Chapter 9
“So, anything new since we last spoke?” Cherell asked as their session started.
Eri nodded. “I agreed to make some promotional media for an event, I went on a date, I’m almost finished with my cross-stitch picture I started, and I’m ahead on—”
“Wait,” Cherell stated, cutting her off. Something she seldom ever did, and Eri knew why. “Back up a second. You what?”
“Agreed to make promotional media.”
“Not that.”
“Almost finished my cross stitch,” Eri stalled.
“Not that either. You know what I want you to repeat.”
Picking up the throw pillow beside her, Eri hugged it to her chest. “I went on a date.”
Cherell studied her for a moment before nodding. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Eri did, and she was sure her therapist knew she did.
She never brought up anything she wasn’t ready to discuss.
However, she was unsure of where to even start.
She could start with her and Elias bumping into each other, with him asking her to have lunch and, later, inviting her to Koa’s party.
But Eri knew that wouldn’t be sufficient in helping her figure out what she felt and wanted because her confusion had started before that.
So, she started at the beginning. All those months ago, when she’d met Elias at Marco’s, when Avian invited her to that party.
She hadn’t been lying when she’d told her friend he was attractive, but she hadn’t had any ideas of anything beyond thinking about it.
She had also, admittedly, been a bad party guest because she had not approached him to congratulate him as the guest of honor.
Even then, there was something about him, and Eri had decided to keep her distance.
She might have gotten off scot-free if Avian hadn’t disappeared into the house for a minute, because it was then that he’d approached her during a lull in their dominoes game.
“I’ve been trying to think of the best time to introduce myself, and every time I decide, you seem to be further away from me. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were avoiding me.”
Eri shifted her attention to the person who’d just joined her against the house as she people-watched after Bianca had left Marco’s orbit.
Not that she needed to. She already knew who it was.
For some unknown reason, she’d thought she could leave the event without talking to this man, at least without talking to him directly or with the buffer of her friend and his cousin.
It was a conscious effort on her part not to react to the timbre of his voice. His accent was less prevalent than Marco’s, likely because he’d been younger when they’d moved, but it was still slightly noticeable.
Eri knew he was aware she had been avoiding him.
There was no other reason for him to bring the possibility up if he hadn’t already put it together.
She’d caught him looking at her a few times, and unlike with most others since the incident, she hadn’t disliked it.
Which only added to her resolve to stay away from him.
However, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing that.
“I don’t know you to avoid you.”
He smirked at her. “I need to change that. I’m Elias,” he introduced, holding his hand out to her as if Avian hadn’t made general introductions when she arrived.
Eri contemplated not giving him her name, but there was no point when he already knew it, and if he’d forgotten, he could find out from Marco because she knew Avian would not tell him if she asked her not to.
“Eri,” she responded, taking his hand to shake it, but he brought her hand up and kissed the back of it. She pulled her hand from his and refrained from glaring at him. A reflex to his action, to the strange feeling she was having.
“Now you know me.”
“Not really,” she countered.
“You wanna let me change that?” he asked. Eri was saved from answering as someone called his name and gestured for him to come over. “I’ll let you think about it,” he told her before heading off to where he’d been summoned.
Eri went to the drinks table. She felt eyes on her, and she knew they were his. She grabbed a drink, and soon, Bianca and another girl were standing in front of her.
“Don’t feel too special. He’s like that with everyone,” Bianca stated.
“Not with you, it seems,” Eri countered. “And why do you care? Is trying to jump on dicks that don’t want you a hobby of yours?”
Both women glared at her, and Eri didn’t know why the other woman was so pissed, but maybe it was birds of a feather and all of that.
“I’m not trying to, and I could have whatever man I wanted.”
Eri snorted because she’d seen four at that domino table that Bianca could not. The other woman just hadn’t read their energy or been able to pick up what they were putting down. “If you say so, Briana,” she stated, knowing full well that wasn’t her name, as Avian joined them.
“After that, anytime I saw him, I was determined to keep him at bay, but…” she trailed off.
“But something changed,” Cherell supplied. Eri nodded. “Tell me about it.”
She hugged the pillow closer. “The more I pushed and was mean to him, the more he just took it in stride. He never overstepped any boundaries, visible or otherwise. It’s like he knows what I need, what makes me comfortable.
” She paused. “And the feeling that I would get when I was around him — I finally figured it out. It’s stupid butterflies in the pit of my stomach.
Like I’m some little girl with a first crush. ”
Cherell smiled at her. “That’s a good thing. It means that you aren’t bogged down by the events of that night. Those butterflies are proof that you are allowing yourself to feel and enjoy. The fact that you can pinpoint that feeling is a major step.”
Eri knew she was right, but something about it scared her. She felt it made her too vulnerable, too susceptible to being hurt or judged.
“Tell me about your date,” Cherell requested.
“We’ve sort of been on three.”
“Sort of?”
Eri nodded. “The first time we ran into each other at a restaurant and he asked me to have lunch with him. We went to a party the second time, but Avian and her husband were there; the third time, he took me to Electric Playhouse.”
“Did you have fun all three times?”
“I did,” Eri affirmed.
“Did you feel uncomfortable at any point?” Cherell inquired.
“No, and he was a complete gentleman each time. He didn’t even kiss me.” Eri placed the pillow on her lap. “He won’t until I ask,” Eri grumbled.
