Bodie

The next afternoon, I walked down the sidewalk toward the tattoo parlor where Penny worked, the sun shining on my skin, the birds chirping in my ears, and the same smile plastered on my face that had been there for a week.

Operation: Penny Jar had been a success. So far at least.

I’d seen her every day since we ran into each other at the ice cream shop. She’d knocked me out then, and just when I’d thought it couldn’t get better with her, she’d proven me wrong.

I was right after all; Penny didn’t want complicated. So I didn’t complicate things. It wasn’t hard — being with her was so easy and so fun that there wasn’t a need to talk about more. Every second with her was perfect to the point of disbelief. A crush realized. A fantasy in physical form.

I’d shown her that I meant what I’d said, even if my heart betrayed it all. Because the pretense hung in the air between us — the pretense she’d asked for and I’d agreed to.

For her, this was temporary.

For me, it wasn’t.

Not that I was looking for a commitment. I wasn’t. But I knew I didn’t want it to end until we’d run our course. Thing was, I didn’t know how long the tracks were, and I had a feeling mine were longer than hers.

My plan was still in place: be so fucking awesome that I became essential, necessary to her. Of course, in doing that, I’d also found that she was indispensable to me.

Catch-22.

In any event, I was taking advantage of every second with her. Including today.

She’d surprised me when she’d offered to do my tattoo — it felt like a relationshippy thing to do. Personal. Intimate. She was going to mark me with ink that would stain my skin for my whole life. Of course, she’d marked hundreds of people, maybe even thousands over her career.

It was as small and impersonal as it was huge and meaningful. But I locked my focus on the end of the spectrum labeled Not a Big Deal just as I approached the parlor.

The word Tonic was printed in a font that looked like an old Victorian apothecary label with gold leaf and line work above and below, framing the word. When I pulled open the door, the sounds of Nirvana hit my ears as the sights the shop had to offer washed over me.

Everything looked vintage with a Victorian flair. Old velvet couches lined the full waiting area, and the walls were covered in macabre paintings in elaborate frames. Booths lined the long wall, all with counter-high walls to mark each space. Each booth contained a retro black tattoo chair, an antique desk, and cabinets for inks and supplies, I assumed. The electric buzz of tattoo guns hummed in an undercurrent to Kurt Cobain as he sang about heart-shaped boxes, and I scanned the room, looking for the flash of purple that would tell me where Penny was.

She bounded out from a hallway leading to the back, smiling and practically skipping to me as everyone in the shop watched her — her coworkers curious, the people in the waiting room practically salivating.

I had no idea the protocol for such a public greeting, so I stood there smiling, waiting for her to make a move that would tell me where the boundary was.

The thought was moot. She practically jumped into my arms, hooking hers around my neck as she kissed me hello with enough gusto that I felt it all the way down to my shoes.

She broke away, smiling at me with twinkling eyes. “Hey,” she said, the sweet scent of bubble gum on her breath.

“Hey,” I echoed, setting her feet on the ground.

She grabbed my hand and pulled. “Come on, let me introduce you to everybody.”

I already knew who everyone was from watching the show, which was really weird. So I played dumb, following her into the shop a bit, walking up the line of booths to start at the front where a gigantic dude with an intense beard and the thickest head of hair I’d ever seen was tattooing a girl’s back. She was stretched out on her stomach, back bare, and he moved his machine, stopping the buzzing by removing his foot from the pedal.

“This,” Penny said, extending a hand toward him, “is Joel, the owner of the shop.”

Joel smiled, but his eyes sized me up. “Good to meet you.”

“You too.” I tried to smile in a way that was amiable but also as masculine as possible, feeling the alpha roll off of him. He was most definitely the boss.

“And this,” she said, guiding me to the next booth back, “is Tricky. Patrick if he’s in trouble.”

Patrick stood and extended a tattooed hand for a shake. The guy looked like a male model with a sharp jaw and deep, dark eyes, every inch of his skin tattooed, except for his face.

“Hey, man,” he said with a sideways smile. “Heard a lot about you.”

