36. CHAPTER 36
Ilean forward on the tattoo bed with both arms as Liv does a one-eighty jump from front to back in front of the mirror. With the hem of her—already way too short—camouflage skirt in hand, she hikes it up even further exposing almost her entire left ass cheek.
“Fuck. It looks so good,” she fawns, craning over her shoulder to get a better angle. “Carey.“ She points to the frames on the wall. "Get down my dick shark.”
He gives an aye-aye salute, kicks off his slippers, then jumps onto the cupboards. “You’re lucky you put a hold on this.”
Liv turns to me, both hands on her hips. “I told ya they’d sell.”
“Just shut up and get back over here.”
“I’m gonna need to go searching for another sketch book,” Carey says, returning to the desk.
“I’ve thrown them all out.”
“Lies. I have full access to your house, remember?”
“Get over here,” I say, patting the tattoo table, and Liv jumps back on stomach first. “Skirt.” She tugs it up and I proceed to clean and wrap it.
“You got anything on the end of next month?” she asks Carey.
“When exactly?”
“March twenty-fifth.”
“Pff.” He waves his hand. “That’s weeks away. I don’t know what I’m doing tomorrow.”
“Well lock it in. There’s a rave at an old dairy farm about thirty minutes out of town. My girlfriend will be there. She really wants to meet you.”
I tug Liv’s skirt down. “He’s busy.”
“Says who?” Carey shakes the mouse to activate the computer screen, then starts clicking. “The only thing other than regular bookings that week is your meeting with that clothing company.”
“Ooo.” Liv perches herself on the edge of the table with her legs crossed, leaning over to one side so she doesn’t sit on her new tattoo. “What’s that about?”
“Do you need to stick your nose into everything?”
“Yes,” she and Carey answer in unison.
I snap off the surgical gloves, toss them in the trash and make my way over to Carey. “Since your bestie took over the shop's Instagram account, he’s been posting the sketches for sale—”
“And a designer from Portland wants him to do the graphics for their next range." Carey takes over.
Liv scurries over to the desk and snatches up the sketch. “So what you’re telling me, is this baby is gonna be worth some serious money one day?”
I sigh. “For the love of fuck. If I give it to you for free will you shut the fuck up about it?”
Liv zips her lips, throws away the key, then nods like a crazy person.
“Just pay and get the hell out.”
Liv and I glare at each other from over the counter as she hands Carey her credit card. Eventually though, she’s the one who breaks, and blows me a kiss. “Put another fifty on top,” she tells Carey.
“He doesn’t take tips from friends.”
Her head dips to the side, her lips pout, and she blinks with big round eyes. “I’m your friend?”
“Charge her double.”
“It’s still worth it,” she beams.
Carey hands her back the card and she slides it into her phone case. “Now, tell me why Carey can’t come to the rave with me.”
“He’ll be in Seattle.”
“Seattle?”
I look at Carey. “Seattle.”
He stares straight back. “What for?”
“Getting your piercing certification.”
“Since when?”
“Since I booked it and forgot to tell you about it. That’s why it’s not in the system… Don’t look at me like that. I would have remembered when the rest of the payment came out of my account.”
“But… I won’t have time.”
“I’m giving you the time.”
“But I run the whole shop now. There… there’s no need.”
“Do you wanna do it?”
“Yeah, but—“
“You’ve said ‘but’ so many times.”
“Because I don’t know when you think I’ll be able to take bookings with everything else I do.”
I pick up a stray pen off the desk and twist it in my fingers. “Piercers can make really good money. I want you to have some sort of qualification in case you ever decide to leave me.”
“Shut your stupid mouth.”
My lips pinch into a tight smile.
“You might have to hire me part time to work the desk so he can take clients,” Liv suggests.
I hold my hand out towards her. “There you go. See, I knew she was more than just annoying.”
“I thought you said you didn’t want any more women working here.”
“She practically lives here as it is.” I leave the desk and walk to the back door.
Opening it, I lean out, glancing at the lot and the external wall.
“We could probably extend another ten feet. The shop could use it. It was a bit cramped with three artists as it was. We could make a piercing room on this side.” I point opposite to the back room.
“So now you’re talking about three artists again?”
“Yep.” I shrug.
“And who do you—“
“Reeze.”
Carey shakes his head. He already knows how I feel about Reeze coming back.
He knows why we hired him in the first place, and why he’s such a perfect fit—all the behind the back fucking aside.
And he also knows that the currently MIA elephant in the room is Eden, and the lengths I’m going to have to go to to convince him it’s a good idea. “You’re playing with fire.”
“I want what I want,” I say with a shrug. Taking my phone, I unlock it, select a number, and hold it to my ear.
