Chapter 18
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I pull my shirt away from my body as I approach the door to the tattoo studio, pulling it open with a ding of the bell above it. The humidity here is almost unbearable, and it’s not much better inside, though I’m thankful at least for the blast of cold air from the A/C unit.
“What the hell are you doing here?” My little brother laughs with a smile that splits his face in two, hurrying toward me. His tattooed arms wrap around me in a crushing hug that I return before he grabs me by the shoulders, his face twisting into concern. “Did someone die?”
“No, god Tripp, of course not,” I tell him.
“Are you sick again?”
“I’m fine,” I assure him. “ Everyone is fine. I came to see if you had an opening.”
An incredulous look crosses his face – the only part of him that isn’t completely covered in ink yet, aside from maybe his fingernails – and he combs his fingers through his thick hair, bleached to an almost-white blond with just a touch of his natural dark hair showing at the root.
“I always have an opening for you, B,” he tells me.
As we move to his station, he washes his hands and throws on a pair of gloves before working to sanitize every surface.
With an incline of his head as he puts his machine together, he invites me to sit. I peel off my shirt and drop into his chair, resting my right arm on the rest provided for it as I drape the fabric over my body once again.
“Ham misses you,” I tell Tripp as he rolls himself toward me and angles my arm where he needs it to be. “He’s been talking about you a lot.”
“Tell him to come see me, then.”
“Buying a plane ticket would require—”
“Oh yeah.”
I look around his shop as the machine makes contact with my skin, and I take in the quiet, empty space. There are six other stations here, two of which are reserved for piercings. A small waiting area sits at the front, with two leather-upholstered couches, which I assume were chosen for their ease of cleaning.
Tripp’s hand-drawn and painted art hangs on the wall of his station, each piece more creepy and more disturbing than the one next to it, not unlike the ink covering his skin, most of which he’s done himself.
“How’s the shop?” I ask him.
With a lift of his head and an arch of his brow, he says, “It’s lunch time on a Saturday in Miami. You tell me.”
“I can help you,” I offer.
“I don’t need a handout from my brother,” he snaps. “Talk to me about something else.”
There are only three things in this world that Tripp is fiercely protective of: his wife, his art, and his pride. I know better than to try and step on his toes, but if he’s floundering, I can’t help myself from wanting to step in and save my little brother.
This is the kid that slept on the floor next to my bed for close to a year because he was worried that I wouldn’t wake up the next morning if no one was there to make sure I got through the night. This is the kid who was ready to knock my block off because he’d seen bruises on my ex-wife after a scene, and he thought I’d hit her.
He’s a good kid. I hate to see him struggle; but I hate the thought of pushing him away even more.
“I got into it with Dad—”
“ Father ,” the two of us say in unison, following with a pair of loud laughs.
Tripp doesn’t like to talk about our family. He could hardly stand it when he lived nearby, but since he moved, the only time that he’ll talk about them with me is if I fly out and sit in his chair. A fair exchange of one person’s pain for the other’s. It’s the only reason that I have any tattoos to begin with.
“What’d you do?” He asks.
“I tried to talk to them about my job,” I chuckle.
As he wipes away blood and excess ink to clear his field of vision, he says, “There’s your first mistake. Only Jesus at the dinner table.” He cringes at his own snark. “Sorry.”
I want to tell him about Nia’s request; it’s the entire reason I flew out here, in fact. A part of me thinks that I want him to tell me no, that I would be signing my career’s death certificate if I agreed, but the other part of me – the part of me which knows my brother - knows that he wouldn’t do that.
That part of me knows that I really came out here to have someone tell me what I want to hear: that it’s fine, she didn’t ask me to sleep with her. She doesn’t even want me to touch her. There wouldn’t technically be any ethics violations.
What a crock.
Tripp is a firm believer in YOLO – ‘you only live once.’ It’s why he had no issue moving his entire life on a dime, it’s why he rides those godforsaken donor cycles, it’s why he does almost everything that he does.
