by elda lore
“I don’t use color,” I stated. “I don’t think she wanted to hire me because of that.” Settling my shirt, I reached for the tray of coffees and brought it to the front counter. Violet took one for herself and tugged another cup free.
“I didn’t know what you’d want, so I just ordered the local special—Kona. It’s black. Seems that’s your color.” She smiled sweetly, holding out the peace offering for me.
“Thank you. You were awfully confident she’d hire me,” I teased, crossing my arms and leaning on the counter. Her eyes shot to my biceps before looking up at my face. “I can’t be a foregone conclusion before you met me.”
“Oh, you’re foregone if Iris hired you. Everyone falls for her. It’s inevitable.”
“Oh, really? Why is that?” I asked, trying to sound disinterested, but curiosity had me. Just what did she mean by everyone falls for Iris?
“Her sunny disposition. She’s just too nice to everyone. She’s all bright and shiny.” Violet shivered in disgust, wiggling her open palm with jazz fingers.
“Huh, that wasn’t exactly the impression I got a moment ago,” I offered, taking a sip of the steamy Hawaiian goodness. One thing I had instantly loved after moving to Maui was the delicious coffee and the steady heat. After living in the Midwest my whole life, the constant sunshine and even temperature were an added bonus.
“Really? Iris is like an angel or something.” Violet cringed after she spoke the words, like she’d said too much. “Eek. I mean, she’s just extra special.” Her eyes opened wide, as if she had revealed another secret. Dismissively waving a hand, she shrugged. “Anyway, enough about Iris. Tell me something about you.”
“Not much to tell,” I said nervously, taking another sip of heaven in a cup.
“Your application said you previously lived in Chicago. So did Iris. Why don’t you tell me why you moved here from the Windy City?” This was exactly the subject I didn’t wish to discuss, so I kept my answer simple.
“My brother wanted me here.”
“Cash is your brother, right?” Violet’s question hinted she was no longer intrigued by me. She wanted his story.
“Yes, he is. You two both like classical music, huh?” The way Violet’s eyes dilated, her focus had definitely shifted. I endured fifteen minutes of her singing the praises of my brother and her love of his traditional sound before I’d had my fill.
“So, enough about Cash,” I flipped my wrist at Violet, hoping she’d catch the hint. I loved my younger brother, I did. He was perfect in every way, as our parents reminded me often. He’d been stationed at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickman, dedicating his time to the United States Navy and aircraft carriers. When some Pacific maneuver had gone awry, turning into an unreported skirmish at sea, Cash saved three men from a fire onboard their ship. As a decorated war hero, he took early retirement. He loved Hawaii so much he remained on the sister island of Maui where he still devoted his time to ship design.
As teenagers, Cash was strong, while I was weak. Cash was considered talented, while my art was not. Cash was smart, while I wasn’t interested. Instead, I drank. It became my talent until one night things went too far, and I lost everything. Drawing was my true skill, one my parents deemed inappropriate for a boy educated in all the best private schools. Despite living in a city teeming with artistic possibilities, my parents disapproved of ink. They supported the arts, only that of other people. After all that happened, becoming a tattoo artist sealed the coffin on their acceptance of my talent. Actually, the accident sealed coffins. The result was me cutting off my parents.
“Tell me about Iris,” I asked. Violet got an all-knowing smile on her face and beamed up at me from her seat. “Who is this everyone that’s so interested in her?”
“If you’re asking if she has a boyfriend, she doesn’t.” Violet shook her head, a sad expression crossing her face. “I never understand it. She just doesn’t attach. She’s so considerate, compassionate.” Violet sighed. “She’s like my sister from another mister, only prettier than me.”
“Oh, don’t kid yourself, Violet, you’re very pretty.”
“Violet,” Iris’ voice croaked from behind me. “Maybe you could set Riordan up at a station? Or is it Charlie today? I’m having trouble keeping up with the different sides of you, Mr. Riordan.”
“Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed,” Violet muttered, lowering her eyes and raising her coffee for a sip. “I brought you a coffee,” she said after taking a hearty swallow of her own, intentionally brightening her tone. Iris glared at her friend, muttered a thank you, and exited the waiting area again without an additional word or her coffee.
“Jeez,” Violet exhaled.
“So much for a sunny disposition,” I mumbled, smiling back at Violet to soothe the sting of Iris’ harsh tone. “I think I’ll go find her and ask her to set me up instead.” I rapped my knuckles on the counter and turned to walk away, but not before I heard Violet mutter, “I’d like to measure your disposition.”
I chuckled without acknowledging her and turned the corner for the space I hoped was reserved for the stations. Rounding the doorway, I almost smacked into Iris. Her body was just inside the frame, her back plastered to the wall, eyes closed.
“Iris,” I whispered as if I’d disturb her. Her lids opened slowly and her face pinked. “What are you doing here?”
“Don’t flirt with Violet,” she snipped.
“I wasn’t flirting with her.” I hesitated a moment, my eyes scanning her face before settling on her lips. She licked them, turning them a shade darker. I swallowed, gulping down the desire to taste her again. It had been a mistake, I told myself. Not one I regretted, because she tasted divine, but one I dismissed because I shouldn’t have taken advantage of her after meeting her minutes prior.
“You…just…don’t,” she closed her eyes, cutting me off from that pretty purple-blue color I too openly admitted was my new favorite shade. I’d accent my own inked body with that color if she’d smile at me like she did last night. My body had once been a shade of black and blue, and I never wanted to be that color again, but for Iris, I just might do anything. However, solid black was safety. Iris was too colorful, like Violet said. Her arm was a full sleeve of vibrant designs. Koi fish, brilliant and orange, jumping out of a turquoise-purple sea. A stunning sun of yellows and golds, and the red blossom I’d seen on many Hawaiian trees. Her arm looked like a box of sixty-four Crayolas melted onto her skin. Yet it was striking, encompassing every color of the rainbow and then some.
“Why not?” I leaned forward, my breath brushing her lips. Her eyes fluttered open, and that amazing periwinkle color captivated me. I made certain I was close enough that I was all she could see. “Answer me.” I exhaled, leaning closer. My lips thirsted for hers. She smelled like lavender, cedar and something I couldn’t define, but the combination hinted at a summer rain. My forearm came to rest against the wall near her head. Her breath hitched.
“Violet gets everyone she sets her sights on. She’s sweet and flirty, and I don’t want you to encourage her.”
“So, is it for her sake or mine?”
“Yours. Hers…I…Maybe you could step back?” she breathed, but she made no attempt to push me away. In fact, her body language screamed come closer as her hips curled forward and her lower belly brushed against the front of me. She instantly felt how turned on I was. There was no denying it. My body wanted inside the rainbow before me, but something about Iris’ cloudy disposition today held me back. It was better anyway. I didn’t deserve rainbows and promises. Let the unicorns have them and be damned like me.
I pressed off the wall and swiped my hand through my bangs, combing back to my neck to rest at the base. My fingers itched to trace her, outline her features. She’d be the perfect sketch, and I twitched with the need to draw something.
“Maybe you could show me a station, so I could get set up and start working on some sketches?”
She nodded, but a dazed look filled her eyes. I
wasn’t the only one affected by whatever was between us. Only I sensed Iris knew it was safer to stay away from me.
5
Iris
I couldn’t think with him that close to me. He became the air I needed to breathe, and I cursed myself for such silly notions. I wasn’t getting involved with a human again. I’d already done that once. It had been over a year since I’d been in Chicago, and I refused to let my thoughts wander there. Just like the cold nip of winter off Lake Michigan, I froze my heart to the intimacy humans could give. It was safer for me in my line of work, anyway. Between the tattoo shop and Dear Iris and my position with…
“Iris?”
I blinked, finding Riordan still standing in front of me, staring. His presence filled my space, and I inhaled the male scent of him mixed with charcoal drawing pencils Was he Riordan or Charlie? I couldn’t reconcile the buttoned-up sweater man from the night before with this edgy, dark man covered in ink.
