23. Tink
TINK
“Look!”
I’m barely in through the back door when Wendy practically runs me over, her T-shirt sleeve hiked up over her skinny shoulder.
“I did a tattoo!” she cries. “Just like Kit taught me.”
She did, kind of: a fairy, with hair down to her ankles and big, blooming butterfly wings. The bluish lines are delicate, intricate, especially considering how thin Wendy’s arm is. I’ve never really looked at Kit’s work up close, I realize.
It’s good. Really good.
“I taught her how to do a tattoo stencil.” Kit follows a few steps behind her at a slower pace. “Uh, just to be clear, in case anyone was about to freak out. It’ll wash off.”
Wendy tucks her chin into her shoulder so she can peer down her arm, beaming. “Yeah, but it looks real,” she says. “It’s really cool.” She glances at Kit. “If I ever get a real one, I am gonna get this.”
“I won’t hold you to that,” Kit says. “You’ve got a lot of time before you turn eighteen.”
“Looks great.” Pan barely glances at it before sauntering over and sticking his head in the fridge. “My man does good work.”
“It does look great,” Fox agrees, giving his brother a kind of what do you want me to say shrug.
“It’s just one of my flash pieces,” Kit explains, rolling the glove off his hand. There’s a tiny tinge of pink in his cheeks. “I could do those with my eyes closed. Not that I would, obviously,” he adds.
“Kit is going to teach me to tattoo for real, though,” Wendy announces. “He said.”
“I said I’d teach her to draw,” Kit clarifies again. “And maybe. We’ll see. Apprenticeship is no joke.”
“What’s apprenticeship?”
“It’s like…tattoo college. All the studying you have to do before they let you stab people.”
Wendy giggles just as Pan groans.
“There’s no food in here.” He staggers back from the fridge, looking pained. “I’m gonna starve.”
Food. Eating. I dimly recall that I haven’t had anything since my two sips of energy drink this morning, which might explain why I feel so…off.
That, and the Marina itself. But I survived. And really, what did I think was going to happen? It’s just a place. A location. And I’m with the Lost Boys. I am a Lost Boy. Sure, Zuzu’s shit got all fucked up but—
Her face flashes in my mind, that one moment our eyes met. Studying me.
I shake it off.
—but that’s a Krye-related problem. We—I—am only tangentially involved there. It’s as done as it can be, and now I’m here.
Home.
Safe.
Fox, who’s leaning against the counter, arms folded, shrugs. “I mean, you gotta buy food for there to be food in the house, is the thing.”
“I’ve bought food,” Pan says. “Didn’t I?” He looks at me. “What happened to that burrito?”
“You ate it.” Blue slams the back door behind him. “Dipshit.” He tugs off his helmet, gives his head a shake, and strides briskly across and out of the kitchen.
Seeing Pan’s face fall, I rush in. “I could grab more,” I offer, only to remember that I technically still don’t have a bike. “Or—”
“Thank God,” Kit interrupts, “that someone ordered pizza.” He pauses. “Me,” he clarifies. “Me, I ordered some.”
“It was my idea, though,” Wendy pipes up.
“Okay, but I paid for it,” Kit counters.
Pan ignores him and beams at Wendy.
“Attagirl.” He tosses the can to his other hand and gives her hair a ruffle as he strolls out to the shop. “See, I knew she’d come in handy around here.”
“Thanks, Kit,” Kit mutters as he traipses out to the front of the shop. Fox follows, with Wendy trailing, and I bring up the rear.
With every step, I feel calmer. The open space of the shop, cluttered as it is with Kit and Blue’s stuff, still feels big, with the tall ceilings going up and store windows letting in lots of light.
The lounge area, all its mismatched thrift-store couches and Kit’s giant logo behind, is inviting.
And the voices, the footfalls, the rhythms of it all…
It’s home.
Pan plops on one of the couches, boots on the table, and cracks his beer. “What a day.” He scrubs a hand over his face before taking a sip.
“It’s three-thirty p.m.,” Kit points out.
“Yeah, exactly.” Pan nods. “All work and no play, yada yada. I say we close for the day. All in favor?” He lifts a hand in the air. Fox does too, eagerly. Kit shrugs and follows suit: “Just gonna be walk-ins anyway, and I’d rather not.”
I raise my hand, too. Of course.
“Motion passes.” Pan pumps a fist in victory. “Emergency closure begins now.”
Wendy, who’s been hovering between the shop proper and the waiting area, leans in a bit. “You guys can do that?”
“Why not?” Pan says, tossing a pen in the air and catching it like a tiny baton. “It’s our shop.” He throws Wendy a grin. “You wanna flip the sign?” He jerks his head at the door, where the CLOSED—BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME sign is facing all of us inside.
Wendy brightens, and nods vigorously. Pan sweeps an arm forward.
“Be my guest. Go nuts.”
She runs to the door and spins the sign, so now we’re all staring at OPEN—AREN’T YOU LUCKY? sitting now face-out to the shop interior. Then she turns around, expectant, like she needs confirmation she’s done it right.
