Hiring Faron felt like possibly my greatest achievement to date. Or maybe that was just what the relief of getting an actual night’s sleep felt like. Or having time to both paint and hang out with the guy you liked, because you weren’t tattooing twelve hours every day.

I’d asked Marcus later what Faron’s story was, since he’d said so little, and Marcus had narrowed his eyes a bit, like he wasn’t sure how much I knew, and simply said, “He’s wonderful, you’ll see. Anything else isn’t really my story to tell.” Which was cryptic as fuck for Marcus, who was usually pretty straightforward, but I knew he’d never bring anyone into the shop who wasn’t on the up and up, so I just filed “find out what the hell Faron’s story is” alongside all the other dozens of items on my to-do list for after Malik’s show. I’d get to know him soon enough, anyway.

What I could tell right away was that Faron was wonderful with customers, just as I’d expected. He put them at ease, and he was clearly listening to them intently, even though he didn’t speak much. Watching him work was as mesmerizing as watching him do anything else, because of the way he moved. I’d simply never encountered anything like it before. It was as if every single gesture, down to the shift of a finger or the angle of a knee, was designed for maximal grace and minimal waste.

And it wasn’t just me. I caught customers staring at him, and Morgan and Lindsey seemed as fascinated as I was. “Are you a dancer?” Morgan had asked him when I introduced them. Faron had shaken his head and Morgan’s eyes had narrowed in an expression I recognized. It meant she was determined to get to the bottom of something.

In the few days since, Morgan had tried to find a crack in his grace, but it hadn’t happened. Not even when she’d thrown a roll of paper towels at him and then, while he was catching it, thrown a pen. He’d grabbed both out of the air with large, unerring hands, and placed them on his station, as if throwing things was totally reasonable behavior. Then he’d gone back to setting up his inks as Morgan’s eyes bugged out.

In addition to being a bit of an odd duck, Faron was also, without a doubt, one of the most talented artists I’d ever seen work. His method was unique too. Where almost every tattooist I’d ever seen began with the outline, Faron worked in layers, putting in ink lightly and then working to the dark spots, interspersing the liner with the shader. It gave his work uncommon depth and a flow, and I made a mental note to have him walk me through his whole process.

But it would have to wait until after Malik’s show. Just over three weeks. Very busy weeks, since the holidays were always swamped at the shop. Everything would have to wait until then.

Christopher had begun to hang out in my apartment more often. Sometimes he came to the shop after he closed Melt, kibitzed while we tattooed, and then stayed over. Sometimes he came through the shop and went up to my apartment while I was still working, so that I’d find him asleep in my bed or reading on the couch when I came upstairs. Seeing him there always felt both shocking and right.

I would wake him with a kiss, or by running my fingers through his hair. One night, when I’d felt particularly brave and needy, I’d crawled into his lap like a cat and kissed the soft spot under his chin that was becoming one of my favorite places.

It was a little disconcerting, really, how easily I had gotten used to having him in my life.

I’d started to crave the feeling of his warm hands on my shoulders; his soft lips on my skin as he learned every curve of my body and every inch of my ink; the way he looked at me so seriously when I spoke, like he bent every ounce of his attention to listening; his easy humor that took me by surprise because it often came out of nowhere.

Like the other day, when I’d popped into the shop for a midafternoon coffee and noticed a new addition to the chalkboard list of sandwiches. The Ginger: chopped liver with pastrami, Swiss cheese, grilled onions, pickles, potato chips, and spicy mustard on rye.

I pointed at the board and said, “What!?” only to find Christopher grinning at me.

“Thank god you finally noticed,” he said. “It’s been there for a week.”

“Is it…good?” I asked. Because though it contained my favorite things, I couldn’t imagine the combination.

“No idea,” he said, waving me off. “No one will ever order it. It sounds disgusting.”

“It sounds delicious,” I corrected. I couldn’t wait to tell Daniel that I now had my name on a menu board too.

“Well, yeah. It’s The Ginger. I’ll make it for you tonight.”

And that night when he’d come to the shop, he’d brought The Ginger, a towering three-slices-of-bread affair, explaining that, from a construction standpoint, he’d had to anchor the chips with the chopped liver, but that had necessitated a triple decker because the layers slid together too much without added traction. After one attempted bite that turned the whole affair into a victual demonstration of plate tectonics, I dumped the sandwich onto my plate and cut it up into chunks I could spear with my fork. He’d shaken his head in bewildered horror, thrown his hands up, and made a beeline for my apartment, claiming he couldn’t watch.

