Chapter Seventeen – Angela
Chapter Seventeen
Angela
I worked my way up in a shop—a shop that’d only given me a chance to show them my art because of my guns, fuck you again Wade—until I had a regular clientele and the money I brought in was respectable enough for my mom to stop telling me to get a real job.
Then my dad died of a heart attack and left enough money behind for my mom to partially stake me starting up Dark Ink.
For the first year it was rocky—no matter how hard I worked, I was always behind on my loans, but after I got enough good artists beneath me, things evened out.
I didn’t want to call it breathing room, but we had a little space.
Enough for me to sort of try to be normal again, which was why I went out on a ‘date’—I needed practice at it.
I made it as far as the door of the restaurant where I was supposed to meet some guy.
We’d chatted online and he didn’t seem like a serial killer—but seeing as I’d had vastly poor taste in men before, I hadn’t taken any silver today, just in case I needed to bring my wolf to bear.
I knew that if I needed her, she’d make me strong enough to take any man.
My mom was home with Rabbit and I was wearing a cute flouncy dress—I hovered outside the restaurant’s door, looking at myself in the glass.
Who was I fooling? This wasn’t me. I couldn’t let my guard down.
Not ever again. I turned away, feeling my wolf growl inside me, in deep disappointment at her fragile human shell.
She wanted out—she wanted a chance to play—whenever I skipped taking silver, she was there, hungry to run, to chase, to fuck.
Maybe because of her—or maybe to prove to her that I was in charge and could deny her even without silver onboard—I detoured to a bar on the way home. I hadn’t set foot in one since the last time I’d left Gray’s.
I went in, ordered a beer, and sat down at a high table by my lonesome, taking everything in—and then pulled my phone out, pretending to be waiting for someone, counting down the seconds until I could claim some strange triumph over my past. Everyone in the bar ignored me—except for one good-looking man.
I looked up, saw him staring at me for a moment, and then he pulled out a pen.
Oh God. I’d forgotten this was what it was like to be a woman in the world at large. He was writing on something—likely his phone number, likely to give to me. When he pulled away from the bar to walk toward me, bringing a napkin with him, I winced.
“Hey. I know this is weird—but I just saw you and,” he shrugged, handing a sketched on cocktail napkin over with a tattooed hand.
What I assumed would be digits or a hand-drawn dick pic was a portrait instead. Of me.
“Thanks,” I said, taking it. It was surprisingly well done for being in pen on a napkin and so quickly drawn. “Do things like these get you a lot of play?”
He smiled. “Sometimes. But I tend to only draw really beautiful women, which lowers my average.”
I laughed. I was surprised to hear it, it’d been so long.
He had full lips, dramatic cheekbones, and expressive dark brown eyes.
His body was leanly muscled and tattoos covered both of his hands.
It was those that drew me in, they were covered in an ornate designs, well done despite the difficulty that came from tattooing thinner skin.
They were the kind of hands that—attached to the right man—it was hard not to imagine wanting on me.
“I’m Jack,” he said, oblivious to my thoughts.
“Angela.”
“May I?” he asked, gesturing to my table’s empty chair.
“Only if you give me your pen.”
He handed his pen over to me, mystified, and pulled his new chair closer to watch me.
I had a finer tipped pen in my purse, but pulling it out might have constituted cheating.
I took the portrait he’d made of me and put it on its side and covered it up, turning my profile into the ridge of a mountain, my hair into a stream, and when I handed it back over to him with his pen, he was grinning.
“That was awesome,” he said, recreasing the napkin’s folds with a finger.
“Thank you.”
“You’re clearly an artist—please tell me it’s more than a hobby.”
“It is,” I said, and started talking.
Within minutes I found out we knew some of the same people, and that Jack was currently freelancing, using other people’s studios part-time.
He had an easy going manner, sincere, even though he always sounded like he was one sentence away from telling a joke.
When he did make jokes, they were often at his own expense, self-deprecating in a wry fashion that wasn’t looking for sympathy.
I slowly finished my beer as we chatted and I realized this was far better than any date at that restaurant could’ve possibly been.
“So, uh,” he said, looking between me and my beer. “Do you want another one? Not that I want to get you drunk, but I do want to keep you here.”
