19. NINETEEN
NINETEEN
CORY
Glen and I were eating lunch at his favorite deli, which was conveniently located at a midpoint between our shops. He was the first person I called after the detective originally stopped by, and I had promised to keep him updated as soon as I heard back from Levine.
“So? What do you think?” I had just finished filling him in on Garrett’s suspicions regarding Alex’s potential involvement. Whether Glen agreed with Garrett or not was irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, but for some reason, I still wanted his opinion on it all.
He chewed his sandwich thoughtfully, or at least, I assumed the look on his face was contemplation. He was a hard nut to crack, even now.
“Seems like overkill, if you ask me.”
“That’s what I said. Alex can’t be that pissed off that I told him off. He didn’t want a female tattoo artist, anyway. And yeah, I maybe could’ve handled it better—” I didn’t get to finish my sentence before he cut me off.
“Don’t you start doing that. You handled yourself perfectly fine.” He pointed his sandwich at me like a weapon, some shredded lettuce dropping off the end and landing on the paper wrapping with a muted slap. “If you start making excuses for every man that walks into your shop with an overly inflated ego and a piss-poor attitude, you’ll never make it in this industry. And I won’t allow that. I put too much goddamn time and effort into you for you to fail now.”
I smiled at the classic Glen move of covering up a heartfelt sentiment with some sassy remark about how it would inconvenience him. Our relationship thrived off a mutual unspoken rule that we didn’t get too sappy.
“Okay, okay. So, what? You think this and the noise complaint are just coincidences? That they’re unrelated?”
He grunted. “I don’t know, kid. I don’t think so, but you never know. He did seem like a whiny priss.”
We both chuckled, and then we ate in silence for a moment, or as much silence as the busy deli allowed, which was to say that we ate in comfortable commotion. People chatted at nearby tables, the bell over the door sounded loudly anytime someone came or went, which was frequently, and the owner shouted orders to his sons in the kitchen. It was actually quite loud, but it filled the parts of Glen and me that would be too quiet otherwise.
“So, Garrett, huh? What happened to Officer Adler?”
I narrowed my eyes at him, and the man had the audacity to chuckle.
We had three rules in our relationship. One: Don’t get too sappy. Two: Don’t touch Glen’s tattoo station. And three: Don’t talk about Cory’s love life, or lack thereof.
I took a sip of my coke, trying to prolong answering him while I thought of how to have this conversation without having it. “Yes. Garrett.”
“Mhm, and when did Garrett become Garrett ?”
I appreciated his avoidance of saying what we were verbally dancing around outright.
“Recently. He was kind of there for the whole Annette thing, and I just . . . I don’t know. I guess I just realized he’s not terrible.”
Glen smirked, the movement shifting his beard. “Is ‘not terrible’ where the bar is for you?” He let out a low whistle. “That’s awfully low.”
I threw a chip at him. “Shut up. No, the bar is not at ‘not terrible.’ Don’t make me say the things aloud.”
“Okay, I won’t.” He ate the chip I threw at him. “Does he know that I’ll kill him if he hurts you?”
I scoffed, but I knew he wasn’t kidding. Glen was good like that. “I will be sure to pass that message along.”
“Good. Tell him I’ll feed him to his relatives if he does.”
I stared at him in confusion, and he waited for me to get it until he realized I wasn’t going to.
“Pigs. I’ll feed him to the pigs. Get it? Because he’s a cop.” He burst out laughing at his own joke, unable to hold it back any longer.
I threw my whole chip bag at him. “You are terrible!”
But I loved him.
** *
It was the end of the night, and I was wrapping up my client’s thigh in Saran Wrap. I’d just spent the whole day tattooing a beautiful tribal woman with the head of a raven sitting above her own, the wings wrapping around and framing the woman’s face like hair. It was, in my not-so-humble and very biased opinion, stunning, which was my least favorite part of being a tattoo artist.
Of course creating beautiful artwork was obviously the goal, but it was bittersweet. I’d spend countless hours drawing up the sketch for a client, then spend even more hours lining, shading and packing color into it, only for the client to walk away with it, and me to only get a picture. If I really loved a design, I usually made a photocopy of the sketch, but it wasn’t the same thing. Skin gives artwork the ability to move, to breathe. It takes color and lines, and amplifies the natural beauty of the human body.
I heavily debated reproducing pieces on my own skin, but it wouldn’t be the same, and having a matching tattoo with a stranger didn’t appeal to me.
“Thank you so much, Cory! It’s even better than I thought it’d be, and I knew it would be amazing.”
“Of course! Let me know when you’re ready for that botanical piece.”
“I’ll give you a call soon! ”
Once she had gone, I locked the door behind her and walked to the counter. Siren lifted her head from the dog bed and gave her tail a few lazy thumps.
“We’ll get out of here soon, okay girl?” I rubbed her head and then went back to clean up my table and equipment. The process didn’t take long, but I lost myself in the monotonous cleaning and organization. My closet might have looked like a tornado ripped through it and then hit it again on the way back, but my tattoo station was always immaculate.
Siren barked, startling me from my trance, and I heard the faint sound of knocking. Maybe my client had left something behind and was coming back for it? I pushed past the dividing curtain and walked to the giant window, expecting to see her auburn hair illuminated under the neon sign above the door. But when I looked out at the dark sidewalk, there was nobody there.
