Say it Louder Page 5

  My breasts betray me, tightening as my nipples poke at the T-shirt. Shit.

  Dave pulls back, though, and I realize he’s only reached for a cup on the shelf behind me. This one’s from McDonald’s and I cringe a bit, wondering what he must think of me, recycling cheap plastic fast-food cups instead of buying actual glasses.

  Wait. What the hell am I saying? I don’t give a shit what people think of me. My pink hair and sleeves of tattoos are proof of that.

  Dave fills his cup with water and takes a long drink—long enough for me to covertly check out his tattoos. The words love and fear are spelled out across his knuckles.

  The tattoos on his arms intrigue me: abstract and absent of color, they’re intricate, good edges, nice balance through the stroke that gets the ink even through each line.

  “How many do you have?” I ask, trying to sound like it’s just professional curiosity. No, I totally don’t want a closer look at this man’s smooth, olive skin. The way it’s taught against his muscles, the way it hollows to a V at his waist, the way it dips to a crescent at his navel.

  “Seven.”

  My brows lift. I only see three.

  “How many do you have?” His eyes crawl across my shoulder, where the top of my bee sleeve is exposed.

  “Depends on how you count. I’ve sat for twenty-six sessions, but a lot of the work blends together when you’re doing a full sleeve.” I rotate my arm to show him an ocean wave that flows from the inside of my elbow to the back of my arm, the foam carefully shaded with detail.

  Dave catches my wrist, then slowly rotates my arm. He should be looking at the tattoos, but his eyes are locked on mine, and suddenly I’m feeling too exposed, too raw from his gaze that traps me in place.

  I move to step away from him and go to bed but he doesn’t release my hand. His pressure is just enough to maintain our connection.

  I could pull away, shake off his grasp, but his fingers warm the pulse point in my wrist, his voice is soft with a gentle request. “Show me more?”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Dave stills, waiting for an answer. I chill and wrap my free arm around my chest, shy knowing my full breasts are apparent through the thin T-shirt.

  There’s warmth in his touch, in his voice, in his gaze. And I want more. I want him closer, the way our arms kept brushing as we sat on that rail beam, neither of us admitting that every single touch was intended.

  Every one.

  “I’ll show you a few.” I walk back to my bed and sit, nodding at him to follow before I lose my nerve. “But you have to show me yours, too.”

  Dave chuckles. “I like the sound of that.”

  I glare at him. “Don’t. I’m a professional, remember?”

  I tip the cracked shade on the lamp near my bed so the bare bulb stares at us. I’m too exposed but Dave looks comfortable in his own skin, like he parades around in black boxer briefs all day.

  Maybe he does. Rock stars are known for weird shit.

  “I like this one.” Dave says as he sits on the mattress and turns toward me. One hand wraps around my wrist again, anchoring my arm in place. His other hand explores, tracing the lines of my honeybees and their flowers. He pushes my T-shirt sleeve up to the top of my shoulder, then trails his fingers down my arm.

  My flesh prickles with goosebumps and I feel my cheeks heat, the color climbing down my neck in parallel with his gaze. I’ve never been inspected like this before. Even when other people look at my tattoos, and many of them do because it’s some of Thomas’s best work, I never see this hunger behind their eyes.

  Dave swallows, his tour of my left arm complete. “Which one do you want to see?”

  “Your favorite.”

  He smiles, and it’s an easy smile, relaxed, like I’ve just asked if he likes ice cream. He stands up and turns around, draping himself across my bed so I can see the magnificent back piece that spreads across his shoulder blades.

  It’s an owl, wings spread in full flight, its legs extended forward as if it’s descending to grab its prey. It’s almost a blackwork tat—the only color in the intricate design is the owl’s yellow eyes.

  It feels so Dave, so commanding and sharp-eyed. Like if you peeled away his poor-me routine you’d get a wise creature ready to capture exactly what he wants.

  What if I were exactly what he wants? The thought of that thrills and frightens me.

