Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Liaden
“Rizzo?” I don’t get the reference.
“As in the Pink Lady, not as in The Rat,” he grins, gently tugging on a strand of my hair. “Though you’re probably more Frenchie, given the pink hair. ”
“Oh… Grease , right? I’ve never actually seen it, but I’ve sung some of the songs before.”
His eyes widen as he leans forward, hands in his pockets. “You’ve never seen Grease?”
“It was on my parents’ ‘no’ list when I was a child, because of the anti-feminist content, and then I never got around to watching it once I could choose my own entertainment.
” I shrug. When it became apparent that I had a higher than normal IQ, my parents became very mindful of what media I was exposed to, and Grease didn’t make the cut.
His nose wrinkles. “Yeah, the ending never sat that well with me. But I won’t spoil it for you. And the songs are so very singalongable . Which is now a word.”
I laugh. “I’ll send you a link to the Oxford English Dictionary submission form.”
“There’s a submission form for that?” He smirks and rubs his hands together. “Oh, this could take a while. Shakespeare made, what, a quarter of the English language? I can beat that.”
Emily ends the call. “Hey,” she says to me brightly. She turns to Leo. “All booked. The upstairs table is ours.”
“Epic. Thanks, Embo.” He hugs her with one arm from behind. “Ever been to Madruga’s?” he asks me.
“Madruga’s…” I pause. “Brazilian barbecue. Yes, it’s amazing.”
“We’re taking Dean’s mum and dad there when they visit soon. You should come, too - ow!” He quickly disguises the hoarse noise as a cough, but I saw Emily elbow him in the ribs, so I’m not sure why he bothered.
I smile. “Well, if Dean invites me, then sure. But that’s for him to decide.” Emily gives me a slow, approving grin.
“Fair enough.” He nods towards the corridor. “Speaking of, he’s all ready and waiting in there.” He raises an eyebrow at me. “Have fun, and be good.”
“Oh, I will,” I reply, matching my playful tone to his. Why be coy, after all? He knows. And there’s a strange smile on his face as he sings quietly. “ Tell me more, tell me more… ”
I push the door open with one finger, and Dean is indeed ready for me, wearing a big smile that sets my skin to tingling. He brushes his jeans and fidgets with his pockets, but seems happy to see me, almost…expectant.
“Hello,” I say curiously, “what’s going on?”
He reaches to the table behind him and produces a single cupcake on a plain white side plate, with a massive swirl of pink and white icing and a single freshly lit pink candle placed carefully in the middle.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIADEN is spelled out in front of it along the edge of the plate in those chalky alphabet candies I used to like when I was a child.
I’d see how long a word I could create from the selection in the bag. Even my sweets were educational tools.
I stare. “How did you - ”
He hands me his tablet, explanatory text already typed out in anticipation of my question.
I saw your birth date on your Facebook page and happened to remember it. Happy birthday for two days ago. Hope this is OK and you don’t hate cake or whatever.
Wow. I’d forgotten my birthday was listed on there. “No, I don’t hate cake or whatever,” I say softly, taking the plate from him as he gives me a shy smile.
I haven’t paid any attention to my birthday since the awful day I turned twelve, when no-one showed up to my birthday party and I was sat there all alone, wearing a stupid conical hat made of holographic purple card that my mother wanted me to wear, surrounded by streamers and empty seats.
The tables were groaning with party food and every kind of fizzy drink, and nobody was willing to share it with me.
My mother cried for me, and my father simply didn’t know what to say, but I knew the score.
Nobody liked the strange, chattering girl who knew the first two thousand digits of pi and had a periodic table joke on the birthday party invites she’d gamely posted through letterboxes of children she barely knew.
None of the local children were willing to pretend to like me, or just tolerate me, even in exchange for free cake.
And none of the people I shared classes with at the university were going to come to a child’s birthday party, for heaven’s sake.
So I didn’t cry, I didn’t fuss, because there was no logical point in doing so.
I merely blew the candles out on my birthday cake - monkey themed, as I was going through a Jane Goodall phase and my mother always did her best - and wished for my mother to stop weeping.
From that day on, I refused to acknowledge or celebrate my birthday ever again.