I took his hand and pumped it. “Thanks,” I said lamely, wishing I had something to offer other than, Cool tattoos, bro.

Next down was a dark-haired, leggy brunette with lined eyes and red lips.

“So, you didn’t officially meet the other night, but this is one of my roommates, Veronica.”

Veronica smiled and waved. “Glad to finally meet you, Bodie.”

“And this,” she said as she dragged me across the room to the counter where a blonde stood, smiling, “is Ramona, my best friend and our piercer.”

“Need your dick pierced?” she asked brazenly.

I couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m good today, but thanks.”

She shrugged. “Let me know if you change your mind. I’ve heard good things.” She looked down and jerked a chin toward my waistline.

The girls cracked up laughing, and I shook my head, not even embarrassed. I took the fact that they had talked about my dick as a good sign.

A couple of guys were laughing in the booth behind Veronica’s, which was our next stop.

“These knuckleheads are Eli and Max.”

“Hey,” they said at the same time. One punched the other in the arm.

I waved a hand, and she pulled me back to her booth.

It was very Penny. The artwork on her walls was everything from comic-style to detailed portraits. The largest heavy-framed painting was of a woman with a starburst crown, holding a flaming heart in one hand and a rosary in the other. And in the center of the smaller pieces on her wall was a gilded mirror, speckled and veined with age.

She smirked at me and patted the seat of her tattoo chair. “Come on. I don’t bite.”

“That’s a lie, and I have the marks to prove it.”

She giggled, her cheeks high and flushed and pretty.

I took a seat, and she moved to her desk to get the transfer she’d printed.

“Shirt off, please.”

I waited until she turned around to face me before reaching back between my shoulder blades and grabbing a handful of T-shirt, pulling it over my head.

Her lip was between her teeth. She was wearing the same high-waisted shorts she’d had on that first night with the buttons on the front with a T-shirt that said, Feed Me Tacos and Tell Me I’m Pretty, in red iron-on letters that matched her lipstick. But the best part was that she had on tall black wedges, her legs long and knees together, toes pointed in. She looked like a goddamn calendar girl, and the way she was eye-fucking me had me wishing the booth had four walls and a door.

She blinked and walked over, hips swaying, lips smiling. “Is this too big?” she asked, holding up the transfer.

I opened my legs a little wider. “No such thing.”

Penny laughed at that and held it over my arm, inspecting it. “I do like it when it’s extra big.”

She stood at the arm of the chair, and I slid my hand up the outside of her thigh.

“Oh, I know all about that.”

She was unfazed other than shifting to lean into me as best she could with an armrest in the way. “I think it’ll work. Let me put it on, and we can look at it.”

She went to work, arranging the transfer before wetting it down with a paper towel. When she smiled down at me, a little jolt shot through me.

“You ready for this?”

“Always,” I answered.

She peeled the transfer off and blotted my skin dry, inspecting it all the while. It was like she had flipped a switch and was all business and then flipped it again, all pleasure.

“Okay. Take a look.”

I stood and checked out the placement. It started just above my elbow and moved up and around my bicep and the cap of my shoulder — it was bigger than I’d imagined but exactly what it should be.

“I like it,” I said.

“Good. Me too.” She nodded to her chair. “Go ahead and have a seat.”

Her station seemed to already be set up, and she took a seat on a saddle stool with wheels, straddling it before rolling over to me, pulling on black rubber gloves.

Several reactions hit me. The sight of her rolling over to me with her legs open, snapping those rubber gloves, hit me below the belt. The realization that she was about to take a needle to me sent adrenaline shooting through my veins in a cold burst. And the look in her eyes got me right in the rib cage.

“All right,” she said as she poured black ink into a little cup. “So here’s the deal. This is way too big to do all at once if you want color. But I kinda think it’ll look better all black, just the outline. We’ve got to do that first anyway, so if you want to have it filled in later, you totally can.”

“How long until I can have more done?”