Pan gives her a thumbs-up. “Looks perfect.”
“Thanks.” Wendy smiles. “Um, can I have a soda?”
For some reason, Pan and Fox and Kit all look at me. I draw back in my seat a little.
“What am I, her dentist?” I mutter. To Wendy, I just say, “Sure.” I nod at the loft stairs. “Should be some upstairs. Help yourself.”
Wendy does a faint woohoo and rushes for the stairs, with Nana jumping up to follow her.
Fox snaps his fingers. “Ooh, and grab me one while you’re up there?” he calls after her. “Anything with caffeine.”
“Got it,” the tiny voice calls back.
Her footsteps pound up the stairs. Then a moment of silence.
“Good call, man,” Pan says, nodding at Fox. “I could get used to having someone to run and grab my shit all the time. You think we can teach her other tricks?
Fox looks bashful. “That’s not what I—”
“Dude, she’s a kid, not a dog,” Kit interrupts.
“And she’s not staying,” I add.
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Pan grins. “Still. Nice little change of pace. Some…” He spins a hand in the air, thinking. “…feminine energy in here.”
I stiffen without meaning to, but Fox speaks before I can react any more.
“See, now you’re just making it weird.”
“She just has energy, period,” Kit agrees, sinking into a chair next to us. “I ran out of shit to give her to do at like noon and she was still asking me for chores.” He glances sideways at Pan. “But I wasn’t training her to fetch or anything.”
“All right, already!” Pan slugs back more of his drink and leans his head back on the settee.
“What’d you have her do?” Fox asks. Kit shrugs.
“Mostly she just wanted to learn about tattoos,” he says. “How it works, if it hurts. Wanted to know what all of us have, and why.”
For a second, his gaze drifts to me, his eyes clear and intent behind his glasses. The tiniest frown pinches between his eyebrows—not angry, but something else…an expression I recognize but can’t place.
And then it’s gone.
“Oh, and whether or not they hurt.” Kit sucks his teeth. “Did you know they tattoo racing greyhounds?”
“No,” Fox gasps, at the same time Pan says “duh.”
Concentration, I realize. That’s it. The same look I’ve seen on Kit when he’s hunched over his sketchbook.
But why on me?
Pan sits up a little straighter. “How did you not? Doesn’t everyone know that? Thought it was common knowledge.”
Fox shakes his head vigorously. “No. Did you know that, Tink?”
“Huh?” I say. “Nothing. What are we talking about?”
Footfalls rattle the spiral stairs behind us, and I turn, expecting Wendy, but seeing…Blue. Who I guess has decided to spend time with us after all.
“Yo,” Fox says. “Did you get me a soda?”
Blue says nothing and drops onto the settee, not next to Pan so much as on top of him. Stretches out his legs. Reclines his arms behind his head like he couldn’t be more relaxed.
“Much better.”
Beneath him, Pan grunts. “The hell’s wrong with you?” he sputters, trying and failing to shove Blue off. “You weigh like a thousand pounds or something?”
Blue grins. “Only in my cock.”
“Oh, fuck off.”
“You fuck off.”
Pan shoves Blue, Blue shoves Pan, and by the time Wendy returns clutching one can of Coke Zero and one can of Monster, they’re full-on wrestling on the shop floor.
“Um…” She pauses at the threshold from the landing to the shop proper. “Are you guys…fighting?”
“Just having a friendly argument,” Pan says through Blue’s half-nelson, and flashes her an OK sign with a wince. “All good.”
“They just do this,” Fox explains. “A…lot.”
Blue flips Pan to the carpet with a thud before rising easily from his crouch. “What, like you and fuckin’ Tweedle-Dum over there aren’t always getting into it?” he pants, nodding at Kit.
Kit does a palms-up. “I’m a conscientious objector.” He frowns, then glances down at his phone. “And I’m also going to get my pizza. My pizza,” he adds as he stands, sweeping a warning gaze around the room. “Which I ordered for me, and me alone.”
Twenty minutes later, we’ve collectively reduced Kit’s pizza to nothing but grease stains and the bones of crusts and the conversation has turned to various who would win in a fights.
“I think…” Wendy narrows her eyes, looking between Fox mid-chew on his fourth slice and Kit a few feet away. Her face falls. “Sorry. But I think him.” She nods at Fox.
“Hell yeah!” Fox cheers through a mouthful of crust.
“Gotta agree with that.” Pan, who recaptured the settee, is now lying on it longways with his head on one armrest and feet on the other. “Sorry to play favorites, but smart money’s on my man Fox.”
“Well, yeah,” Kit says—cross-legged, by the coffee table, “because he could just sit on me and do that thing where he dangles drool right over my face. That was always his go-to move as a kid,” he adds to Wendy next to him.
“Gross.” She wrinkles her nose. “Hey!” She straightens suddenly, glaring at Fox in the window seat. “Pizza isn’t good for dogs.”
Fox draws back from where he was attempting to feed Nana a pizza crust. “Sorry.”
“Pizza isn’t even good for people,” I point out, swallowing my last bite of crust. Wendy frowns.