I love him, but the rational side of my mind knows that he is not the person to come to for ethics advice or to look at the big picture.
He finishes up the fill-in on the final patch of skin that we’d left open for him and gives it a wipe, following with a squeeze of soothing green soap and a clear adhesive bandage before patting me on the leg to tell me that he’s finished.
I pull my shirt on again as he turns toward his desk and pulls off his gloves, reaching for the pack of cigarettes sitting on his desk.
“I can’t believe you started that crap,” I grumble. “Do you know what those things do to people?”
“Do you know that you worry too much?” He asks.
“Do you know that you don’t worry enough? ” I counter.
He offers a shrug and a cheeky grin before popping the filtered end of a cigarette between his lips and heading for the front door. I take a seat on one of the waiting area couches, flipping through a portfolio book while Tripp steps outside to smoke.
A stream of smoke passes by the door before he pokes his head in and asks, “Do you have time to say hi to Jules?”
“Absolutely,” I tell him. “My flight doesn’t leave until tonight.”
Pulling in one more long drag, he nods and flicks the cigarette away from himself, grinding the toe of his high-top sneaker against it on the cement beneath him. “I’ll close up here, then, and we can go to the house.”
“It’s the middle of the day,” I argue.
“No one’s coming.”
I don’t miss the disappointment on his face as he walks past me and back toward his station to collect his things. Quietly, I pull my phone from my pocket and send him a thousand dollars with the memo ‘tattoo and tip.’ He’ll probably send most of it back, like he always does, but I have to at least put in the effort for him.
Tripp’s house is a cookie-cutter townhome sandwiched right in the middle of a row of identical buildings. I’ve gotten lost on his street more than once when I’ve visited because each one looks exactly the same as the next, and the HOA doesn’t let that change.
Every time that I think about my tattooed, outcast, atheist little brother living with an HOA, I can’t help but chuckle.
“Honey, I’m home!” I shout as we enter the building, earning an amused shake of Tripp’s head in response.
“Is that Bam? ” My sister-in-law appears at the top of the stairs and squeals before running down to wrap me in a hug, her long blonde curls bouncing all around her. “How long are you here?”
“My flight leaves at ten,” I tell her.
Where Tripp is cigarettes and spray paint, Julia is bubblegum and kittens. On paper, they don’t make any sense at all together, but in reality…I’m not sure I’ve seen two people love each other harder than they do.
“Okay, I have one client to do and then I’m home. Please stay so we can all do dinner?”
“Of course,” I smile, “but only if it’s my treat.” Before my brother has the chance to object, I add, “I never get to see you two, I want to take you out.”
“Fine,” Julia concedes with a smile, “and you can tell us all about the excitement of attorney life.”
She stops to kiss Tripp on the cheek, leaving a soft pink marking on his skin before grabbing a purse hanging on the back of the front door. Things seem…off between them. But I don’t pry.
“You don’t have to do that,” Tripp tells me.
“I want to. Like I said, I don’t get to see you.” Laughing, I tell him, “I think the last time you let me buy you a meal was fifteen years ago, for crying out loud.”
He offers his concession by throwing up his hands with a shake of his head, and I drop onto their couch, tossing my feet onto the top of the coffee table, thankful that the hairless creature that he insists is a cat doesn’t come around to say hello to me.
It’s another three hours and just as many cigarette breaks for Tripp before Julia steps back into the house to quickly get cleaned up so that we can make our way out to dinner. I’m not sure how, but I manage to talk them into letting me take them to a restaurant that actually has at least one Michelin star, and Tripp only fights me on it for a minute.
I order a bottle of wine for the two of them to share, along with a series of appetizers for the table, and we settle into comfortable conversation while we wait for our entrees.
There are plenty of times that I miss the two of them when I’m home, and I wish they’d never left; but then I fly out here and I spend a few hours with them, and every time that I do, I’m reminded of how much better off they are in Miami, Tripp especially.
Even if he looks like he never sees a drop of the bright Florida sun.
