12. lucas
TWELVE
lucas
I had no idea if Charlee had been serious about a tattoo. Knowing her extremely strait-laced parents, I had my doubts. But when she’d said it, her fingers mindlessly playing with her hair, the smooth skin of her wrist exposed. . . I had an idea.
Charlee loved quotes. In high school, she had them everywhere. Her locker. Her notebook. And on those occasions of weakness when I peeked at her social media, it seemed that love affair hadn’t abated any. There was one that appeared more than the others—an English proverb that I’d come to learn about perseverance.
A smooth sea never made a skillful mariner.
Imagining the embodiment of that on her wrist—knowing if Charlee were truly to get her first ink, it wouldn’t be big or overly prominent—I’d drawn this up.
“Lucas, it’s. . . ” She stared at the simple line design of an anchor with waves incorporated into the simple line drawing. And then looked up at me. “How? I mean. Where?”
If my goal was to render her speechless, mission accomplished. Not the way I imagined doing it, but. . .
“Your wrist? It’s not as noticeable as some other places, but not hidden either. Especially when you do that thing with your hair all the time. Which you still do, by the way.”
Her hand flew immediately up and then catching herself, Charlee dropped it.
“I do,” she admitted, as if I didn’t already know it as fact. “But how did you know? I mean, this is for my favorite quote, right?”
“It is.”
“A smooth sea—”
“Never made a skillful mariner. You had that in your locker all through high school.”
She smelled so goddamn good.
“But that was so many years ago.”
No way in hell I’d admit to checking out her social media. “Good guess then. You still like the quote?”
I could tell Charlee wanted to press me. To ask if that was the only reason I thought to draw that tattoo. But she was too proud.
“I do.”
Stalemate.
Neither of us said a word until Charlee took a deep breath, flipped her wrist over and said, “Let’s do it.”
There was something about the idea of having Charlee in my tattoo chair, my first customer, that I found more oddly enticing. It would have been safer to meet at a bar.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she said, more confidently. Then, taking her wallet out of the purse slung around her shoulder, Charlee handed me a dollar. “Your first bill?”
I couldn’t resist teasing her. “It is. But that’ll be more than a dollar, Charlee.”
“Oh my God, I was thinking. . . I’m so sorry.”
Taking the bill from her, I chuckled. To which she wrinkled her nose. “You’re teasing me,” she accused.
“I am.”
Not that I should be.
“Ugh.” But her expression didn’t match the sound she made. Smiling, she put her wallet away, then tossed her purse onto my design table. “Okay, let’s go.”
“Nervous?” Clearly, she was extremely so. Had been jumpy since she came into the shop. “It’ll be more uncomfortable than painful,” I reassured her.
“Can we. . . talk, while you’re doing it?”
Mmmm. Doing it. Not the phrase to use with me, Charlee . I’d been imagining tossing her onto the couch in my back room since the second I opened the door.
“Yes,” I said. “We can talk. Let me prep this first. Any changes?”
She shook her head. “None at all.”
That pleased me more than it should.
By the time I finalized the design and placed it, making sure she was okay with the size, Charlee’s closeness was beginning to get to me. Rolling myself next to her as Charlee lay back on the chair, putting her arm up as I’d asked, I was well beyond questioning this decision.
A tattoo. What the hell had I been thinking?
“I really like the way it looks,” she said, lifting up her wrist. “Oh, sorry.” She put it back down and looked at the needle I’d loaded with ink. “Um, Lucas?”
“It’ll be fine. Trust me.”
“I do,” she whispered.
It was the softness of her voice, the conviction in it, that gave me pause. Poised to begin her tattoo, I looked at her instead, in some ways as if seeing her for the first time since I’d come back.
Could this woman be more than just the one who broke my heart? The only one I’d ever allowed close enough to do that?
What a goddamn, scary, fucking thought.
“Ready?”
I knew I wasn’t.
“Yep.” She nodded, clearly scared. Charlee did not like pain. That, I remembered. “Ouch,” she said at the first touch of the needle.
“Just do me a favor and hold still. This is a delicate design, and it is permanent.”
“Okay.” She nodded again.