“Do you plan on asking him?”
“No, but…” she trailed off.
“You want him to.”
She shrugged one shoulder. She could admit to herself that she wanted Elias to, but saying it aloud made it too real. It also felt wrong for her to want that.
“It would be unfair for me to want him to when I don’t know what I want from him. When I’m not sure exactly where this is going.”
“You like him. So why do you need to know exactly where it’s going?”
“If I know, I can’t get hurt.”
“You can’t know because taking the journey is what dating and relationships are.
You go into them, willing to see where it takes you together, to build trust and understanding.
Being hurt is a fear for everyone. I’m sure he doesn’t want you to hurt him.
But as I like to say, everyone is going to hurt you. ”
“You just have to find the ones worth suffering for,” Eri supplied, but she didn’t want to suffer.
Cherell shook her head. “No. You just have to find the ones willing to put in the work not to, and the effort to mend you if they do.”
The room grew quiet, and Eri let that sink in. She liked that version much better. It was far more hopeful. She would prefer to think he wouldn’t hurt her on purpose if she stopped fighting with herself and allowed the avenues of their lives to intersect.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
“How much longer?”
Elias refrained from rolling his eyes as he shaded in a section of the tattoo he was working on. He knew people had different pain tolerance levels, and he was always honest with his clients. When needed, he gave them a firsthand feel of what they were getting into.
He was usually better with his patience and ability to empathize, but the man sitting in his chair was working on his last nerve.
They were almost an hour over when he’d predicted he would finish, and it was because the man kept squirming, and he was getting the piece in one of the least painful tattoo spots.
He’d jumped so bad a few times that Elias had damn near fucked up the line work.
“Two minutes less than the last time you asked me,” Elias responded because he was tired of giving a running countdown.
Even more so when what he wanted to say was that they could have been finished by now.
What would have been an hour and a half tattoo would take him three, possibly more, if the other man didn’t sit still.
Elias continued to work on the tattoo, focusing on the buzz of his equipment and not shading outside of the design with every jerk the man made, but when a third one came in as many minutes, he lifted the needle from his skin.
“We can finish this another time if we need to.”
“No, no. I’m committed to getting it done. I can tough it out.”
Elias wasn’t so sure that he could. Physically, his skin wasn’t raw, Elias wasn’t using more pressure than necessary, and the shading wasn’t meant to be deep.
In that aspect, he could tough it out. Mentally, Elias wasn’t so sure.
The pain he felt, while real, was likely compounded in his head, and the body had a strange way of playing tricks on you, of giving way to conjured thoughts when they were convincing enough.
He recommenced tattooing, and almost an hour passed before he was finished.
He let the man survey it in the mirror while Elias disposed of the needle.
He’d already been paid, and once the work was reviewed, Elias sprayed it and covered it.
He couldn’t have been more relieved when the man was out of the door five minutes later.
“I just knew he was going to tap out,” Javier said when they were alone.
“Is it bad that I was hoping he would?” Elias asked as he started cleaning his equipment.
“Nah, I think we’ve all been there.”
“I know one thing: I will never tattoo him again.”
“I can’t say that I blame you. I get needing a break, being nervous, or it hurting worse than they thought, but you let him test the pain level beforehand. He should have realized what he was getting into,” Javier replied.
“People think they can handle it until they can’t,” Elias countered.
“True. You only had those two today?”
Elias nodded. “Yeah. I don’t have any more until Friday. I’m pulling eight hours on a bike the next two days to get a jumpstart since all the material I need is in.” He also had other plans for Thursday.
“Tell me one of you has neon pink ink,” Marco said, walking into the common area.
“You know I don’t do neon tats,” Javier replied.
“Check the third drawer,” Elias said, nodding to his station drawers. “That client wanted neon?”
“Yep,” Marco responded, opening the drawer. “As the underlay of the flowers, and the last neon tattoo I did was like three years ago, and it wasn’t pink.” He pulled out the ink. “Thanks,” he said before leaving.
Elias likely wouldn’t have had it either if this were eight months ago, but he’d gotten a request from a client for an all-neon tattoo and figured, what the hell? They hadn’t been sure of colors initially, so he’d ordered an array. At least some of it was being used again.
He finished cleaning his equipment and disinfecting his station before saying bye to Javier and heading out. He’d just slid into his car when his phone alerted him of a text. Elias pulled it out and found it from Eri.
Eri: You never showed me the Mojo Jojo tattoo you did.
Elias: I’ll text you a picture when I get home.
Eri: Or you can show it to me the next time I see you.
He couldn’t help but smirk and shake his head because he knew what she was trying to ask without saying it. He contemplated acting like he didn’t, but he decided against it.
Elias: I can show it to you Sunday afternoon.
He had three tattoos on Saturday and knew the last one would take him a while. Elias planned to see her before then, but did not intend to tell her.
Eri: Sunday works.
He placed his phone in the cupholder and pulled out of the parking lot.
They were having a family dinner on Sunday evening.
It was their second one since his cousin had returned from his honeymoon, and their aunt and cousin had not been to the last one.
He was hoping that the trend would continue this Sunday.
It was peaceful that way, but he wasn’t very hopeful.
His mother had told him Celia was griping to her about wanting the family to gather for some news she wanted to share, and he wanted no part of it.