Our meal is comfortable and quiet, and I somehow convince myself that it’s okay that I don’t bring up the real reason for my visit. I convince myself that I’ll make the right choice without their input.
My brother rocks on his heels as the two of us stand on the sidewalk outside of his house, watching as his wife trails up the walkway after hugging me goodbye.
“If you need anything…”
“I won’t,” he says with a shake of his head.
“Well, if you do , you pick up the phone and call me,” I tell him, punching him in the shoulder.
We meet each other in a firm hug, clapping one another on the back. “Don’t take any of his shit, B,” he says before we part.
“I can offer you full assurance that Dad is the least of my concerns right now,” I tell him with a chuckle.
No, the object of my every thought right now is one Nia Cavanaugh.
Anna Karenina ’s leather cover is mocking me from its perch on my desk. Staring at me as I pick up my cell phone for the third time in ten minutes and punch Nia’s contact page with my thumb.
This is a mistake.
“Hello?”
This is so incredibly stupid.
“Nia,” I greet her. “I’ve given some thought to your proposition.”
“You have?” She sounds…hopeful. She sounds excited.
I know better than this.
“Meet me at my home office and we can discuss the details.”
Right; because the thin veil of specifying my office from any other room in my home takes away from the fact that I’m agreeing to bring my client into the lifestyle that I’ve managed to keep private for more than a decade.
“I’m— yeah, sure,” she says. “I’m dropping Katie off at five thirty. I can come by after.”
“Good.” Fighting against the conscience that tells me what a horrible idea this is, I tell her, “I’ll message the address.”
Ending the call, I pull off my glasses and press the heels of my palms into my eyes.
“You complete and utter fucking moron ,” I mumble to myself.
As if my IQ is dropping by the minute, I find myself in my closet no more than five minutes later, with food on its way for delivery and my hands running through options more formal than the t-shirt and light wash jeans that I’m currently wearing.
My doorbell rings sooner than I expect it to, and when I open the door, Nia stands behind it with a bottle of white wine in her hands. She’s wearing a loose sweater and a pair of brightly-colored shorts, with her hair pulled up into an elastic at the top of her head.
The tweed suit that I decided on makes me feel incredibly overdressed in comparison.
“Come in,” I tell her, inclining my head in invitation.
I walk behind her as the two of us move not to my office, which was already pushing a boundary, but to my kitchen. That boundary blurs even further as I reach for a wine glass and set it in front of her before opening the bottle and filling the glass.
“You don’t want any?” She asks.
“I don’t drink,” I tell her, “but thank you.”
With a nod, she sips on her wine, her eyes moving around the spread of food that I had delivered.
Stupid.
“This is really awkward, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I chuckle, “it is. I don’t invite clients into my home, and I certainly don’t invite them into the more private aspects of my life.”
“But you made an exception for me,” she notes, plucking a pomegranate crostini from its plate.
“I did.” In an effort to make both of us more comfortable, I peel off my suit jacket and fold it, draping it over the edge of the counter. Adjusting the cuffs on my dress shirt, I tell her, “You’re allowed to change your mind about this.”
“No,” she says, “I want to know more about it. I’m excited to learn.”
There’s a crumb stuck to the corner of her lip.
I tuck my hand into my pocket to keep from brushing it away for her, forcing myself to lean against the edge of the stove instead.
The silence between us becomes no less uncomfortable while she finishes two glasses of wine, at which point, I remove the alcohol from the equation and exchange it for a glass of water. This is not a conversation to have tipsy.
Excusing myself, I head to my office – I really, really did intend for us to talk there, I swear I did – and I reach for the colored pens and the stack of papers that I’d left on my desk before I decided that I needed to dress up for this meeting.
I berate myself the entire time that it takes me to walk from my desk to the kitchen island, where Nia waits patiently for me, not unlike she did kneeling on the floor of my office.
A soft flush has made its way to her cheeks, and her body language is much more relaxed than it was when she arrived. It only serves to make me feel a bit more relaxed, as well.
