Inked on Paper

by Nicole Edwards

  I spun around to see my other roommate, Gavin Dennis—who also happened to be my best friend since childhood—standing there, a half-naked chick hanging on him, her nipples visible over the low scoop of her dress.

  Could it get any worse?

  “What are you doing here?” I questioned, looking him square in the eye and doing my best to avoid the big-breasted girl running her hands along Gavin’s chiseled chest. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”

  “Things were slow. I came home to change, but”—Gavin nodded his head toward the girl—“she asked me to stay.”

  I had no idea who she was. And if I had to guess, neither did Gavin. And probably not Gil, either.

  This was the story of my life.

  Twenty-eight years old, living with two guys whose extracurricular activities included strange naked women and orgies, I should’ve expected this by now. Only I didn’t want to expect it. I didn’t want to come home to find naked women making out, either.

  “Gil!” I shouted, wanting him to hear me over the music, gearing up to give him a piece of my mind.

  Gavin’s hand landed on my arm. “Give him a break, Pres.”

  I frowned at him, noting his sympathetic tone. “What are you talking about?”

  “He just found out his girlfriend’s been screwing some dude on the side.”

  Confused, I continued to stare at Gavin. “He doesn’t have a girlfriend.”

  “Oh. My bad.” Gavin offered up that smile that made most women drop to their knees.

  I was not one of those women.

  I was immune to both of these men. Always had been. Always would be.

  However, based on the way Blondie was feeling Gavin up right there in front of me, I was pretty sure she was going to be next to board that ship.

  “Oh, and that guy over there,” Gavin said, pointing toward the the corner, “That’s Jake. He’s our neighbor.”

  Slowly pivoting, I peered around the wall that was obscuring my view of the entire room until my eyes landed on the man I hadn’t even noticed sitting in the corner. His face was hidden by a baseball cap, and he wasn’t paying the least bit of attention to me. Then again, why would he? I had clothes on and there was a live porno taking place only a few feet in front of him.

  Surprisingly, there were no women in his lap or kneeling in front of him, and he was dressed, from what I could tell. Still didn’t explain why he had his ass planted in my chair, just that maybe he had a little more common sense than Gil or Gavin.

  “Why’s he here?” I asked, moving back and glancing at Gavin. It was then I realized Gavin couldn’t answer me because Blondie’s tongue was down his throat.

  Great.

  Knowing I could throw as much of a tantrum as I wanted but it wouldn’t change anything tonight, I gave up after turning down the music. It was the least they could do, even if we obviously weren’t disturbing our neighbor because he’d made himself at home in my chair.

  Grabbing a bottle of water from the refrigerator, I glanced into the living room one more time only to notice that one of the naked chicks was now licking the other like a lollipop while the three guys sat back and watched the spectacle.

  “Ugghh.” With my bottle of water in hand, I went straight for my bedroom, closing and locking the door behind me.

  Pulling the hood off my head, I then yanked my sweatshirt off, tossing it in the direction of the clothes hamper. Taking my bottle of water with me, I went to the bathroom, then closed and locked that door as well.

  I was not taking any chances.

  It wasn’t that I thought Gavin or Gil would come in. They knew better. But the others… Who knew what they were capable of? I’d only made that mistake once and I’d found myself being hit on by an overly friendly redhead who’d misplaced her clothes—or so she’d said.

  I was not going to make the same mistake twice.

  A few minutes later, I was relaxing in the huge tub, bubbles up to my neck, a single candle sitting on the ledge. I could still hear the music, could feel the pulse from the bass through the floor, but I managed to ignore it. I’d had a shit day, and the only thing I wanted to do now was block everything out for a little while, then curl up in my bed and sleep for the duration.

  Maybe tomorrow would be better.

  A girl could only hope.

  Chapter Five

  Jake

  Saturday morning

  My head was throbbing and I couldn’t recall half of what had happened last night.