She needed a distraction.
“Tell me what you’ve been doing all these years.”
Charlee winced. “You know, college. Job. That sort of thing.”
“You ended up at Syracuse?”
I already knew the answer.
“I did. Hotel management. Then an MBA in business.”
“No graphic design?”
A shadow passed over her features just before she winced again. “I’m not sure I can talk at the moment. Answer the same question. Talk to me.”
Christ, Charlee. I’d dearly love to talk to you. Tell you all of the things that have passed through my mind since I saw you last week.
Pretty sure that’s not what she meant.
“You know I enlisted in Brooklyn. I was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division.”
“What’s that?”
“An infantry division of the Army.”
“Infantry. Like the ones who actually fight bad guys?”
That was one way to put it. “You can say that.”
“Then what?”
The distraction was working. I alternatively inked and wiped, Charlee’s tattoo looking perfect. “I tried out for the scout sniper section, eventually earning a spot in sniper school.”
“You were a sniper?”
The “were” part of that still got to me. Especially after all that went down after ten years.
“I was.”
“Holy shit. That’s. . .”
I paused. Looked up. Tried to think of her as I would any client, and forget that the wrist I held as I worked was Charlee’s. That didn’t work, of course.
“Cool.”
I couldn’t resist the smile. “That’s not what you were going to say, was it?”
“No.”
Mmmm. I certainly hadn’t become a sniper to turn on Miss Charlee Donovan, but there was no doubt that’s exactly what was happening. She was going to say “hot.” I still knew her.
“Then what?” she asked.
I went back to work. “Then Italy, two deployments, and lots of other places in between.”
“Deployments? As in, to fight?”
“As in, to active combat zones. Yeah.”
“You don’t want to talk about it?”
It was difficult to explain, but I’d try. “It’s not a thing we do. Some,” I admitted, “love to.” I paused, thinking of how to phrase it.
“You don’t have to measure your words with me, Lucas.”
Seemed like she still knew me too. I stopped tattooing. Tried to warn her. “That’s a dangerous thing to say to me, Charlee.”
“What do you mean?”
What did I mean? Guarding myself against Charlee and telling her exactly what I meant did not go hand in hand. But I was feeling reckless today.
“Let’s just say. . . there is a side to me that is very comfortable outside the limits of societal acceptance. One that goes well beyond telling you that lots of guys in the military like to measure dicks. Compare notes. But I’m not one of them.”
I went back to work, effectively having shocked the hell out of poor Charlee. I could see her mind spinning, wondering exactly what I meant. Not that I was deliberately trying to be coy. I meant every word. And was pretty sure Charlee was neither ready nor willing to learn the full effect of my words.
And if she is?
Best not to explore that possibility.
“There you have it,” I said. “What do you think?”
“You’re done already?”
“It’s a small tattoo,” I said. But it suited her perfectly.
Charlee lifted her wrist and twisted it around, looking at it from every angle. “Oh my God,” she said. “It’s awesome. I love it.”
She showed it to me as if I didn’t just put the thing there. “Look. Is that cool or what?”
That was the thing about Charlee. She had so few inhibitions. Said what she thought. Was open. Honest. Until the end, she’d been the perfect fucking girlfriend.
“Very cool,” I said. “Be careful you don’t get the tattoo bug. Not many people can claim to just have one.”
Instead of shaking her head, insisting she was one and done, Charlee continued to look at her wrist. “I can see why. I feel so. . . badass.”
God, she was cute. “That is a very badass tattoo,” I lied.
Our eyes met. “Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome. By the way, the wrist is one of the most sensitive spots. That one probably hurt more than most.”
Her jaw dropped. “Are you kidding me?”
“I’m not.”
Clearly she was proud of herself for having endured the torture of a wrist tattoo. Charlee took a deep breath. “Soooo, can we talk now?”
“Isn’t that what we’ve been doing?”
“You know what I mean.”
Unfortunately, I did. Time to open old wounds, I supposed. “Let me wrap that up. And then we’ll talk.”
The second I grabbed her wrist, though, the last thing I wanted to do was talk. Which was a very dangerous thought indeed.