Later, I’d told him that if he just crushed the chips it’d work much better. And then I’d made up for violating his sandwich with knife and fork by giving him a blowjob that had him clutching at my shoulders and crying out his release loud enough to make me glad I didn’t have neighbors.

Tonight he was having dinner with his parents, so I wouldn’t see him. I was excited to make some more progress with the painting I was working on, and was very forcefully telling myself that I was not going to miss him. Because it was only one night. And that would just be pathetic. Right?

I was doing inventory in the back of the shop in preparation for Lindsey to place tomorrow’s shop orders when the front door opened.

I looked up and then did a double take because it was Daniel. Only he wasn’t supposed to be back for weeks. And standing behind him was… Jesus, I really hoped for Daniel’s sake that it was Rex, because the guy was gorgeous. Tall and thick with muscle, with dark, glossy hair and a perfectly proportioned face, all clean lines and flat planes.

I dumped my clipboard on the table and ran to the front of the shop. “You came back early!”

I jumped on Daniel in excitement, overjoyed at his familiar smell and feel. My throat was suspiciously tight and I squeezed my eyes shut and swallowed hard before I started to cry.

“My fucking father died.” He said it like he couldn’t quite believe it.

“Oh shit, babycakes,” I said, mindlessly defaulting to the ridiculous nickname I’d started using with him years ago and kind of never stopped.

Daniel’s relationship with his father vacillated between open antagonism and a kind of chilly disinterest that I knew bothered him more. There was nothing easy about someone dying, but when it was someone you felt ambivalent toward…well, there just wasn’t anything to say.

“Is this Rex?” I asked instead.

“Ginger?” Rex sounded tentative. “Nice to meet you.”

He held out his hand and I ignored it, pulling him down into a hug too. “Come upstairs. You’re staying with me, right?”

“If it’s okay,” Daniel said, but he was already trailing after me. He looked absolutely exhausted.

“Obviously.”

“He opened my puzzle box,” I told Christopher in awe, early the next morning.

“I…am hoping that’s not a euphemism…?”

“Dude. I have had that puzzle box for six years. Everyone and their mother has tried to open it. Rex is clearly a genius.”

“How’s Daniel doing?”

“Not great. The funeral’s in a few hours. I’m going to go with them. Daniel’s family’s the fucking worst, so I shudder to think what they’ll manage to put him through at an occasion that’s already awful. Sorry about canceling on you.”

Christopher and I had planned to go make brunch at his apartment again. He was convinced that he could teach me to make French toast. I was convinced that I could entice him to do all the cooking and then thank him by showing him what I could do with maple syrup that wasn’t drizzling it over delicious bread.

“Don’t worry about it. Of course you should go. Damn, I’m so sorry that happened to him.”

I was so used to the tortured relationships nearly all my friends had with their parents that it was easy to forget how well Christopher got along with his, how devastated he would be if anything happened to one of them.

“I could bring sandwiches by later,” he said, “if you think it’d be the right thing?”

“Can I let you know after the funeral? Daniel’s…sometimes he’s not great with people he doesn’t know, especially if he’s upset. He’s bound to be fucked up by the funeral anyway, but with his brothers there…” I shook my head. I’d told Christopher a little about the situation over the past few weeks. “Anyway, I’ll call you after, okay?”

“Sure. Are you okay?”

“Me? Yeah sure, why?”

“Okay, just checking.”

But I wasn’t sure why he asked.

Christopher brought a bottle of bourbon and sandwiches over after the funeral. Daniel was a wreck, and I was furious on his behalf. The funeral had been awful and sad, the family drama epic, and Daniel, as usual, had borne the brunt of it. He was drinking a lot; more than I’d seen in a while. Sometimes he just needed to escape reality. And since he’d grown up with an alcoholic father and brothers who weren’t far from it, and then worked at a bar all through grad school, liquor had been an obvious escape.

But as worried about Daniel as I was, there was also a part of me that was…jealous. Daniel fell apart and Rex gathered up all his scattered pieces as if they were his responsibility. And something inside me ached with an emptiness I didn’t know how to name.

I had Christopher. Christopher was wonderful. He was kind and hot, funny and caring. He asked about my work and actually cared about the answer. He cooked for me, he talked to me, and he screwed like a dream.

And me?

Well, there was clearly something fucking wrong with me. Because despite Christopher being wonderful, I still hadn’t let my guard down. I still couldn’t quite believe that Christopher wanted me.

The real me. The one who was moody and irritable and too busy, and was sometimes willing to go to absurd lengths to avoid doing things I didn’t want to do.