“Ground rules,” I say, dropping the stack of papers in front of her. “If we’re going to do this, we need boundaries that will protect us both. First, no touching. Hands, mouths, skin on skin – none of it.”
“That seems fair,” she nods.
“Second, no having sex with one another.” At the quirk in her brow, I tell her, “These are… lessons . It’s educational, and that’s it. Third and most importantly, I am not your Dom. You are not my sub. This cannot change.”
“I don’t want you to be my ‘Dom,’ ” she says, shrugging. “I don’t even know that I really want that at all. I just want to know what all of this looks like so I can decide for myself.”
“Okay,” I nod. Jerking my chin toward the papers in front of her, I say, “The red pen is for things you are absolutely uncomfortable with and do not want – your hard limits. Yellow is for your soft limits. Things that you’re open to the idea of at some point or that you might like to try one day. Green are your firm yeses; you love them, you want to do them, you welcome them.”
“We agreed that we aren’t having sex.”
“The list isn’t for me. Consider this an exercise in setting your boundaries,” I tell her. “Having a predetermined list makes it easier when your boundaries come up in negotiation.”
The red pen is the first that she picks up, scribbling a hard X next to a long list of things, which I’d expected her to do. She’s equally generous with the yellow, if not more so, which surprises me. Her hand hovers over the paper once she reaches for the green pen.
She doesn’t mark anything for several minutes. Instead, she flips through the pages, hovering over several things without committing to them. I think she’s going to finally mark something when she gently sets the pen onto the island.
“I don’t want to be called a bitch,” she finally says, and my brow creases. “That isn’t listed on here. There are some…colorful options, but I don’t see ‘bitch’ anywhere.”
“You can write that in,” I tell her. “It isn’t a comprehensive list. You’re allowed to alter it so that it works for you.”
“Am I saying no to too many things?” She asks as she writes the word ‘bitch’ onto the paper and scratches through it with a red X.
I shake my head. “Not at all. Your limits are your limits.”
Seeming to gain back some of her resolve, she reaches again for the green pen, finally putting it to paper this time. As I skim over the items she’s given the green light, my jaw tenses, my molars grinding against each other.
“This is asking for my safe word,” she notes. Her eyes meet mine, and a crease forms between her brows. “That’s the second time I’ve been told about them, or asked, but Kink Kings said—”
“Your first lesson is to forget everything that you read on that godforsaken website,” I tell her, throwing authority into my voice. She snaps to attention, and I don’t miss how good that feels. “The people behind that site have been sued more times than I can count on both hands, because their advice is dangerous . You take your lessons from me, and from Isla. That’s it.”
“Okay,” she nods. “Then what do I use?”
“What will you remember when you’re upset or in pain?” I counter. “I use a three-word system.” Reaching for the red pen, I hold it up. “Full and immediate stop. The scene ends. Restraints come off. Anything inserted is removed.”
Now holding the yellow pen, I tell her, “Pause or slow down. Take a minute to breathe and check in with your partners. The scene may or may not continue.”
Abandoning both, I exchange them for the green pen. “You love what’s happening. You want more of it, you want to up the intensity, you’re having a good time.”
“You remember all of that?” She asks, and I nod. “Have you ever used ‘red?’”
I nod again. “Absolutely. Everyone has their limits.”
Reaching for the red pen, she scribbles ‘ traffic lights ’ into the place allotted for her safe word.
Nia has been sitting in my kitchen for an hour and a half by the time that she checks the time on her phone, using her hand to try to stifle a yawn. Slipping my own phone into my back pocket, I extend a hand to her.
“Give me your keys,” I order. “I’ll drive you home.”
“Oh,” she breathes. “Right.”
Fishing in her purse, she pulls out a set of keys with enough keychains on it that it should be considered criminal. For every key, there must be five decorative pieces, and there are plenty of keys on the ring.
I chuckle with a shake of my head before boxing up what’s left of the food and throwing it into a bag to bring back to her house.
My house.
I thought the boundary between us was just blurred, but it’s so much worse than that already, isn’t it?