I looked down at Siren who was standing by my side, hackles raised.
“Why do you have to do this at night? You’re creeping me out,” I muttered, turning toward the en trance. There was no chance in hell I was opening it to see what might’ve spooked Siren. Every horror movie I’d ever watched taught me that that was how you got murdered.
“Not tonight, Freddy.”
I had just turned around when the back door squeaked open. Siren moved in front of me, her growls and barks getting drowned out by the thundering of my heartbeat in my ears.
“Hello?” I called out, breaking rule number two of How to Survive a Horror Movie .
No one answered, but Siren didn’t calm, either. I moved cautiously toward the curtain, my hand reaching out to pull it open at the exact moment it moved on its own.
I screamed.
And so did Kinsley.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Kins! You gave me a heart attack!” I placed my hand over my heart, willing the painful rhythm to slow.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
“What are you doing here? Why didn’t you call me?”
She raised an eyebrow. “I did, babes, but you didn’t answer.”
I patted my back pocket for my phone, only to come up empty.
“It must be on silent. I thought I had it on me, but I guess not.” I took a deep breath and exhaled sharply. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scream in your face.”
She smiled and rubbed my arm. “No, I’m sorry! I wasn’t trying to scare you. I knocked on the front door, but remembered you had a backdoor that was probably unlocked. Then I dropped my phone when I was opening the door, and it was a whole thing.” She waved her hands through the air.
“It’s all good. I’m just glad you’re not a murderer. What’s up? I was just getting ready to take off.” I strode behind the counter and shut down the computer, the absence of the whirring modem suddenly making the shop eerily quiet in a way I hadn’t noticed on other nights. Probably because I didn’t tend to linger, or had music playing on my phone.
“Perfect! Hayes is out of town doing a special training with Tank, so I was going to see if you wanted to have a girl’s night?” Hope raised her voice several octaves toward the end, giving it a sing-song quality. “I’ve got tequila in the car.”
I linked arms with her, grabbing my bag off the counter and whistling for Siren to follow. “You had me at girl’s night, but the tequila was a nice touch.”
Forty-five minutes later, we were settled on my couch, frozen margaritas in hand and a bowl of chips nestled between us. Our favorite reality dating show was on the television, but we weren’t really paying attention to it. It was more for background noise while we caught up.
“Work is paying me to go to this fancy event, but it’s great because I don’t have to actually work! I get to just dress up and take a bunch of pictures for promotional material.”
I laughed. “It sounds like your dream. So, what dress are you wearing?”
She whipped her phone out from her bubblegum-pink sweatpants, and scrolled through her photos until she found a picture of her in a cocktail dress that matched her sweats. It was thigh-length, but had an enormous bow on the back, the tails of which went down to the floor. In short, it was very Kinsley.
“Very cute! When is it?”
She tossed her phone on the cushion next to her and sipped her drink. “Not for another three months.”
I laughed. It was also very Kinsley to already have a dress picked out for an event that was still months away.
“Anyway,” she started, fluttering her lashes at me and tucking her legs further beneath her. “How are things with Garrett?”
I faked offense. “Did you just come over here to loosen me up with alcohol and get the dirty details of my love life? Kinsley Anastasia Beauchamp-Turner. I am disappointed in you!”
She squealed. “I’m going to gloss over your disappointment because I make zero apologies for my methods, and jump straight to the use of the words ‘dirty’ and ‘love’ in that sentence. Spill.”
With an eye roll, I filled her in on all things Garrett, sparing her no details, because that was the kind of relationship that Kins and I had. We were far more open than most, but I loved that about us. If everyone stopped gatekeeping their sexual successes, we’d all be having way more earth-shattering orgasms.
“So, why haven’t you two banged yet?” Kinsley was on her second margarita, and an alcohol-induced blush stained her tanned face a rosy red.
Somehow, when she drank, she just got more and more beautiful. The blush made the blue of her eyes piercing, her smiles got wider, and her movements got looser but in a graceful way. It wasn’t fair. I got splotchy, cackled, and lost all semblance of balance.
“We honestly probably would have the night of my mom’s party if it weren’t for the epic shitshow that ensued. I don’t think he wants me to use it as a distraction. He said he wants it to be a day of its own.”
Kinsley let her head fall into her palm. “Aww! That’s kind of romantic.”
I narrowed my eyes at her, and she laughed.
“What? It is!”
“No, it’s not, because we’ve already had sex before. It’s not like it’s the first time.” I took a sip of my drink and scratched Siren behind the ear.
“Yeah, but that doesn’t count!”
I laughed. “How do you figure?”
She sat up straighter, as if about to give a presentation. “One, you guys were drunk so neither of you probably even really remember it. Two, you didn’t know his name so you technically didn’t have sex with Garrett . And four—”
“What happened to three?” I smirked at her with a raised eyebrow. To be fair, our margaritas were seventy-five percent tequila and the rest mixer.
“That’s what I said!”
When I started laughing, she joined in, smacking me in the arm. “Shut up! Three, it was a wedding and everyone knows what happens at a wedding stays at a wedding.”
“Fairly certain that only applies if it was in Vegas, which your wedding was not.”
She glared at me and drained the contents of her glass before holding it out to me.
“You can make the next round for the unwarranted sass.”