5. Gigi
5
GIGI
“ H ow the hell did they know you were here?” Mack demands as soon as I finally emerge from my bus.
“How should I know?” My voice comes out as almost a wail. I cringe, hating myself for sounding so weak.
“Do you have a public schedule of where the bus will be somewhere where people can see it?”
“Of course, I do, for public events!” I say, sounding defensive even to myself. “There’s a form on my website that people can fill out if they want to book me, and schedule of events the Bus will be at. And I post on my social media accounts. It’s how I do business. How am I supposed to get customers if they don’t know where I am?”
“Dammit, Gigi, you can’t just tell them where you’re going to be located,” Mack growls. “You’re a sitting duck!”
Could those Bloody Scorpions guys actually have gone to the trouble of looking me up just to follow me? That just feels crazy. Why would they bother? But it seems even crazier that what just happened could have been a coincidence.
“Now do you see why Fury asked Magnus to assign you protection?” he continues, crossing his arms in front of his chest. His huge, muscled, T-shirt straining chest. Ugh.
“No, I don’t.” I do, of course. But the smug damn look on Mack’s face makes it impossible for me to admit it. “What I see is that my brother is jumping to conclusions and taking your club with him.”
Mack’s face turns from smug to incredulous. “Are you fucking kidding me? You’re a lot of things, Gizmo, but dumb is not one of them.”
“Don’t call me Gizmo, asshole,” I spit back. I hate it when he calls me that. Always have. But even more when he’s trying to put me in my place, like right now. It’s a nickname that always makes me feel like a silly little child. And I know that’s exactly why Mack does it.
Mack started calling me Gizmo back when I was twelve years old. It came out of one of the rare times that he, Connor, and I hung out together when we were kids. Mack and Connor being older, and boys, they rarely condescended to even give me the time of day most of the time. But on that weekend, we were all hanging out at Mack’s house. His parents, Choppa and Reenie, were basically Connor’s surrogate parents growing up, since ours were so absent — our mom literally, and our dad, all but physically.
Our mother died giving birth to me. So of course, I never actually new her. But her presence — or rather, her absence — was a constant in our home growing up. People tell me I look like her. I didn’t see it when I was a kid, but now that I’m grown, I definitely can. In pictures of her, it’s clear I have the same green-blue eyes. Connor has them, too. But my face is shaped like hers as well, right down to our pointed chin and high cheekbones. Growing up, it seemed pretty clear to me that my father never forgave me for being the reason for my mother’s death. He never got over it. Instead, he coped by disappearing deeper and deeper into a bottle, rather than do any sort of parenting.
Connor and I mostly tried to stay out of his way, since he was mean when he was drunk. Connor was lucky enough to have Mack as a best friend, whose house he tended to escape to whenever things got bad at ours. I wasn’t so fortunate. I had few friends at school, and none that lived close enough to us that I could run to their houses in an emergency.
One weekend, my father went on a bender that was pretty extreme, even for him. I guess Connor must have had qualms about leaving me alone in the house with Dad. He told me he was going over to Mack’s house to watch movies, which wasn’t unusual. But what was unusual was that this time, he invited me along. I didn’t need to be asked twice.
An hour later, we were sitting in Mack’s living room, each of us with a giant bowl of popcorn in front of us, courtesy of Mack’s mom Reenie. We raided his parents’ DVD collection and decided to do an 80s movie marathon. The first movie on the list was Gremlins , which we had heard was a classic. The movie is about a kid who receives an unusual cute, cuddly pet as a gift. The pet comes with instructions never to expose it to sunlight, let it come into contact with water, or feed it after midnight. Of course, the kid screws up, and the creature spawns other creatures, who turn into tiny monsters that wreak havoc on the town.
Well, at some point during the movie, I got up to go to the bathroom. And when I came back, Mack had taken over my chair, as well as my bowl of popcorn.
“Get out of my chair,” I demanded.
“Make me,” he shot back casually, grabbing a huge fistful of my popcorn.
Well, of course, I was no match for my brother’s older, bigger, stronger best friend. But I sure did try. I did my best to wrestle the popcorn bowl out of his hands. Laughing, he stood up and held it up over his head, out of my reach. I climbed onto the chair to get it, but even then I was too short.
“Come on, Gizmo!” he taunted me. “Sorry, you heard the rules. Can’t feed the gremlins!”
“After midnight!” I protested, stupidly falling into his dumb game. “It’s only eight-thirty!”
And that, as far as my brother’s best friend was concerned, was me “admitting” to being a gremlin. And that was it. The name stuck. And throughout the rest of our childhood, he would call me Gizmo whenever he wanted to drive me nuts. And even though I should be too mature for that now, it still pisses me off when Mack calls me Gizmo. It always brings me back to how I felt that night: like I was being called ugly, and short, and ridiculous.
And right now, it feels even more ridiculous that the nickname can still get to me when it comes out of his mouth.
“Fuck off, Mack,” I hiss at him. “I didn’t ask for your damn club to decide they needed to treat me like a damn child. And I’m not about to change my business model to make it easier for you to watch over me. You can always just, you know, leave , and let me continue living my life.”
“You know I can’t do that, Cupcake,” he shoots back, switching to his other taunting name for me. “Look, I don’t like this gig any more than you like having me here. But it ain’t your choice, and it ain’t my choice.”
“Yeah, no one is giving me any choice in this at all. I’m not in your damn club. So why do I have to deal with your stupid shit? Do you not see how messed up that is?”
Mack shrugs. “Fucked up or not, that’s the way it is. And neither one of us can do a damn thing about it.”
So, that’s the way it is. For the foreseeable future, every damn time I do an event with the Body Bus, Mack shows up on his damn bike and watches me work. And just like he said, there’s not a single damn thing I can do about it.