  “I’ll tell you a secret,” he mumbles, his face in my pillow as I bend over his back to get a closer look at the ink. “I have a second mirror in my bathroom so I can see it. It’s my favorite, but I can’t even look at it straight. Kind of stupid, huh?”

  I trace the curves of it, my fingers skidding lightly over the owl’s feathers on his muscular back. “Not stupid at all,” I whisper. No. Not stupid in the slightest.

  He just lies there and lets me touch him. Lets my fingers wander, up his back and down it, from the crease of his spine to his muscled shoulders, from the cords of his neck down his lower back, and the elastic top of his boxer briefs.

  This is shifting fast, changing from tattoo talk to something entirely … other. I’m afraid my lack of experience is showing, and I’m grateful that he’s lying face down and can’t look at me. I don’t want him to see the embarrassment and curiosity and craving written all over my face.

  “Take your time.”

  Dave’s comment freezes me. Does he want me to stop? I play his three words back in my head and decide his tone is genuine. He’s OK with this. Maybe he even likes it?

  I trace his tattoo lines again—the primaries, the first ones a tattoo artist inks. These are my guidelines for everything going forward. All of the shading and subtlety is built off them, so if primaries go down wrong, the tattoo is virtually guaranteed to be a disaster.

  Most people have seen bad primaries and don’t know it. They just know something’s off. It usually happens when somebody gets a Yosemite Sam tattoo, or a person’s face, or some other really literal tattoo that requires precise work. If the artist can’t lay down the primary lines right, everything else looks wonky.

  Dave sighs and his breathing evens. I press my fingertips to his primary lines, then trace the spiderweb-thin secondary lines. It’s good work. The fluidity of the lines feels like a drawing rather than a tracing, which is another mark of a bad tattoo.

  I work my fingertips across the tattoo, up and down Dave’s back, until the last traces of pretense that I’m just looking at his tattoo are gone. I’m just touching him to feel his skin, to learn a little more about his body with every stroke.

  I take a risk and shift to my hip, leaning down on my elbow, chin to the back of my hand. My breath feathers the hair on the back of his neck. I touch him in slow, even strokes, sometimes letting my fingernails scrape his skin to draw little white lines that turn red with heated blood.

  Dave turns his head on the pillow and suddenly our faces are a few inches apart. “Thank you for tonight,” he says, his voice low and husky.

  “Thank you—for the quick save in the alley.” I force an awkward laugh, embarrassed that I can’t just own that I made him kiss me. For every time I’ve been pissed off and cranky at him, I’ve been wondering and watching. This lost boy has intrigued me from the moment he walked into Violet’s apartment, and I selfishly turned his quick save into an opportunity to explore him.

  And here I am again. Exploring. Wondering. I don’t know if this is what normal people do, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t. Don’t they kiss (and not in an alley), and then make out, and then go home and fuck like bunnies?

  Dave’s in my home but I honestly have no idea what to do with him.

  He sighs and reaches for me, curling one arm around my waist and nudging his knee between my legs. He pulls me closer and inhales.

  Is he smelling me?

  Now I’m all kinds of self-conscious about how I smell, but Dave’s got a half-smile on his face. He’s watching me.

  “I’ll save you anytime you want,” he says, “but you don’t s
eem like you need much saving.”

  My lips turn down. That’s about right. I’ve saved myself, handled eight years on my own. I climbed my way from being a broke, homeless runaway to a gainfully employed girl with enough clients to this apartment stocked with groceries and art supplies.

  I got everything I wanted.

  But that comes at a price: flying solo. Dave’s arm tightens around me and his breathing evens. The clock ticks toward five a.m. and I’m painfully aware of this truth: building a solo life doesn’t leave any room for this.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Gangsta rap pulsing through a wall wakes me in Willa’s bed. I roll over and reach for her, but there’s no Willa.

  Disappointment knocks me down. What happened last night? I remember every minute clearly, but I can barely wrap my head around what it means. Why she’d touch me with such tenderness and purpose. Why she’d let me pull her close at night when she’s prickly during the day.