It felt like if he found out how very fucking much I wanted someone who would want me despite these things, then he could break me into pieces. If he found out how scared I was that no one ever would, because no one ever really had. That he wouldn’t. Or, fuck, if he would… Ugh, my head was a roiling mess and seeing Daniel and Rex together had whipped it into further turmoil.

The next morning, Daniel and Rex decided to leave for Michigan before Mr. Mulligan’s wake. Daniel didn’t want to deal with his brothers, and I didn’t blame him.

“I’m gonna take a quick walk, get a few snacks for the ride,” Rex said, kissing Daniel’s hair and looking at him intently.

“He’s very subtly giving us time to talk alone,” Daniel said with a faint smile. Rex shot him another intense look as he closed the door.

“About anything in particular?” I asked. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I love him, if that’s what he’s giving us time to establish.”

Daniel shook his head and led me to the sofa. “What’s up with you?” he said. He was exhausted, sad, fucked up, and still managed to look concerned for me. Did I mention there was something wrong with me?

“Uh, up in which category of things?”

Now Daniel shot me an intense look of his own, green eyes sharp through his fatigue. “The category of Christopher is totally in love with you and you’re obviously gonzo for him but you keep looking at him like he’s the warm, cozy Christmas scene and you’re the poor little match girl outside in the snow.”

“Wait, doesn’t she die?”

“Er, yes. Excuse the reference. Point is, you look at him like he’s something you can never have. Only clearly you already do. So what the fuck?”

I slumped, trying to find the words for what I was feeling. “Remember when you told me that your brain kept doing this thing when you first started dating Rex? Where no matter what he did, it told you that things weren’t going to work out?”

He nodded.

“Well, my brain is doing that with Christopher. So then I keep backing away from him, or throwing my guard up, because I’m afraid he’s gonna realize how much I like him.”

“We’re in the world where that’s bad, I take it?”

“Yes, because apparently I am thirteen again.”

“Right, sure.”

“It’s like I keep…I dunno, flinching in the moments when I should be leaning in. But why? What the fuck is wrong with me?”

“Uh, because being vulnerable is terrifying, duh. And if you’re in the place where you’re worrying about what his response will be then you probably aren’t in a place where you feel totally safe being yourself around him.”

“Yeah. I don’t even have an excuse for it though, because Christopher’s so caring. I mean, he even likes taking care of strangers. He knows everyone’s coffee and sandwich order.”

Daniel hmmed.

“I dunno,” I said. “It’s like…he takes care of everyone by default, so the fact that he cares about me doesn’t feel like it matters as much. Like, how can I separate out what someone like that does just because it’s what they do, and what they do because it means something?”

“Well. Maybe. Does it really matter?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because!”

“Yeah, sure, good point.” He flicked me in the shoulder and I rolled my eyes.

“Because…because if it’s stuff he’d do for anybody, then I can’t use it as a gauge of how he feels about me.”

“Nah. So he’s a caring person. That doesn’t mean he, like, cares deeply and intimately for everyone he makes coffee for. Caring might be a baseline personality trait for him, but there are levels, surely.”

“Yeah. Fuck, man, I seriously don’t know what my problem is. I don’t know why I still don’t feel safe with him. I want to. Honestly…” I looked down at the purple velvet sofa and squeezed my eyes shut. “I want to so fucking much. Like, in my head, when I think about what I want, it’s always been someone I can throw my whole self at and they can take it. Only, not catch me because I’m falling, but catch me because I’m fucking launching myself at them. Like I’m the bullet from a gun and they’re…well, in that analogy, they’re dead, I guess.”

Daniel nodded slowly, then said, “You don’t feel safe, period.”

“What?”

“Well, it… I was thinking of it like you don’t feel safe with Christopher as if he didn’t create an environment in which you could feel safe. But it sounds more like you just think you’re unsafe. That you think you’re a weapon. Something that, if you really focus your aim, is gonna hurt whoever you’re aiming at.”

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Fuck.”

Fuck. He was right. I did. I felt dangerous. Like maybe Christopher didn’t know what he was getting into with me and I had to protect him from…well, me. And I was protecting him from me by not exposing him to all of me.

I swallowed hard.

“So, what do I do?”

Daniel looked so young. As young as he’d been when I first met him all those years ago, when he was just a scrawny teenager with more attitude than sense. His eyes were wide and his mouth soft. I think maybe I was looking at him just the same way. We reached out and clasped hands—a gesture of fear, born of a need for comfort.

“I don’t know,” we said at the same time.