by London Casey
A diamond?
I dropped the jeans and crouched down, reaching for the item that fell from his jeans.
Sure enough, it was a ring.
It was a small diamond ring. A beautiful diamond ring. Nothing fancy.
Again, memories flooded me.
The conversations we used to have after we were done exploring each other’s needs and wants.
“You’d look good wearing nothing but a diamond ring,” River said with a wink. He took a drag of the cigarette and passed it to me.
“Oh yeah? You putting it on there?”
I took a drag. I only smoked when I was with him. Or if I was stressed out. I wasn’t a real smoker or anything. I wasn’t addicted. My body could only afford one addiction and that was River.
He grabbed my left hand and stroked my ring finger. “I’d love to put a ring there, darlin’. The heaviest diamond in the world. So anyone who sees it knows you’re mine. And I don’t fucking share.”
I laughed. “Stop. I’m not that kind of girl, River.”
We were maybe too young to have that kind of conversation, but it was fun. Nothing but fun. I knew that River didn’t have money. He struggled to get by. I was struggling to figure out my next move with college and all that real-life stuff. The only thing that made sense was River.
“Then what kind of ring do you want?” he asked.
I shook his hand from mine and held my hand out. My body tingled from what River had done to me but it also tingled with a fresh sense of excitement.
“Small,” I said. “A thin band, probably silver. And then a perfect little diamond. Nothing in your face, but enough that you know what it is. Why have anything fancy on the band, right? I just want a diamond.”
“You got it,” River said.
I started to laugh.
River took the cigarette back and took a deep drag. As he spoke, smoked danced around him.
God, he was so fucking sexy.
“I’m serious, Lacey. I’m going to get you that ring…”
And there I was, all those years later, holding that ring.
It was beautiful.
It was perfect.
It was the exact ring I’d always wanted.
I had been proposed to once before in my life and the ring that was slid on my finger then was nothing like this one. That ring was an investment. This ring was a symbol of love.
“Love,” I whispered.
I guess I had my answer from River then, right?
Before I knew what I was doing, I threw the ring onto the bed. I covered my mouth. My body and mind wanted me to rush into that bathroom, tear open the shower curtain, and put him on the spot.
Do you love me? Is that ring an engagement ring? Were you going to propose to me after ten years of not seeing me? If I mean that much…
Instead, I looked to the door and made my move.
I took off.
I ran out of the bedroom toward the front door of the cabin.
My keys were in my hand.
I hurried outside.
I took a deep breath, but it wasn’t enough.
I ran down the steps and out to my car.
The emotions collected inside me more heavily than I ever thought they would. I didn’t know whether to be angry, sad, happy, cry, scream, or throw a punch.
Ten fucking years of my life were gone now.
Ten years that I could never get back again.
And if River really felt the way he did…
I started the car and looked in the rearview mirror. I half expected the cabin door to open and see River come running out in nothing but a towel.
Tears filled my eyes.
It was a heavy burden to bear. The thought of all that had happened with Kyle. Had I loved him? Yes. But not in the same way that I loved River. And Kyle was gone without knowing the truth. And River was right inside the cabin not knowing the truth.
I knew the truth of everything.
The way my stomach turned, my heart raced, my mind squeezed. The way my eyes filled with tears and I felt the insatiable urge to flee.
These were all the reasons why I took a vacation on this day each year.
The first tear fell down my cheek as the car started to creep forward.
I yelled at myself to stop.
But it was too late.
I was leaving. Again.
Hello to another ten years of waiting.
River
PRESENT DAY
I walked into the bedroom and it was a fucking nightmare. I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Then I saw the ring on the bed.
Lacey had gone through my jeans and found the ring?
“Shit,” I said.
I walked to the bed and grabbed the ring. I held it up. This was the ring she always wanted. No matter how many times I got hit in the head in those stupid fights or how hard time tried to squeeze away memories, anything with Lacey was still fresh.
I dropped the ring and turned, running out of the room.
“Lacey?” I called out.
There was no response.
I went to the window and saw the car was gone.
Gone?
Gone.
I tore open the door and stood there in nothing but a towel. I could see the fresh tire tracks in the dirt, leading out of the driveway and to the left.
Lacey was gone.
She had seen the ring and left.
So, after ten years of waiting, that’s how it went down. She showed up, got stuck, made out with me for a little bit, and then left.
Regret settled in on me pretty quickly. The second she showed up I should have given it all to her. The ring. The words. My love. Everything.
I crossed my arms and leaned against the doorway.
I was right back where I started.
Alone at this goddamn cabin.
A little sliver of my dream blanketed in my fucking nightmare.
Maybe this time if I was going to lose Lacey, maybe it would be for good.
Prick poked his head into the room. “Hey, man, want to help me with something?”
“Yeah, sure,” I said.
I had kept myself busy with sketches for most of the day. I had an appointment coming in later.