“Who are you calling now?”
“Your brother.”
“So fucking dumb,” Carey snickers as he rounds the desk. As the phone rings in my ear, I watch him take a box of frames from beneath the side cupboards as Liv spreads out some of the remaining sketches on top.
“Talk.” Eden answers. It’s abrupt, and rude, and everything I expect.
“Are you ever gonna talk to me politely?”
“Since when do people talk politely to their family?”
I sigh, and let the air hang between us.
I can tell he has me on loudspeaker, and with Carey’s voice steady in the background, I slide the lunch room door closed.
Eyeing Eden’s plaid jacket hanging on the locker, I move towards it.
With my free hand supporting it, I press the inside—just below the tag—against my nose, and breath in deeply.
Carey’s scent fills me up, making me feel light and euphoric, and stuffs me full of a twisted, fucked up pride.
To be sniffing my best friend’s coat, longing for the smell of his brother, while secretly fucking him behind my best friend’s back, shouldn’t feel as good as it does.
The guilt I once felt about keeping our relationship from Eden hardly exists anymore.
We’re not doing anything wrong, so what’s there to feel guilty about?
“I haven’t heard from you in a while,” Eden finally says, breaking the extended silence.
“Yeah, um… Things have been really busy. At the shop, I mean. Cause I’m on my own.”
“Is Carey not there anymore? He never mentioned anything when I spoke to him the other day.”
“N-no,” I stutter, mid inhale, and step back from the coat. “He’s still here. And he’s a big help.”
“Thanks for giving him something to do instead of sitting around my apartment all day.”
Images of what the apartment looked like when I took Carey back there, and that fucking dead roach in the corner flash into my head. “Yeah, sure, no worries,” I snicker. “But I’m still the only artist—”
“I think we should get Reeze back,” Eden interrupts, and I cough.
“Are you serious?” Is everything gonna just fall into my lap now as a present for working myself ragged the past two and a bit months?
Eden hums, “Sure, why not?”
I tread lightly, pretending to be skeptical, because these words coming out of Eden's mouth make no goddamn sense. “Won’t it be awkward?”
“Nah. I’m over it… He fucked up, sure. I don’t need to ever see Shawn’s face again, but it’s not like I didn’t play a role in the breakdown of our relationship.”
“Wow, that’s ah… That might be the most mature thing I’ve ever heard you say.” I may lock him up away from civilization once a year if it’s going to make him this level headed.
“Reeze is an amazing artist. It’d be dumb of me to let him get away. As long as he’s not already moved on.”
“He’s still living in Shawn’s parent’s pool house.
That’s gotta be weird, but she’s living downtown now so I guess they don’t see each other.
” Silence extends again and I know it’s because he doesn’t want to hear about Shawn.
“Anyway… I think you should be the one to call him. It’s not gonna mean as much coming from me. ”
“Whatever.” He’s trying so hard to sound unbothered.
“You sure you’re cool with this?” I ask, more than happy to continue the farse that this was all his idea.
“Sure. A little loyalty would have been nice, but I don’t blame Reeze. He wasn’t the one already in a relationship. And I had been pulling away.”
“So it’s true then?”
I hear Eden sigh deeply on the other end of the phone. There’s a lot of shuffling and I swear he whispers something, but it’s too quiet for me to make out. “So you’ve spoken to Shawn then?”
“Yeah.” I press my lips together, deciding to hold back the fact that she showed me the picture of him and the mystery guy.
“Do you care?”
“What? No!” I’m fucking your brother. I’m not the one to judge whether or not you’re into guys. “It’s a little surprising. But you can be with whoever you want to be with.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Do I?”
“Shut up,” I chuckle. “So I guess I have the usual questions.”
“If you can’t be specific, then I won’t be either.”
Touché. “Shawn’s convinced you knew them before you and her split.”
“And?” My god, it’s like pulling teeth with this man.
“Did you?”
“Yeah.” One word answers. Great.
“But you didn’t cheat on her?”
“Is that relevant?” He can’t be fucking serious.
“After the giant tantrum you threw the day you ran away, fuck yeah, it’s relevant.”
After another pause, Eden answers, more softly.
“I knew him. But we hadn’t spoken.” I grit my teeth because why is he making it like a fucking Dan Brown novel?
I don’t want to hunt for clues, I just want him to tell me what the fuck is going on.
Because the more I know about his situation, the better equipped I’ll be when I tell him about mine.
“Like, ever?”
Eden sighs like I’m the problem. “Not for months.”
Give me strength. “So how did you—”
“Through a friend.”
“Okay.” Now we’re getting somewhere. “I thought maybe at a club.”