“A couple of months is usually wise.” She loaded her gun, wrapping a rubber band around the base of it. When she hit the pedal to test it, she smiled. “But anybody can do it. The line work is the hard part. You don’t have to come back to me to get it filled in.”

My heart deflated just a bit, just enough. Penny was putting space between us, telling me we wouldn’t be together in a few months, giving me permission to have it finished somewhere else.

She rolled her tray where she wanted it, scooting close to me with her eyes on my arm.

“Here we go.” She pressed that buzzing needle into my skin.

The thing about tattoos is that when it starts, you think it’s not so bad. Four hours in, and you feel like you’ve been carved like a turkey. So I enjoyed the burn before it consumed me.

Hearts worked the same way, I figured.

“You okay?” she asked after a moment, her eyes darting to mine for a solid second before looking back to my arm.

“I’m good.”

I watched her work, admiring the sureness of her hand, competence radiating from her. She was confident, so certain, completely capable. Penny could take over the world if she wanted to. She could take me over.

She kind of already had.

I looked over the shop and realized I’d met all the important people in her life — her family. I was in her chair as a customer, but it was more than that. There was an intimacy to the act and intimacy to her bringing me to the place that meant so much to her. Not that she’d made a big deal about it, but I knew by how she talked about everyone I’d met that they were her people. And that filled me with hope and pleasure at the connection to her.

Of course, that connection scared me too. Because I knew deep down that I didn’t have as much control as I’d thought I did over the situation. Every single day, she’d marked me in more ways than one, and I couldn’t turn back any more from my heart than I could from the needle in her hand.

“So, Bodie,” Ramona started from the wall of Penny’s booth.

When I glanced over, she was leaning on the wall from the other side, next to Veronica. They were both smiling unabashedly, their eyes never quite reaching mine — they were too busy scanning my chest.

“What is it you do again?” Ramona asked.

“I’m a software engineer. My buddies and I are working on a video game.”

They nodded their appreciation.

“What kind of game?” Veronica leaned in, shoulder to shoulder with Ramona.

“It’s an open world role-playing game. Steampunk, story-driven.”

Their faces were blank.

“Ah, like … think Victorian era, airships, like blimps. Treasure hunting, like Indiana Jones meets Han Solo but British.”

They lit up at that, including Penny, and I found myself feeling pleased.

“What’s it called?” Ramona asked.

“Nighthawk. It’s the name of the ship.”

Penny bounced a little in her seat. “Oh my God, that makes me want to draw stuff. This is seriously genius, Bodie. Who’s doing your artwork?”

“Jude. He’s a graphic artist and handles all of our 3D renderings. Phil and I are the code jockeys. Jude is the art.”

Penny waggled her brows at Veronica, who rolled her eyes.

“So how does that work?” Ramona asked. “Like, what do you do with it when it’s done?”

I took a breath and let it out as Penny carved a line in my skin and wiped it with a paper towel. “The first real step is to get a gameplay demo ready so we can pitch it to a big developer. The idea is that they pay us for the concept and bring us on as part of the development team. But we’ve been working on the demo for seven years,” I said with a laugh.

“Man, that’s intense,” Penny said as she dipped her needle in the ink and got back to work.

“It’s moving a lot faster now that we’ve been working on it full-time, but yeah. It’s been a long time coming. I mean, we came up with the idea in junior high and have been working toward this ever since. Phil’s focused on our outreach, networking through college and career buddies to see if we can get a meeting. There’s this one development company that’s at the top of the list. If we can get in with them, it’s a guarantee that the game would be everything we could possibly dream of. They’ve got the chops and the cash to throw at it.”

“What’s the company called?” Veronica asked.

“Avalanche,” I said, unable to keep the excitement out of my voice. “The games they produce are off the charts. But that’s the pie-in-the-sky kind of dream. We’ll probably get it picked up by a smaller company — I just hope they’ll let us do the work to make it what we want.”

Another gigantic hairy dude walked out of the hallway and into the shop, eyeing me in the chair, then he smirked at Ramona. He slapped her on the ass, and she yelped, laughing when she saw him.