  I remembered hearing a noise in the hall, then opening the door to find my new neighbor—one of them, anyway—talking to a group of women. Well, feeling them up was a more apt description. I’d been momentarily distracted when one of the girls pulled off her shirt, and I possibly had made a sound, which I could only assume was when the neighbor had noticed me, resulting in an invitation to come over for a beer.

  One look at those chicks and I’d figured what the hell.

  Not long after I’d gone over there, Gil’s roommate Gavin arrived. It was a crazy coincidence that I knew Gavin, so I’d decided to stick around for a while. The next thing I knew, I was camped out in a dark corner, drinking beer and watching the show with my new neighbors and their… friends. Around two a.m., beer turned into shots of tequila—a lot of them—and somehow I’d managed to stumble home shortly after the sun had come up.

  The only thing I knew for certain was that I hadn’t slept with any of those chicks, but Gil and Gavin had. In fact, Gil and Gavin had double-teamed the exuberant brunette right there on the couch. Based on her pleading and excited squeals, she’d been quite content to be filled to the brim, and none of them seemed bothered by an audience, so I hadn’t bothered to get up.

  Now, I wished I’d had the sense to take ibuprofen before I’d passed out on my couch a few hours ago.

  Remembering I’d left the ibuprofen in my office, I stumbled in that direction. The light was on, which I didn’t remember doing, and my laptop was open. After grabbing the bottle from the top desk drawer and shaking two out, I touched the track pad to wake the computer, then stared down at the screen.

  Chapter One

  It was a cold winter night. Three women naked. No, wait. Make that four women. A pussy-licking orgy on one side, double penetration on the other.

  Okay. What the fuck had I been thinking?

  Cold winter night? That flat-out sucked.

  Now, the pussy-licking orgy… That wasn’t a bad storyline, though I would’ve had to do a hell of a lot better than twenty-six words. Especially if I’d had the crazy notion that that had the makings of a novel.

  Apparently, I’d mistakenly thought I could write in my inebriated state, which explained the bullshit I was looking at now. Pressing the delete key, I watched the words disappear as I shook my head.

  I needed coffee. Desperately.

  Popping two ibuprofen in my mouth, I downed them without water, hoping like hell they would kick the hangover and right my world before I did something stupid. Like attempt to write again. If that was what I’d resorted to writing while intoxicated, I probably needed to lay off the alcohol. Or lock up my laptop.

  Or both.

  Making my way to the kitchen, I flipped on the light, then flipped it off again when my head screamed at me.

  “Meow.”

  Peering down, I saw Cat padding out from the laundry room.

  “Hope you had a better night than I did,” I told the cat, not expecting a response.

  Cat rarely paid any attention to me unless he was hungry or his water bowl was empty. Sometimes I wondered if Abby was right, that Cat was pissed because I hadn’t bothered to give him a real name.

  I trekked into the laundry room to find his bowls turned upside down—which was his way of telling me I was a shitty human. I didn’t even want to check out my closet because the last time I’d forgotten to feed him, he’d clawed up two of my T-shirts and hacked up hairballs and left them in my shoe.

  Grabbing the food from the cabinet, I fil
led one bowl and set it on the floor before adding water to the other.

  “There. You’re all set. Leave my clothes and my shoes alone.”

  Back in the kitchen, I stopped beside the coffeepot, grabbed a clean mug hanging on the rack above it, but before I could get the coffee grounds out of the cabinet, my gaze slid over to the center island, where a black, leather-bound notebook with cursive lettering scrolled across the front sat. It was the one Abby had given me two weeks ago for my thirty-sixth birthday. Beside it, a pen.

  I smiled, remembering the way Abby’s glittering green eyes had lit up when I’d unwrapped the gift.

  “What am I supposed to do with this?” I asked, smiling back at her, trying desperately to hide my confusion.

  “You’re s’posed to write a book in it. What d’ya think?”

  Now, as I stared down at it, I flipped open the front cover, reading the choppy block letters scribbled across the first page. Not for the first time, I wondered what had spurred Abby to want me to write a book in a notebook.

  To Uncle Jake. I hope you write a best seller in this one day. Love, Abby.