  She has my brain in knots, but my dick has absolutely no doubt about what it’s supposed to do. I grab my morning wood and breathe in the scent of eucalyptus on her pillow, tugging on my shaft as I remember what her fingers felt like on my flesh.

  What her lips felt like on that darkened side street. The curve of her ass and the heat of her center beneath thin leggings as she pulled my hips to hers.

  I stroke harder, faster, as I imagine what her lips could feel like wrapped around my cock. How she’d taste, rich and full, how sinking into her would feel. I imagine the grip of her as I slide in all the way to the root, as I pump myself with my hands, and her eyes, wide and clear blue when we’re joined.

  Equal parts wanting and trusting. And that deep belief is my undoing. My body clenches as an orgasm shakes me, and I’m flying on this fantasy of her.

  Stunned.

  That’s the only way I can feel as I pant through the aftermath. I drag myself and my mess out of her bed to the bathroom and clean up, but images of Willa are everywhere—visions of taking her in the shower, bending her over the table, hoisting her on the kitchen counter and rocking into her again and again.

  I’ve got it bad.

  The light in her apartment is so bright that I know it’s late morning even before I find my phone in my discarded jeans. I dress quickly, disbelieving that I slept so well. I’m normally restless in bed, unable to sleep long or deeply, but some combination of staying up almost until dawn and Willa’s scent and skin pulled me under into a dreamless darkness that left me fully rested.

  And alive.

  I pace through her apartment looking for a note, but there’s nothing on the pillow, the bedside table, or the kitchen counter. She must have gone to work—her messenger bag is gone, her scuffed Doc Martens too.

  I feel a sting of conscience, knowing that rock stars have the luxury of sleeping late, while people like Willa are getting up and going to work no matter what.

  Or else they don’t eat. Or else they can’t pay rent.

  My father was up before dawn every morning, spring to fall, to work on road crews. My mother took swing and graveyard shifts at a 24/7 diner and caught catnaps instead of really sleeping.

  Something as small as the privilege of sleeping in a warm, safe bed hits me, and as I piece together more about Willa’s life, I realize that she doesn’t take this for granted.

  I power on my phone and it makes a bunch of demented beeps as a slew of texts roll in.

  Gavin: We’re out at the White Rabbit. Want to join us?

  Kristina: Where the hell are you?

  Gavin: Kristina called. She. Is. Pissed.

  Gavin: Better call her back before she blows up NY.

  Kristina: The bars are closed and you’re not home. If you are shacking up with some skank, I’ll know. You can’t just disappear.

  Tyler: What’s the deal with Kristina? She called me and Stella looking for you. Watch your back, man.

  Kristina: None of your bandmates know where you are. Your phone’s in some Lower East Side slum. What the fuck?

  Jayce: If Kristina ever calls me again, I’m going to kill that bitch. I thought you DTMFA?

  Kristina: I’m outside the door.

  Kristina: Open the fuck up!

  Kristina: We have to talk. We’ve got history. I demand you talk to me.

  Gavin: Haven’t heard from you. Text me to let me know you’re OK. We’ll talk at practice.

  Kristina: I went home, and you better come home too. If you keep making me wait, you’ll be sorry.

  I fire off notes to the guys, assuring them I’ll be at practice tonight. But the messages from Kristina spell trouble. I can hear her voice under the texts, angry, stubborn, confused, conciliatory, vengeful.

  What’s worse, at some point last night she said she was outside the door. Willa’s door. Maybe she showed up when we were out last night.

  But the more important question is how she found me. I realize with sinking dread that Kristina must have loaded some tracker on my phone. It doesn’t take long for me to find it and delete it, but the damage is done. Now I’ve brought the worst kind of trouble to Willa.

  I know I’ll have to go back to face the music with Kristina at some point, but the tracker sends a bolt to my gut. If Kristina can figure out that I’m at Willa’s home, she can figure out the other places I’ve been—like Righteous Ink.