“Hey, Shep,” Penny chirped. “This is Bodie. Bodie, this is Shep, Ramona’s fiancé and Joel’s brother.”

I jerked a chin at him in greeting. “How’s it going?”

“Not too bad,” Shep said, every word loaded, “other than the fact that my future wife is salivating over Penny’s guy.”

Everyone laughed but me. I was a hundred and ten percent sure that he could wreck my face without breaking a sweat.

“Come on, girls,” Shep said. “Leave Penny alone so she can do her job without an audience.”

They grumbled about it, but he effectively shooed them off, leaving Penny and me as alone as we could be in a tattoo parlor full of people.

Penny was engrossed in her work, and I watched her, smirking.

God, she was so beautiful, so talented, so strong and wild and free. A force of nature. I couldn’t imagine ever changing her, couldn’t imagine ever taking what made her her away. To lose those qualities would be tragic, a loss to everyone who knew and loved her. The thought that Rodney had tried to pin her down all those years ago, that he hadn’t been happy until he’d stripped it all away, made me hate him all the more.

“Something about you with that gun in your hand is almost too much for me, Penny.”

Her eyes caught mine and moved back to her work, though she was smiling. “You shirtless in my chair is almost too much for me, Bodie.”

I chuckled. “Tell me you’re free tonight.”

Her smile fell at that. “I wish I were. I promised Ronnie and Ramona that we’d go out. You know, since last time we tried to go out, I bailed on them.”

“Worth it.”

She laughed. “So worth it.” She shot up in her seat, eyes wide and smile big. “Oh my God, I have an idea. We should all go out together. Like, you should come with us and bring your brother. Make a group thing out of it. I want to hook Veronica up with Jude — she needs to get laid so bad. And then Ramona can bring Shep, and maybe Joel and Annika can come too.”

“I doubt Veronica has trouble with that on her own.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“Well, I’m sure Jude would be down to help out,” I joked.

She lit up like a floodlight, her red lips smiling wide. “It’s perfect. This way I can see you, and Veronica can get the grump nailed out of her. Everybody wins.”

I shook my head, smiling at her. “Schemer.”

She shrugged and got back to work. “I get what I want.”

“I’m sure you do.”

As she worked, I considered the fact that she’d just asked me on a date. A group date, sure, but we would be going out with her friends, the important people in her life. In public. Not just getting together to hook up. No, we’d be hanging out all night, and then we’d hook up.

If that wasn’t a date, I didn’t know what was.

As she traced the lines of the ocean on my skin, I wondered if she realized it. I wondered if she knew. Or maybe things were just the same for her as they ever were. Maybe this was all just for fun, all for the thrill.

But I told myself not to overthink it. Because if I did, I might lose the glimmer of shine I’d found on Penny.

---

Penny

My eyes scanned the thick crowd at Circus, looking for Bodie. We stood clustered next to a gigantic painting of Siamese twins in an ornate gilded frame. Ramona and Shep laughed with Joel and Annika, leaving Veronica and me on the edge of the circle, a little isolated. I considered canoodling with her, but she seemed as edgy as I was. Setups weren’t her thing. Waiting wasn’t mine.

Not that Veronica wasn’t great company, but after having my hands on a half-naked Bodie all day and not doing anything about it, I was anxious to see him. And by anxious, I meant I felt like my insides were trying to get outside.

I should have gone home with him like he’d asked me to after his tattoo. But I wanted to see him tonight even more than just the afternoon, and I was afraid to overdo it with both. In hindsight, I should have just committed. God knew I couldn’t get my fill of him, so it wasn’t like I had to save myself.

I laughed to myself at the thought. The most he’d gotten out of me in a day was six orgasms. Six. The last one had taken him a full hour, but Christ almighty, was it a ringer.

My phone buzzed in my hand, since I was holding it like a needy girl in preparation of him getting there, and when I saw it was him, I fired off a response, navigating him to us.