  Yeah, well … I hoped I wrote a best seller anywhere at this point. Fuck, I was game to cop a squat on the sidewalk out front with a piece of chalk if that would do the trick. I could picture it now, front page of the Austin American-Statesman: Best-selling author has psychotic break. The words chalked on the sidewalk speak for themselves.

  I hadn’t had the heart to shatter the hopes of the sweetest fifteen-year-old kid I knew—who’d been through so much in the past year—by telling her that I didn’t write my books. I typed them. On the computer. The book I was supposed to be working on notwithstanding because I had yet to type shit on it—unless a bunch of drunken rambling counted. Which it didn’t. But the other fourteen I’d written over the last seven years had been written one keystroke at a time.

  As I stared at the notebook, the clean white pages inside with their perfect blue lines called to me, urged me to grab that pen and…

  What? What the hell was I supposed to do now?

  As with everything else that had previously rattled around in my head, the journal stopped talking to me. Although that didn’t stop me from staring down at it. Surely I could take it from here, right?

  Setting the coffee mug down, I snatched the journal, the pen, and my black hoodie and made my way to the door. Then, after turning back to get my shoes, keys, cell phone, and my wallet, I finally made it out into the hall and over to the elevator.

  Once more, I turned back around, headed back into my condo, dropping my pile of crap back on the kitchen island.

  I needed to shower first. No fucking way in hell I could go out in public smelling like … a brewery.

  Chapter Six

  Presley

  My morning started with a trip over to Different by Design to give Charlie my keys since she had accidentally left hers at home and I lived closer, saving her an hour trip there and back. I spent a few minutes chatting with her while she smoked a cigarette and told me about the hot guy she’d met last night, before I had made it back to my condo on Fifth Street. Then, after a quick elevator ride up with an older woman and her little dog, I got out on the seventeenth floor, smiling back at them as they both glared at me suspiciously.

  I didn’t think much of it, since I frequently got some strange looks. It was the tattoos, probably all the piercings, and maybe the pink hair that generally garnered me more attention than I needed, but I didn’t really give a shit. As I usually did, I shrugged it off.

  I was who I was. No amount of beady eyeballs staring holes in me was going to change that.

  When I stepped inside my condo, I ran smack into a wall of bacon. Well, the smell of bacon, anyway. Scrunching my nose, I pretended not to notice that Gil was making breakfast. Or rather, what he considered breakfast, which normally consisted of some strange concoction made from random shit he found in the refrigerator. The only consistent ingredient was bacon.

  I pushed the hood off my head and peered around the open living area. It was relatively clean compared to what I’d witnessed last night. “Please tell me some half-naked chick is not gonna waltz out of your bedroom and make this uncomfortable,” I said, relocating my sketch pad from the bar to the stool.

  Gil’s face lit up with a magnificent smile. His rusty-brown hair—shaved completely on the sides to show the many tattoos that decorated his head—was spiked on the top, as though he’d merely run a towel over it when he’d gotten out of the shower, which went with the disheveled theme accentuated by the two days’ worth of red-brown stubble on his jaw and the tattered T-shirt. “She left earlier.”

  “She? As in not plural?” Last night there had definitely been more than one.

  Another grin. “Gav took three of ’em, but I think he kicked ’em out before he crashed.”

  Great.

  At least they were gone. I couldn’t count how many times I’d come into the kitchen to find some petite little brunette—they were always petite, always brunette for Gil—rummaging through the refrigerator wearing one of Gil’s T-shirts and nothing else. Gavin wasn’t quite as bad because he frequently sent his packing before he went to bed. I’d only encountered one of his over the years.

  “Did you get this one’s name, at least?” I asked, trying to sound as though I were joking. I wasn’t.

  “Angie,” he said quickly.

  I watched him closely, noticing his frown.

  “No, wait. Amanda. Or was it Ashley? No… Shit.”

  Gil had the decency to look sheepish when his dark brown eyes strayed back to me.

  “You are such a man whore, Gil Garner.”

  “Guilty as charged,” he belted out, loud and proud.

