Cai
I can’t take a wounded bird home. I can’t fucking do it. “Do you feel like you won’t be safe?”
I don’t know how I want her to answer. With the truth, of course. With some element of assurance that will let me off the hook too, if I’m honest with myself.
She gives it to me. One of her hands flutters in a no-big-deal flick. “No, it’s fine. It’s just that I’m conflict-avoidant, so that’s what I’m doing. Avoiding conflict.”
It sounds like she’s repeating something she’s said—or heard—a hundred times.
I don’t get to give more than the slightest attention to how cute this girl is. She’s a client, and she’s got enough emotional baggage packed up to need two valets. She doesn’t need me creeping on her.
Tansy cried through the second half of the session, so her hazel eyes are red-rimmed and her button nose is pink at the tip. I’m a sick fuck to find her adorable like this, but there it is. I want to hide her away from the world and make sure she never meets an unkind soul again.
Which is exactly the reason I should stay away.
She’s a slip of nothing. Only about five foot at most, which makes her a full six inches shorter than me. If I wore my big boots, the difference would be even more noticeable. I want to cup the back of her head, touch the ginger strands that look like a fuzzy cloud to see if those strands are soft or like twine. If I shelter her from the storm, I might remember what it feels like to be strong.
Instead I do nothing, say nothing, and lead her back to my cubicle. I dress the tattoo in a protective bandage. It’s always strange to know my art is going to get up and walk away into the world, and this time is no different.
“Touch-ups are on the house, always are,” I say, and she nods like a star pupil. “Anything you don’t like, come back and see me.”
“You sound serious.”
“I am.” I reach toward her leg, but I don’t touch her. I circle the air instead, but it doesn’t matter. I still know what her skin feels like. “My goal is for you to be happy with what I made of you for the rest of your life. When you’re eighty-seven and rocking out on the retirement home’s beach trip and someone asks you about it, I want you to give my name with pride.”
“I’m way more of a hot tub girl,” she says with a smile that sneaks its way past her day’s heartbreak. “Or ponds. Or creeks. The ocean is too freaky for me.”
“Me too. There’s no jellyfish in a creek.”
“Exactly.”
But as I’m grinning at her, reminding myself that this girl has more than enough on her plate and that I have no interest in this kind of chick, I hear commotion at the front end of the shop. To be exact, it’s a loud voice with a tyrannical tone that sets my back teeth to grinding. “What is that?”
All the color is gone from Tansy’s face. Her formerly pink cheeks are the pale cold white of porcelain. The curve of her bottom lip is shallow and drawn taut. “That’s Jody.”
As if saying those words has cracked her, she scrambles off my chair and dives for the messenger bag she left hanging on a hook. She fishes out a phone in a pink camo case. “Stupid Find My Phone! I didn’t know she had the password. How long has she had that?”
“You seem kind of freaked out.”
She flashes me a wide-eyed look of panic that’s at odds with what comes out of her mouth. “It’s fine. Jody’s going to be upset, but I practically left her at the altar. She has every right to be emotional. It looks like she was trying to reach me, so she’s probably been worried about me too.”
I . . . have no idea what to do with that. She’s the biggest ball of anxiety I’ve seen since the client who had a phobia of needles and ended up having a panic attack.
Tansy gathers her messenger bag and slings it over her shoulders. The strap rests between her breasts, molding her silk, sleeveless blouse to her figure. She has surprisingly large breasts for such a small frame.
She also has an artery pounding under the delicately thin skin at her temple. When she licks her bottom lip, it barely leaves a sheen, as if her mouth is dry as stone. “Do I pay you directly? Or up front?”
“Front of the house.” I wave toward the general area where I can hear Jody bitching.
“I have every fucking right to be here.” Her voice spikes above the velvet curtains dividing the tattoo benches. “My wife is here.”
“I’m not her wife,” Tansy mutters, but then it’s like she remembers I’m here. She blinks and gives me a great smile that I’ve done nothing to earn. If I didn’t look too closely, I might think nothing was wrong.
I follow her down the narrow, short hall. Jody spots her before she manages to step into the foyer. “Tansy! Where have you been?”
Tansy walks to the counter without looking at her fiancée and hands a credit card to Nayla, who’s working the front desk and register. “I’ve been here. Add thirty percent tip,” she says to Nayla.
“I’ve been worried about you.”
It’s a spooky echo of the words Tansy had said to me moments ago. Goose bumps walk across my shoulders.
Jody is tall and coolly femme. She’s slender enough that there’s a circle of taut skin at the base of her neck between her collarbones that reminds me of Robin Wright.