I caught sight of him and hopped over, my heart doing all the warm and squeezy things in my chest. I slipped my hand into his much larger one and popped up onto my toes to kiss him for a brief, fluttering second.

“Come on!” I yelled over the music. “This way.”

I led him, Jude, Phil, and Angie over to the group, standing between the tightrope walker in pasties with a sparkly thong and a platform for two hoop dancers who might have been naked — they were covered in body paint and glitter and sparkles.

Veronica perked up as we approached, and I smirked.

I doled out introductions where necessary, saving Veronica for last.

“Jude,” I said, grabbing him by the arm and pushing him toward her with my free hand, “this is my friend Veronica.”

She smiled. He smiled.

“I dunno. I’d say you were more of a Betty.” One of his brows rose salaciously.

Her smile flattened faster than you could say douchebag. So did mine — that look meant he didn’t have a chance in hell.

“Hey, Jude. Don’t make it bad,” Veronica snarked, throwing the Never heard that before back at him.

A girl in a top hat and red tails mercifully interrupted the awkwardness to take drink orders before disappearing into the ocean of people, and I leaned into Bodie, smelling him like a weirdo. I couldn’t help it. The smell of his soap and whatever other products he used made me think of my face buried in his neck or his pillows or his chest. Other places too, places where I’d like to be buried in at that moment.

He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me closer, pressing a kiss to the top of my head.

“How’s your arm?” I asked, sliding my hand around his middle.

“Still works,” he answered with a flex.

I giggled like a dum-dum and leaned away, though I kept my arm around his waist, my fingers fiddling with the top of his pants.

“Thanks again for today,” he said. “I wish you’d let me pay you.”

“I’ll tell you what — you can pay me back later.”

He angled toward me, pressing his lips against my ear. “Oh, I plan to,” he whispered straight to my vagina.

A shiver rolled down my back. “Can’t we just leave now?”

“We could, but I’d rather tease you for the next couple of hours first.”

I laughed as his hand slipped down to my ass and gave it a squeeze. “Ugh, I hate waiting.”

“I know. That’s why I love to make you wait.”

Within a few minutes, everyone had moved around and mixed up, talking with each other, and I smiled to myself as I floated from group to group, happy that the odd collection of friends jelled. Joel and Phil were deep in a conversation about sci-fi that I understood zero of. Angie, who was the sweetest little bookish thing with big brown eyes and a giggle that instinctively made everyone in her radius giggle with her, had been talking with Ramona and Veronica about baking. Shep and Jude laughed together, swapping stories with Bodie, who smiled at me when I walked up.

Everything felt so good. All of us hanging out and talking and laughing. Bodie hanging his arm on my shoulder and kissing my temple and touching my hand, reminding me over and over again how much I enjoyed being around him. He made me feel good, and I wanted to make him feel good too.

The group shuffled around a few times, and a little while later, I found myself watching them all from the outside with Ramona, who bumped my arm.

“Have I told you that you’ve ruined my life?”

I frowned. “What? Why?”

“I went to the grocery store yesterday, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the little old checkout lady’s nipples when I noticed how pale her lips were.”

I burst out laughing. Ramona looked pleased.

“Bodie’s great, Pen.”

I smiled. “He is, isn’t he?”

She nodded, smirking. “I never thought I’d live to see you on a real date.”

I frowned. “This isn’t a date. This is a preamble to naked cartwheels and an attempt to get Ronnie laid.”

That earned a laugh. “First, this is totally a date. And you guys have been all over each other in the cutest way.”

My frowned deepened. “Yeah, because we’re hot for each other.”

“Oh my God, Penny. It’s a date. Open your eyes.”

I blinked, watching Bodie from across the room. “I mean, I guess technically it is, but that’s not what we’re doing. I’m not his girlfriend.” I said it like it was a filthy word.

Ramona laughed, shaking her head at me. “You know that being a girlfriend doesn’t mean you’re chained up in somebody’s basement, right?”

“If you say so.” I took a sip of my tequila.

She let it go, thankfully. I was starting to feel itchy.