Occasionally I’ll give in to Mum’s begging if my birthday happens to fall on a Saturday or Sunday and we’ll spend the day at Kew Gardens or a museum or somesuch.
Otherwise, it’s just another day and there’s no need to mark it.
And now the hot, sweet tattoo artist I’ve been lusting after has surprised me with a birthday cupcake, with a candle to blow out, completely off his own back and for no apparent reason. And that’s so kind and adorable that I have to swallow hard past a lump in my throat. “Thank you,” I whisper.
He swipes across his tablet for me so I can read what else he has to say.
Make a wish.
He’s watching me, his eyes careful, but they’re like fireguards in front of a forest fire, doing nothing to hide the heat in his gaze. I know I’m not imagining it.
I wish you’d take me to your bed and keep me there for an entire week , I think.
I wish for you to fuck me so thoroughly and so primally that I am forever changed on a cellular level.
I wish I knew what your face looks like when you come, and what your tongue would feel like on my…
God, anywhere at all on my body. Anywhere. Everywhere.
I blow out the candle without breaking eye contact, and he grins. Don’t tell me what you [something] for , he tells me. When I ask him to clarify the word I didn’t know, he spells out W-I-S-H-E-D .
I nod. “No, definitely not, or it won’t come true.” And I unequivocally do want this one to happen, even though I know wishing might be the only way it will.
He plucks the candle out and places it on the opposite side of the plate from the candy letters. For a moment his hand touches the plate, touches my own, and my eyes widen a little as my skin comes alive with goosebumps at the contact. If this is my wish coming true, that was fast -
I jump a little and burst out laughing as he gently nudges the cupcake up towards my face, leaving a smeared dollop of pink icing on the end of my nose. He laughs, too, and I get an idea.
I’m not going to resist this impulse. Screw it; whatever happens, happens.
So I wipe the majority of the frosting off my nose with my index finger and hold it out to him. “You made the mess, you clean it up,” I tease, but my pulse has quickened as I wonder what he’ll do.
He stops laughing, and gives my finger a speculative look.
He gently holds my wrist, I think before he even realises he’s going to, and brings my hand closer to his mouth.
Lick my finger, I will him, my knees starting to tremble and my pink kitty starting to follow suit.
Delicious warmth spreads through me, and I bite my lip as I savour the feeling.
Lick it. Lick me. I’ve never wanted anyone to do something to me so badly before.
For a breathless second, I almost think he’s really going to, but then he seems to catch himself.
He looks at my face thoughtfully, before wiping my finger with his, and sucking the icing off his own finger, not mine.
Damnit. His grin becomes more friendly and matter-of-fact, nothing like the heated focus of before, and he nods towards the leather chair, wordlessly inviting me to get ready, just like the last two times.
But I don’t miss the way his hands shake just a little as he gets his inks sorted.
The tattoo is really starting to take shape now.
I can see the three sections he’s done so far in the photo on his phone, and it looks even better than I imagined it in my head when I first thought of it.
He’s told me he’s completing the base first, and then my final session will involve further sharpening and refining and shading, but I can already tell it’s going to look spectacular when it’s finished.
It’d still look wonderful even if he just does the base design and leaves it at that.
“Thank you,” I say as I hand him his phone, hoping my stretching doesn’t mess with the clingfilm he just taped to my back.
I’ve long since eaten my cupcake, though I did snap a photo of it while his back was turned.
And I’ve folded up the cake case and put it in my coat pocket rather than binning it, again when he wasn’t looking.
I’m not normally so sentimental, but this was special, and I want to hold onto something from it.
You’re welcome . The way he smiles at me, giving me his full attention, is making my spine tickle. His mouth is so beautiful, full but firm, the sort of lips you’d find on a statue of an angel.
“And thanks again for the cupcake.” I tried to split it with him, but he declined.
I think maybe the whole icing-on-the-finger thing pushed him a tad too far out of his comfort zone, but he’s still being friendly.
Some of the barrier he keeps between us has fallen down.
I’m not sure precisely why, but I’ll take it.
What are friends for? He asks, giving me a searching look.
Friends…