My crush on Claire Underwood dies a fiery death right then and there.
“Maybe you should have thought about that before humping that guy four hours before our wedding.”
My gaze jumps to Nayla’s. We both have wide did-you-hear-that eyes. Tansy is still keeping her face tipped away from Jody. The line of her shoulders is so tight that they’re creeping toward her ears as if she’s trying to ward off a blow.
“You know how I feel about publicly airing unpleasantness.” Jody’s voice is calm. Weirdly so. If I’d been caught doing the deed on my wedding day, I think I’d be a hell of a lot more upset. But then, I don’t know their dynamic. Maybe this is the fifth time they’ve been through this dance. All things considered, I’m pretty helpless. This isn’t my fight to pick.
I lean against the glass-and-chrome counter and shove my hands in my pockets. “Thanks for the tip.” Considering the cost of the tat, it’s pretty good money.
“It’s worth every penny,” Tansy says with complete sincerity. She manages to meet my gaze for a second before bouncing away, looking back down at her purse and making an event of putting her card away.
“Oh,” Jody says on a mouthful of sigh. I think she’s just noticed the bandage. “What did you do to yourself, Tansy?”
“It’s my body and I’ve always wanted a tattoo.”
“You’ve never mentioned it to me.”
“You’ve made your disdain for tattoos more than clear.”
Jody rocks back on her heels as if she’s astonished. Her blue chambray button-down is impeccably pressed. Whatever hunting and worrying she’s been doing over Tansy has been quite tidily done. “Just because I think they’re trashy shouldn’t matter. I would never, ever tell you what to do.”
If Tansy believes that, she’s in deeper than I thought. Control drips off this woman in the way she’s trying to be charming and utterly failing at it.
“I’m tired, Jody. I need to rest.”
“Naturally. We’ll go home and talk for a while and then you can sleep.”
“There’s nothing to discuss. I’m done with you.”
“I know. And I know it’s my fault.” When Tansy looks at her, she arranges her mouth into a disappointed frown that wasn’t there a moment ago. “But at the very least we have to figure out how to separate our lives. All the logistics. And I want to tell you how very, very deep I’ve been delving about how terrible I’ve been. How reckless I’ve been in my choices. I’m an awful person, Tansy.”
“You’re not,” she says, and I want to physically throw myself between them. Take Tansy’s shoulders and shake her.
As it is, I can’t keep my mouth shut. “Think maybe you should try throwing an ‘I’m sorry’ in there?”
Tansy’s head whips from Jody to me so fast that a piece of hair catches at her mouth. She shoves it away.
“This isn’t any of your business,” Jody says in a cutting sneer that drags Tansy’s gaze back to her.
“But you didn’t. You didn’t say sorry.” Tansy’s eyes are wide.
“You know how sorry I am.” Jody holds out her hands, palms up. They’re rock steady. “I am filled with regret.”
I lift an eyebrow. “Regret from fucking that dude or from getting caught?” This is kind of fun.
This time Jody appeals straight to Tansy. “This is why we need privacy. Let’s go home. I promise I’ll sleep on the couch.”
My impulse gets the best of me. I push off the counter and lean into the blonde with the haughty attitude. Holier-than-thou shit always gets my back up. “She’s not going anywhere with you.”
“Cai, it’s okay.” Tansy puts her hand in the middle of my back. The touch is feather soft but enough to make me realize how stiff I’ve become. “I have to pack a bag and get my cat. It’ll be fine.”
We’re strangers. I don’t know her. She doesn’t know me. There’s a great, vast nothingness between us, and I could throw all the guesses and suppositions in the world in there and not fill it up. I’ve been here before, in a place where not knowing is worse than the truth. “Are you sure?”
But, at the same time, I don’t know what I’m doing. There’s no way I can take this stranger home with me. It’s not even about some amorphous worry that she’ll rob my apartment. It’s about what I’m not capable of—the kind of long-term healing that Tansy desperately needs. I’m running from my own demons, after all.
“I’m positive,” she says, and I decide to let her have her lie.
“Thanks for the tip,” I say again. I shove my hands in the back pockets of my jeans to keep from doing anything stupid. “Don’t forget to come back for the touch-up.” I hear myself making it nonoptional. I hope she realizes what I mean.
“Thanks. For everything.” For a moment I think she’d going to hug me, but then she gives a tight smile to Jody instead. “Let’s go.”
Their walk out the door is a dance. Jody’s fingers at the small of her back. Tansy stepping away. Jody tries for her shoulder instead, and then they’re out of sight.
I stare at the closed door longer than I want to admit.