Ramona nodded to the group. “So Jude and Veronica went over about as well as lead frisbee.”

I sighed. “Man, I’m so disappointed. They had to go and open their mouths and ruin my plans.”

She chuckled. “They didn’t even make it two sentences into a conversation. But look at them eyeballing each other.”

“I think they’re trying to explode each other.”

They really were — the two of them were staring across the room with narrowed eyes, and I wondered what else had been said. It must have been seriously infuriating, and I wished I’d heard every word.

“Well,” Ramona started, “even if the Ronnie trap failed, the Bodie trap is still fully in place and ready to blow.”

I snickered. “Yeah, it is.”

She smiled at me. “I’m happy for you, Penny. I really like him.”

I sighed wistfully. “He’s perfect for me right now. I had no idea that guys like him existed in the dating wild.”

She opened her mouth like she had something to say but stopped herself, smiling instead. “Speak of the devil.”

When I followed her eyeline, I found Bodie walking over, his eyes on mine in a way that made my knees go weak, though there was nothing lewd or suggestive about it. It was just pervasive, slipping into me, through me, spreading all over me in a way that set me on fire.

“Hey,” he said with a smile.

“Hi.” I smiled back like the fool that I was.

Ramona touched my arm. “I’m gonna go make sure Shep’s not telling any stories he shouldn’t. You know how chatty he gets.”

I laughed. “Oh, man. Hopefully not the dick sock story again.”

“Oh, he’s well past that. We’re into koala bear territory.”

I waved her away. “Go. Run.”

And with that, she headed back to the group, leaving me and Bodie alone.

“Having fun?” I asked.

“I am. I like your friends.”

“I like yours too.”

“Too bad about Veronica and Jude though.”

I pouted. “I know. We were just talking about that. Honestly, I’ve met your brother, and I can’t believe I thought it was a good idea. Pretty much the only thing they have in common is that they’re single.”

“Not true. They’re both artists, and they have smart-ass mouths.”

I laughed and stepped into him, resting my hand on his chest. “So, I was thinking about you surfing the other day.”

“Oh, were you?” He pulled me closer.

“Mmhmm. And I was thinking about what a badass you are.”

He laughed. “Said the badass.”

“When you guys go, can I come with?”

One of his brows rose. “Any chance I might get you on a board? Because that would fulfill so many fantasies.”

I drew a little circle on his chest with the pad of my finger. “Only if you promise to surf shirtless. I think it might be worth getting eaten by a shark to see that once before I die.”

When he chuckled and kissed me, I thought I might melt right there in his arms.

“Have we waited long enough?” I asked when he broke the kiss like a tyrant.

“That was the question I came over here to ask. Are you ready to go?”

My heart thumped, and my lips smiled. “Only since you got here.”

We said our goodbyes and headed out, hand in hand, then with our arms around each other as we walked to his apartment.

I thought about what Ramona had said, thought about Bodie and how easy it was to be with him. Even having been with him all night, he was never needy, always independent. In fact, I had been the needy one, seeking him out to touch him, kiss him.

I had no idea what had gotten into me, but when I actually thought about it, it freaked me out.

Were we dating? Was I his girlfriend? I couldn’t even say the word in my head without my insides shriveling up.

But when I thought about how I felt about Bodie, those shriveled up insides bloomed and filled up again. He’d told me it could be easy, and now … well, now I was on a date with him, one I’d set up without even realizing I was doing it.

If that wasn’t going with the flow, I couldn’t imagine what was.

He hadn’t put any demands on me, hadn’t pushed the boundaries of what I was comfortable with. He hadn’t done anything but let me breathe, let me be, and somehow that was exactly what I needed. And he knew it.

We’d been on a date, and I hadn’t felt trapped or uncomfortable or cagey at all. I felt good. I felt happy.

So I took that as a sign that I was on the right track. And if we could keep on being easy, then I could stay put — for a little while at least. Ride the wave. Enjoy the scenery. Get high off of Bodie.

I did my best not to think about what would happen when I came down.