10. Kit #2
I’m suddenly too confused to be upset.
Pearl mutters some wisecrack about baby mamas, which I ignore, and tip my chin up in question to the other guys.
“What’s going on? Who’s she?”
Pan ignores me. Of course. “C’mon in,” he’s saying to the kid, spreading a hand all around the shop. “Mi casa, tu casa.”
Okay, it’s not just his casa. But nothing I can do to stop him, and believe me, I’ve tried.
Tink, though, answers.
“That’s Wendy,” he says to me. “She’s…just going to hang out here for a while.”
Well, that doesn’t answer much, but okay, I suppose.
I watch from my peripheral vision as the kid steps in, a little wide-eyed at all the instruments of torture that we hang around here.
At the pin-up posters and vintage motorcycle ads, the mural I painted in the lounge area: an American Traditional heart-and-dagger with NEVERLAND on the banner and a pixie floating above, wand trailing sparkles.
She’s no one I’ve ever seen, not that I hang around with children.
First Pearl, now this. I can’t believe I thought I was going to get any work done today.
“Where is everyone?” Pan turns to me, casual, leaning against the counter and flipping a pen through the air like a tiny baton. “Where’s your brother?”
“You asking me?” I train my gaze back to my sketchbook, lying open on my cart. The design, the drawing, the long hair and winding tail. The piece I was trying to get done in between other appointments. “I’m not his goddamn babysitter. Garage, probably.”
I’m grouchy at having been interrupted at my work, I decide. That’s all. Because my work is everything. The only thing I have, really, besides Fox. And these guys. But the only thing I care about doing. Even if it is in a second-rate ink shop in the Strip.
Yeah. That’s what’s setting me off so bad.
“Whoa, is that a mermaid?”
Somehow, the kid—the child—that is now in our tattoo shop, a place that is by law not allowed to have anyone under the age of eighteen on the premises, has her tiny face and little turned-up nose barely inches away from the hip and stomach of the stripper whose tattoo I was just inking over her cokehead ex-boyfriend’s name.
“Yeah,” Pearl says, beaming. “Isn’t it amazing?” She pushes down the top of her skirt even farther so that the kid can get a good look. “Kit’s so good,” she adds in a purr.
The girl’s eyes go wide. “You drew that?”
“Stop,” I whisper, to Pearl, and then wince, looking at the kid looming so close over the fresh ink. “Um, can you not stand there?” I ask her. “It’s really not…sanitary.”
“Oh, sure,” she says, nodding and taking a step back. “Um, what’s sanitary mean?”
I exhale. “For fuck’s sake,” I mutter.
Except not quietly enough. The kid looks a little upset, like she might burst into tears. Christ. “Sorry, it’s just—” I look up and lock eyes with Tink.
Look at him.
Again.
It’s funny, when he first joined up with us, I just remember thinking that he had everything I wanted in a guy. In theory. I like blondes. I like them not too tall, since I’m not. I don’t like anyone super-masc. And he has that kind of, I don’t know, look about him.
And yet. Something about him just never…
I don’t know.
I look away.
“Don’t worry about him.” Pan says it warm but casual, stepping right behind her. “You know how artists get about their work.” He gives the kid this kind of oh, brother look. And, after a moment, she returns it.
“Oh. Yeah.” She nods, and steps back with Tink, but still looks at me. “Are you friends with my brothers too?” Her voice is light. High. “Because I didn’t know they knew any artists.”
She says it the way you might say unicorns or billionaires.
I squeeze the still-buzzing pen a little harder in my fingers. “I…”
For some reason, I look at Tink.
He gives me the tiniest nod.
“Yeah,” I say. “Sure. I’m Kit.”
“Kit?” The kid gives me a skeptical look. “Is that your real name?”
“Kit,” I confirm. “Pleasure to meet you. But I’ve got to…” I look at Pearl. And seeing Pearl—with her Barbie doll clothes and beautiful princess hair—the kid gets even more astonished.
“Who are you?” she asks. “Do you live here too?”
Pearl shakes her head and laughs. “Nope. This is boys only.” She plants a hand on her chest. “I’m a paying customer.”
Oh, so now you’re paying? I think. Honestly, if money’s a problem for her, I probably would have just done it on the house, if she hadn’t fucking jumped me. It’s not like the shop is where we actually earn our cash, after all.
“What about you?” Pearl cocks her head at the kid—Wendy. “You getting your ears pierced, or something?”
“No.” Tink takes the kid by the shoulders and steers her more definitively toward the lounge area. “I just said. Wendy here’s just going to hang out for a bit until we—” He glances back at Pan.
“Take her home,” Pan finishes.
Yeah, I’m definitely missing something here.
The kid looks at Tink a little suspiciously, and so do I. I straighten in my chair.
“Do you guys mind maybe…taking this upstairs?” I nod, indicating. Neverland Tattoo & Piercing—the actual shop—is all downstairs. That part’s actually kept clean and hygienic so Blue and I don’t lose our licenses. The loft, upstairs…anything goes. Cleanliness-wise and otherwise.
“Great idea.” Tink all but shoves Pan toward the loft. “Let’s go find her a drink, huh?”
I lift my head briefly as Tink and Pan stride past, the kid trailing.
Weird fucking day.
“So is it real?” Pearl asks, jolting me back to reality.
“Huh?”
“Your name,” Pearl asks.
“Oh.” I shake my head. “Nah.”
“Huh.” She considers.
“You can lie back,” I say, absurdly, as if nothing at all had happened between her line test and now. “I can finish the outline if you, uh—”
“Sure.” Pearl slides back into the chair, dropping a folded stack of twenties onto my cart as she does. Was that so hard? I think, picking the pen back up and tapping the pedal before going back in. Again, Pearl doesn’t flinch. “Why do you guys use fake names, anyway?” she wonders aloud.
“Why do you?” I ask, not taking my eyes off my work.
Pearl laughs, and I wish she wouldn’t, because it jostles her hip a little. “Um, obvious? For safety. So no one can track us down if they get all obsessed. Fake names make us harder to find.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Exactly.”
Pearl frowns. “But you guys are…guys.”
Now I laugh. “You think that means no one’s looking for us?” I nod at the stairs to the loft. “Look at who I live with, Pearl.”