Damn.
The following weekend, I’m at a local art fair. My bus is sandwiched between a vegan food truck and a leather goods stand — much to Mack’s amusement. His bike is a constant presence and parked near my bus, a silent but annoying guardian.
No dangerous bikers appear at the art fair, thankfully. I guess it’s not really their kind of scene. A lot of people stop by my bus to get info about booking me for a party or event. I have one scheduled appointment, and two walk-ins, one of whom is one of the workers at the vegan food truck. I’m just finishing up with him when a guy walks up to watch. I tell him I’ll be right with him. He peruses the photos on my banner display as I go through the aftercare process with my customer, who gives me a generous tip.
When the customer leaves, I turn to the other guy. He’s tall and lanky, with long brown hair down past his shoulders, wearing a graphic T-shirt and cargo shorts. He’s got tattoos on his forearms and calves, of varying degrees of quality. “Hey,” I say. “I’m Gigi. Let me know if you have any questions.”
“This all your work?” he asks, indicating the photos.
“Yeah. Everything there is mine. If you see anything that inspires you, I’m happy to talk about possible designs.”
“You’re pretty good.” He gives me an indulgent grin. “How long have you been doing tats?”
I push down a wave of irritation. I’m not pretty good, I’m very good. But I’m used to guys damning me with faint praise. “A while.”
“You wanna do one on me?”
“Sure. What would you like?”
He takes a step closer. “How about I choose a body part, and I let you decide?”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. This is a thing that happens from time to time, unfortunately. Especially to female tattoo artists. Guys mistake professional cordiality as an opening for sexual interest.
“Sorry, I’m not going to do that,” I reply firmly.
“Oh, come on, lighten up. It was a joke” he says.
It was a joke. The weasel cop-out of every gross guy whose sexual innuendo doesn’t land the way he wants it to.
I play it straight. “I thought jokes were supposed to be funny.”
The guy doesn’t like that at all. “You’re not gonna do any business with an attitude like that.”
My eyes involuntarily dart over to Mack. He has definitely taken notice that something is up. His arms are crossed tight across his chest, brows knitted into a frown. He leans forward and gives me a questioning look. I give him an almost-imperceptible shake of my head.
“I do fine for myself, thanks,” I say. “I don’t need your business.”
“You’re fugly, anyway,” he sneers. “Dyke.”
Aannddd there’s step two of the gross-guy-who-can’t-handle-rejection playbook. God, it’s amazing how predictable they all are. “Okay, well, then if I’m ugly and a lesbian, you shouldn’t want anything from me anyway. So you can move along.”
“Fuck you.” Turning to go, he tosses back, “Dyke!” as he leaves.
“Have a good one!” I call, waving. He doesn’t turn around. I feel my body relax That went about as well as can be expected. Sometimes it gets a lot worse.
Mack stomps up, mad. “The fuck was that?”
“Oh, are you still here?” I ask mildly.
“Was that guy coming on to you?”
I consider lying, but I don’t have the energy. “Yeah. He didn’t like no for an answer.”
He huffs. “I should go fuck that guy up.”
I let out a snort. “Why?”
“‘Cause he fuckin’ deserves it.”
“You fucking him up isn’t going to teach him not to be a dick to women. It’ll just teach him to steer clear of bikers.”
Mack opens his mouth to respond, then shuts it again. “I hate it when you’re right,” he mutters.
I chuckle as he turns away.
The day progresses. I work, and Mack watches me from afar. An unspoken tension seems to grow between us, every time I glance over and our eyes meet. When the fair is over, I finish up with my last customer and start to pack up. Seconds later, I feel the heat of Mack’s body as he bends down beside me.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Helping you.” He reaches down and flips the lever on my customer chair like he’s done it a thousand times. “You don’t think I’m going to just stand over there and watch you do this by yourself, do you? What kind of a dick do you think I am?”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to toss back one of the many insults I keep just for Mack Maxwell. But even I realize it would be unkind of me to do that when he’s helping me out. Together we both work getting stuff back into the bus, with me occasionally giving him a direction, which he takes without complaint.
I’m struggling to fold up my display table, which always gives me trouble, when Mack kneels down beside me to help. Our hands accidentally brush against each other. The brief touch sends a jolt of electricity through me, freezing me in place. Mack turns his face to me and our eyes lock. He’s closer to me physically than I have been to him in years — probably since I was a teenager.
I try not to focus on the way his tongue runs over his bottom lip. Or the way his Adam’s apple moves as he slowly swallows. “I got this,” he says huskily.
My nipples tighten. They actually, physically tighten at the sound of his voice so close to my ears. Jesus. I jump to my feet, my body reacting almost before my mind can make sense of what’s happening to me.
My emotions are a vortex of confusion and denial. I busy myself with cleaning my equipment, avoiding eye contact. Mack watches me for a moment longer before finally standing and taking the table inside. He takes in the last of the boxes.
“Anything else?” he asks when he’s done.
“No, that’s it, we’re done!” I chirp, sounding far too cheerful. “You can go!”
“You sure you’re good, G?”
“Of course? Why wouldn’t I be?” I smile so wide my face feels like it’s going to crack. “Okay, bye then!”
Mack stares at me for what feels like an eternity. I keep the smile pasted on my face. Muttering to himself, he turns away and strides back to his bike. He gives me a one finger wave, then drives away without another word.
I let out a long sigh and close my eyes. God, that was uncomfortable.
Because as much as I hate to admit it to myself, not everything I feel for Mack is hatred.
Back in the bus, I fight to make my breathing go back to normal, and try to ignore the buzzing in my head and the sudden thrumming between my legs.
Which is when I see the Hitachi Magic Wand, sitting on top of a box.
Taunting me.
“Oh, shut up,” I mutter.