  I shook my head, meeting his gaze. “About last night…”

  “I know,” he said. “Sorry. It just happened.”

  “How does it just happen?” I couldn’t understand how one man could bring home four women. It was absurd.

  Gil shrugged, not looking at all apologetic. “It’s the tattoos. Women love that shit.” He held up a spatula. “You want me to make you somethin’ to eat?”

  Ignoring the fact that he’d purposely changed the subject, I shook my head. “Thanks, but no.” Not only because I didn’t eat meat but also because I didn’t trust anything Gil cooked. The man was known to toss whatever ingredients he could find into a skillet and call it a meal. “I’ll just take a bowl of cereal.”

  “Your loss.” Gil grabbed my favorite bowl from the cabinet, then retrieved the soy milk and the Corn Pops, setting all three down on the bar. “Any luck with the drawing?”

  I frowned as I climbed up onto the barstool, pushing my sleeves up my arms. “Nope.”

  “Well, don’t get too freaked out about it.”

  Easy for him to say. Gil worked in the same tattoo shop I did, but he didn’t have any problems coming up with great art these days. I, on the other hand, had spent the last few weeks taking all of the newbies looking for flash art pieces, because no matter how hard I tried, the inspiration just wasn’t there.

  I had been working as a professional tattoo artist for going on seven years. I’d even managed to establish a consistent clientele, but these days, I feared someone coming in and asking for something spectacular because I knew I wouldn’t be able to deliver.

  Not only that, but I’d been earning residual income over the years by entering art contests. The next one I had on my radar was looming in the near future, and I knew I didn’t have a chance in hell of making a dime if I didn’t come up with something soon.

  Pouring cereal into the bowl while Gil passed a spoon over to me, I watched as he wrapped whatever he’d just made into a tortilla and shoved half into his mouth in one bite.

  “You workin’ today?” he asked around a mouthful of food.

  I shook my head. “Blaze is covering for me tonight and Charlie’s over there this morning.”

  Saturdays at Different by Design were busy. And because of
the silly mental block I was dealing with, I’d opted to trade for a slow Sunday afternoon when most people had appointments, and as for any walk-ins, I could take their information and call them back.

  “You?” I asked, spooning cereal into my mouth.

  “Yep. Got two appointments. One this afternoon and one tonight.”

  “What about today? Any plans?” I asked, propping my head up with my hand as I spooned cereal into my mouth.

  “Gonna head over to the shop and chill for a while. Helpin’ Shawn if he needs it.”

  Shawn Green was DBD’s main body modification artist, known to most as a piercer. Gil had been doing an apprenticeship under Shawn for the past eight months. Though Gil claimed he still preferred to ink, he’d become quite enthralled with the body mod, and Shawn was hoping Gil could help out from time to time.

  “Did you get your training class done?” I asked. Gil had mentioned some special class, along with a CPR certification he needed to take care of.

  “Next week,” he said before downing half a glass of chocolate milk. “And then, just think…” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then revealed a disturbing grin. “I’m that much closer to piercing your clit.”

  I snorted, nearly shooting soy milk out of my nose. “Not in this lifetime,” I rasped, choking. “You will never be allowed near my clit. With a needle or otherwise.”

  “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

  The man was incorrigible.

  I finished off my cereal and pushed my bowl away. Gil grabbed it, along with the skillet and his glass, rinsed them all, and tucked them into the dishwasher.

  “What’re you doin’ this morning?” Gil asked.

  “I’m gonna head over to the coffee shop,” I told him, grabbing my sketchbook.

  “Is it on the way to the shop?”

  I nodded.

  “Come on then,” he said. “I’ll walk you.”

  A few minutes later, I stopped at the coffee shop, said a quick good-bye to Gil, then made my way to the counter to order my usual sugar-free vanilla soy latte. The woman behind the counter smiled kindly but didn’t say anything other than the usual pleasantries. I paid for my coffee, then waited patiently while she made it. With a quick thank you, I took the cup, wound my way through the tables, and found an empty one near the front window.