His honesty was like a bolt of lightning. It’d been so long since I’d felt like myself I wasn’t even sure who I really was—except that I was feeling like her again around him, and my wolf agreed.
“Let’s go outside,” I said.
One of his eyebrows rose. “Sure,” he said, and followed me out.
Two steps out into the night air and I was mauling him.
My wolf wanted this—and so did I. I hadn’t been with anyone since Willa and Gray, it’d been a long and lonely few years, but kissing him felt right and my intensity didn’t scare him.
We moved through the parking lot like we were dancing, kissing voraciously and then coming up for air.
His mouth fit mine like it was meant for me, our tongues pushed and twined, and every so often he would pull back while biting on my lip, leaving me breathless.
He spun us around until my back was against a black vintage car.
“Careful,” I said with a laugh as he pressed me against it.
“It’s mine—and trust me, I don’t care.”
My hands were on his chest and his hands were in my hair and we were both taking a moment to reassess and breathe, trying to read each other’s eyes. The night was young.
What would we do with the rest of it?
“Do you want to,” he began.
I said, “We could…” at the same time.
Then he laughed and I laughed and—in an instant she was there. Surging forward, filling me. I looked up—the moon wasn’t full yet, but I hadn’t taken any silver today, all the better to fight off my theoretical serial killer internet date.
If I thought my genie was bad—she was hungry, and she wanted him.
“I….” I began, pulling back, pushing her down, dropping my hands and shaking my head.
“What?” he gently asked. Sensing the change, he pulled back too.
“I’m a mom, this isn’t what moms do,” I lied, side-stepping away.
“You sure about that?” he asked with a wicked grin. “I feel like I’ve probably slept with more moms than you have.”
I gave a nervous laugh. “I’m sure.”
“Okay,” he said, nodding to accept his defeat. “For…tonight? Or for forever?”
“For a really long time that I’m not sure about yet.” I brought my hands up. “I’m rusty, and—"
He smiled at me. “You don’t have to explain. It’s all right. You do what you have to do.”
There were a lot of tones his voice could have taken: anger, condescension, disappointment but his was genuine, and I deflated in its sincerity. “Thank you.”
“Of course.” He jerked his chin at the bar behind us. “Did you want to go back and keep talking?”
I did, but. “I probably shouldn’t—" More talking would only lead to trouble.
“Sure. I get it,” he said. This was not at all how I’d imagined my evening going—him either, from the look he was giving me before he spoke.
“This is going to sound awful, but, if this isn’t happening—I should probably go finish a friend’s sleeve like I was supposed to.
You were—and are—totally worth standing him up for, even just to hang, but rent’s coming up.
But I can give you a ride home if you need it, you’re tiny, and one beer—"
“No, I’m safe to drive.” I shook my head. “But do you always tattoo so late?”
“Yeah. I’m up till dawn, most nights.” He gave me a half-smile. “I don’t suppose I can get your number?”
I couldn’t blame him for trying—hell, I wanted him to try. He was hot, and he would be easy, I could tell. He was the kind of guy who was who he seemed to be on the surface. No tricks—not like me.
Too bad I wasn’t ready for this yet. I might be in time, but not tonight—and not while she was this hungry.
Or was a little of that me?
“No.” I shook my head, while smiling at him regretfully. “But,” I said, popping open my purse to pull out a Dark Ink business card, “You can call me here.”
He chuckled. “Thanks, but I have my own friends to give me tats.”
“No—I’m offering you a job.”
“Yeah?” Confusion clouded his face.
“Yeah,” I said, strongly nodding. “It’s hard to find good vampires.”
He startled at that. “What?”
“You know—people willing to stay up till dawn. Good night artists are hard to find.” The expression on his face was hard to read, so I pressed on.
“This way you could have your own station—you wouldn’t have to share anymore.
And I take a smaller cut of night-time stations, since it’s harder to get walk-in clientele.
So I could be good for you—and you could be good for me,” I said, and then shut up before I could say anything else embarrassing.
He looked between me and the card. “I see.”
“Just think about it? And if you want it, give me a call.”
Jack gave me a grin, before making the card dance over his fingers like a coin and putting it in his back pocket. “Definitely.”