good boys?”
A laugh slips out of me, even as heat curls low in my belly. Temptation, anticipation. I don’t know which one it is, and I don’t really care. “I like lots of things. Is that what you want to talk about?”
He eyes me. “If it’s what you want to talk about.”
I roll my eyes with a huff. Around and around we go. Charlie and I have been playing chicken with each other since a slow dance beneath the stars. I step backward, over to the reception desk, widening the space between us.
Charlie drags his hands through his hair. “I could help you.”
I don’t glance up from the reclaimed-wood desk I stole from a barn at Lovelight Farms, my attention occupied by a bound leather appointment book, oversized with pale pink pages. The first two weeks of appointments are already full, and that’s a different sort of pressure entirely.
I want to do well. I want to be worth the investment.
“What can you help me with?” I mutter.
“With the business thing…for the harvest festival. You were supposed to split it with Stella, yeah?”
I look up at him, still standing by the wall I painted, his hands in his pockets and an earnest look on his face. Charlie, waiting for me to say something. Charlie, waiting for me to accept the help he so freely offers. Charlie, waiting for me to flirt with him some more or to ask for space. I know he’d accept whatever it is I want from him, and it’s that, I think, that makes my decision for me.
I snap my appointment book closed. I want this itchy, anxious feeling out from beneath my skin. I want to set everything resting on my shoulders aside, just for one night. I want my mind to go somewhere else.
I want to know what his hands feel like on my body. I want to make a selfish choice.
“Yes,” I tell him.
“Yes?”
“I would like your help.”
A bemused smile curls his lips. “Okay.”
“With the business thing and with another thing too.”
He nods, confused. “All right. I’ll help you with whatever you need, Nova. You know that.”
“Good, because I’d like you to walk me home.” I swallow down the butterflies. “And then I’d like for you to stay.”