  I have to get to Willa before Kristina does.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I ditch my keys on the counter, hit the light panel to illuminate the shop, and head to the back to start a fresh pot of coffee. The doorbell’s jingle as I’m fitting in the filter, but it’s ten minutes too early to be my first client of the day. I pop back out of the break room.

  “Hey lady!” It’s Stella, and bless her, she’s got two cups of fancy expensive coffee in her hands and a magazine rolled up under her arm.

  “If one of those is for me, I love you.”

  She laughs and puts it on the counter for me. “You’re really going to love me when you see this.” She lays Atlantic Arts next to my coffee.

  A teaser headline on the cover catches my eye: GET THE LADY BANKSY’S FRESH TAKE ON STREET ART.

  Stella instantly flips to the story: it’s big, bold and spans ten pages. I flip through the article as Stella stands by and sips her coffee, and the reality of what’s happening sinks in.

  This is real.

  This is important.

  I made art, and somehow, perhaps for the first time, it mattered.

  That’s why I’m a tattoo artist—because ink shot deep beneath skin is one of the most intense, lifelong, permanent statements a person can make. It’s a commitment. And while I know my work affects that person and maybe the people they’re closest to, it never really feels like it matters beyond them.

  But when I make art on a wall or on canvas, it’s possible that my art can live for generations. For centuries.

  Violet’s photos of my street art feel as fleeting as the work itself. One reveals a large stencil painted near a tree cloaked in intense fall plumage. Another shows small children running in the foreground, their faces and bodies a blur except for primary-color clothes, and my stencil punctuates the stillness in the background.

  I’m pretty sure Violet could take photos of wadded-up Kleenex and make it look exciting.

  “Like what you see?” Stella whispers, as I turn the pages slowly.

  “I love it.” My face spreads into a genuine smile and I walk around the counter, wrapping Stella in the world’s most awkward hug-from-a-non-hugger. And yet, I feel like I have to. Here’s this crazy woman who’s been stalking me, who’s preserved my artwork even when taggers and anti-graffiti squads painted over it, and now I have a real body of work to show.

  ***

  I know she’s not here for a tattoo in an instant. Her one-shouldered, belted gray dress says money and her heeled booties tap too loudly on the floor. Wide, cat’s-eye sunglasses perched on her head hold back jet-black hair. She studies me with dark eyes.

  “Y
ou’re Willa.” It’s not a question.

  “Are you … Sadie?” I finger the shop’s appointment log but I remember my next client is much closer to my age, under thirty, and voluptuous.

  This woman is closer to fifty, skinny as a praying mantis, and her skin is strangely smooth. Like, immobile.

  “I’m Patricia.” She smiles but it doesn’t crease the skin around her eyes. She’s holding out a hand and my instincts catch up slowly to remember some manners. I grasp that bird-like hand, speckled in flashing stones, and shake.

  She withdraws a silver case from her handbag, then passes me a thick, embossed cream card: PATRICIA ALTON: FINE ART COLLECTIONS.

  “How can I help you?” I ask, hoping she doesn’t want a tattoo on her leathery skin. She’s definitely had too much fun in the sun.

  “You’re Willa, right?” Her eyes cut to the Atlantic Arts issue, still lying open on my counter.

  Shit. How did she find me? The only things in the article that identify me are my first name and that blurry photo, right?

  After a beat of silence, she adds, “The pink hair gave it away.”

  I ignore her and snatch up the magazine, focusing on the caption beneath my photo. When Willa’s not creating new street art somewhere in New York City or beyond, she’s creating more personal works of art for her clients at her Lower East Side tattoo shop.

  Well, shit on a shingle. Stella didn’t name Righteous Ink in the story, but there aren’t more than a half-dozen places you’d have to look to find me. Calling each one of them and asking, “Hi, do you have a female tattoo artist with pink hair named Willa?” would work.

  Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck. Warning bells go off in my brain, but I’m so stunned by the fact that my privacy just got obliterated that I’ve got tunnel vision.

  You just have to get through the next five minutes.