The shop was bustling with people. It felt like St. Skin would never calm down with business. People walking in hoping to be lucky enough to get one of us free. People who had scheduled appointments weeks and even months in advance. Whatever Tate was doing with the business, it was working.
Max passed by, shaking his head.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“If I have to do one more baby portrait,” he said with a grin. “This is crazy. Three booked back to back to back.”
“Hey, we’re really busy here,” Prick said. He put a hand to my shoulder. “Come on, River.”
“Sorry,” I said, shrugging my shoulders at Max.
He went toward the back door, probably going to catch his breath.
Tattooing was a hard job, but what Max did was true artistry. He did nothing but portraits for the shop and was the best I’d ever seen. Getting a picture of someone tattooed on your body was a big deal and it didn’t take much to make it look terrible. But Max knew all the intricacies of the body and skin, muscle, whatever, to find the right spot and how to use that spot to create tattoos that were as good as pictures.
With what I did with my tattooing, I took a little more liberty in the creation of the art. Sometimes the smallest imperfections or on-the-fly changes made the tattoo all that more unique and special. Max didn’t have that freedom, though.
As for Prick…
He stopped at his door and grinned.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re going to thank me for this,” he said.
He opened the door and there sat a woman.
A topless woman.
“Whoa,” I said under my breath.
The woman was young and beautiful. She had amber eyes and hair to match. S
he looked nervous as anything. I wondered just what the hell Prick had decided to drag me here for.
“This is my helper,” Prick said. “This is River. He’s the best.”
“Hi,” the woman said to me.
“River, this is Ana,” he said. “She’s gotten her ears pierced several times but decided she wanted to get her left nipple pierced. That’s where you come in.”
I looked right at Prick. I was not trained in piercing anyone. The only needles I dealt with dumped ink into skin.
Sensing my pissed off attitude, Prick winked. “You’re going to have Ana look at you. Hold her hand. Talk to her. I’m going to take care of the piercing part. It’ll be over before you know it.”
I slowly approached Ana.
I had seen plenty of topless and naked women in my life. Sometimes it was for pleasure and sometimes it was for work. I knew how to approach the situation with respect for the woman sitting there exposed.
I grabbed a chair and sat down.
I was just inches from her left breast.
I kept my eyes on hers and she looked at me.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Can I squeeze your hand?” she asked.
“Of course.”
I gave Ana my hand and she quickly squeezed it.
“I’m nervous,” Ana said.
“Don’t be. It’s a quick pinch. You’ll barely feel it.”
“You’re lying to me,” Ana said.
“Okay, let’s get ready,” Prick said.
I moved my eyes for a second and saw Prick touch Ana’s bare breast. He was wearing rubber gloves, but still, he was touching her. I had no idea why the whole thing suddenly got to me the way it did. Maybe because I hadn’t enjoyed myself in a while, not since what happened with Lacey up at the cabin.
It still made no sense to me.
“River,” Ana said. “Look at me.”
I looked at her.
Her eyes were really pretty.
She bit her bottom lip.
I reached for her face, not even realizing what I was doing until my hand cradled her cheek. My thumb slid down to her mouth and she slowly parted her lips. Her teeth touched my thumb as Prick rammed the needle through her breast.
She gasped, shut her eyes, and bit my finger.
“It’s okay,” I whispered. “It’s all okay.”
I had no fucking clue who I was actually talking to.
When Ana opened her eyes, she blinked fast, a stray tear escaping.
“That’s it,” Prick said. “You did it.”
I started to move my hand but Ana turned her head and nibbled at my thumb again. Then the tip of her tongue flirted with the tip of my thumb. Flicking up and down, up and down.
She was eye fucking me and tongue fucking my thumb.
“Good job,” Prick said.
I took my hand away and backed up, keeping distance from Ana. I couldn’t stand up right at that exact second. I needed to let my body cool down a little.
She looked down at her newly pierced nipple and smiled.
“I love it,” she said.
“Good,” Prick said. “How about the other?”
“Not yet,” she said. Ana looked at me. “What do you think, River? Do you like it?”
I turned and stood up. “I have to get back to work. Let me know if you need anything else, Prick.”
“Thanks, brother,” he said with a sly grin.
He had known what he was fucking doing to me. Trying to get me revved up so I’d shake the Lacey shit. I didn’t talk about my past all that much but everyone at the shop knew something had gone down between me and an old flame. We were all like brothers but I swore sometimes they all could gossip like a bunch of high school girls.
As I shut the door, I heard Ana ask, “So why do they call you Prick?”
I shut the door, laughing to myself.
Why was he called Prick? Because he was the piercing guy at the shop and because he was, indeed, a fucking prick.
But he meant well.
I went back to my room and sat down, looking at what I had to work on for the rest of the day. I opened the drawer to the right and took out a picture that was folded up.
Unfolding it, I looked at the old picture of me and Lacey. She was beautiful then and even more beautiful now. If the ring really had spooked her, then that was on me. Now I just needed to fucking find her and explain everything. The last ten years were my story to share with her. No ink. No music to drown out the pain. Just an honest heart, bleeding for her. That was the scariest thing I could ever imagine.
The crease from the picture being folded was right down the middle, right between us.
How fucking fitting.
There was a knock at the door.
“It’s open,” I called out as I kept my head down, sketching away.
The door opened and I figured it was Danny taking a lunch order. Truth of it was that I was more ready for a beer than some food. Drinking on an empty stomach helped to chase away Lacey’s memory.
“Um, River?” a woman’s voice asked.
I spun around in a hurry.
Lacey?
No.
It was Ana.
The woman whose nipple I helped pierce with Prick.
“Ana,” I said. “You get lost leaving?”
“No,” she said. She shut the door behind her.
“You want to get some ink done?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
She shook her head.
She locked the door.
“You never answered my question.”
“What question is that?”
“Whether it looks good or not.”
Before I could utter another word, she lifted her shirt and bra. It was the second time seeing her breasts, but this time the intentions were polar opposite of the first.
She had beautiful breasts. They were full, her nipples symmetrically round, perfect for piercing. Her left nipple a darker red, still irritated from the bar that had been forced through it.
“It looks great,” I said.
Ana was on the move, approaching me.
I could have stood up and shooed her the hell out of there.
But I didn’t.
She walked right up to me and opened her legs. She gently came forward, starting to straddle me. My hands tingled as I lifted them up to her chest.
“Be easy,” she whispered.
“I don’t do easy,” I said.
She bit her lip and exhaled a long breath.
Ana came down a little, putting her breasts right to my face.
She’d become my lunch… and it’d chase away that lonely feeling for a little while…
Lacey
PRESENT DAY
Karen put a light blue drink in front of me.
“I’m not drinking that,” I said.
“One, you’ve already had too many to drive home,” Karen said. “So, you’re crashing on my couch. Two, this one isn’t from me.”
“Then where is it from?”
Karen leaned forward. “Hot guy at the end of the bar.”
“Hot guy…”
I glanced to my right and a man nodded at me.
I quickly looked forward at Karen. I grabbed the skinny stem of the fancy drink glass and eased it away.
“No, no, no,” I said. “I don't do this kind of thing.”
“Maybe you should,” she said. “What’s wrong with talking to someone? You barely have talked to me lately, Lacey. Something happened and you’re not spilling.”
“It’s not that easy,” I said.
“Then make it easy. Either drink until it comes out or go talk to that nice guy and see what happens.”
“How do you know he’s nice?” I asked. “Just because he sent me a drink? Maybe he’s been watching me drink and just thinks I’ll be a cheap and easy lay.”
Karen raised an eyebrow. “Things like that prove you need to get laid.”
She puckered her lips in a kiss, then pushed away from the b
ar. She went to tend to her other customers. I just sat there alone, staring at the free drink. I had planned on just visiting Karen but somehow I ended up having three drinks. So, yeah, maybe I was a little drunk. But I wasn’t going to let my emotions get the best of me. Mr. Sexy Drink could buy me anything he wanted but that didn’t mean I was going to (a) drink it and (b) go back to his place for whatever he wanted.
So, I just sat there, right up until Mr. Sexy Drink came over to me.
Figures.
He sat down next to me, then reached out and hooked his index finger around the neck of the glass and pulled it toward him.
“If you aren’t drinking, then I’d better,” he said. He took a sip from the straw and pulled away. “Sugary. Nine bucks for that? I don’t even taste the booze.”
“You’re not supposed to,” I said. “It creeps up on you. Then you end up sitting here like me.”
“Well, you’re not alone,” he said. He held his hand out toward me. “I’m Mitch.”
“Lacey,” I said.
“Now that’s a pretty name.”
You can’t use his lines. You can’t say things River said to me. Ever.
Face it, anything this guy said or did, he would be compared to a man he’d never met.
Maybe that was unfair but it was reality.
Mitch sat there and drank the entire drink he bought for me. I wasn’t sure if that was his way of being cute or flirty, but it was a little weird for me. And it made him look cheap that he kept bringing up the nine bucks it cost him over and over.
Karen gave me the eye a few times, wondering if I was having a good time.
More than once I shook my head at her.
She brought another one of my drinks, which I regrettably drank.
That really settled in on me hard.
Then Mitch started talking about his sales job.
My mind went back to the cabin. That cozy little cabin. All the things that could have happened there. Should have happened there. At the very least, knowing what River had been doing for ten years. It was so unfair of me to get angry at him over not chasing me down. He did what he felt was right for me and for him. And he showed up ten years later, as promised.
I finally couldn’t take anymore at the bar so I stood up.