“Why the double personae?” I asked, pressing off the wall and leading him down the hall to an open station. I choked inside. That question was certainly the pot calling the kettle black. Living my own double life, I allowed only a select few to know the real me.
“Charlie is my name, but he’s who I used to be. Riordan is the name I prefer now. Last night was all for Cash. I promised him I’d be normal, whatever that means.” The words were said with dismay, as if it wounded him to be someone other than himself. At the same time, he struggled because he wanted to fulfill his promise. I understood promises.
“Why?”
“Why what?” he asked, brushing past me to inspect the chair. His eyes roamed over the instruments on a table as if they were long-lost lovers. His hand hovered over the tattoo gun.
“Why did you promise Cash?”
Eyes filled with more emotion than I could describe looked up at me. Suddenly, I felt I’d overstepped a boundary, and a chasm opened between us, but I wished to cross that divide and figure out the heart of Charlie Riordan.
“I promised Cash I would look the part for him. I also assured him I’d get a job, so thank you for allowing me this opportunity. I promise you won’t regret it, and I’ll try not to break promises…anymore.” He winced on the word anymore, as if he had a long, unfulfilled list, and the weight of that list was growing heavier and heavier.
“What about you? What part do you want to play for yourself?” I asked, continuing to cross the line. He stared up at me, those moss eyes softening.
“No one’s ever asked me that before. I don’t know who I am anymore, except when I’m sketching.” His eyes fell to a notebook and a set of pencils neatly collected in a cup. My brows pinched again in wonder at the things deep within this mysterious man with two sides and wonderful lips.
“Well, I guess you’d better get sketching then. I need you to know who you are if you work for me.” I winked to soften the words, and he smiled slowly at me.
Thank you, he mouthed, and the movement of those lips stunned me, as they had the night before. I started thinking of them on other places of my body…maybe his tongue sketching designs on parts of me. I shivered with the enticing thought.
“My pleasure, Charlie Riordan,” I whispered breathlessly and stepped back to allow him space to work.
Riordan weathered through our first week. Days could be slow, but evenings would make up for it. People, a teeny-bit inebriated, entered at the later hours, prepared to memorialize their Hawaiian visit. One night, we had a particularly rambunctious couple—they could hardly hold the pen for the consent form. I decided I didn’t need the money so much that I’d tattoo two drunken people who’d wake in the morning to regret it.
“We just met,” the red-haired girl gushed as she leaned on the arm of a burly man. “I want to remember you forever.” Her voice slurred as she looked up at him with heavy-lidded, puppy love filled eyes.
“You’ll remember me, baby, especially after tonight.” A burly man with a bald head leaned down to kiss her, only it was a full tongue onslaught, and the slobbering display made me gag, as if one of their tongues invaded my mouth. I looked away to find Riordan leaning against the door jamb to the hallway.
“You two look like you need a room more than a tattoo.” His words were intended to break them apart, but the open mouth sounds of suction continued, and I refused to look again. I had nothing against affection, but this was a whole other level. Riordan stepped forward.
“Hey man, maybe you should take it to a hotel.” He clapped his hands as a signal to separate. Burly-man pulled back, his lips glimmering with moisture to match the glassy look in his eyes.
“Tattoos first,” he grunted before lowering his lips for Gushy-girl once again. I cleared my throat.
“Actually, I don’t think you’re in any state to get a tattoo tonight.” This drew the man away from his new woman.
“I’m in perfect condition to have this woman’s name etched on my ass.” He smiled down at her, his moist lips eerie as they curled. “What’s your name again, baby?”
I rolled my eyes as the couple swayed in unison, and Gushy-girl giggled. She slapped his chest playfully before dragging it down to his waist.
“Okay,” I muttered, turning away in fear I was about to see more than I wished on display.
“Dude, come back tomorrow. Then we can tattoo. We’re almost closed,” Riordan offered, reaching out a hand to escort Burly-man to the door.
“The sign says you don’t close until ten. It’s only eight, and I want this girl on me.” He tugged Gushy-girl under his arm, and she squealed at the comment.
“I want to ride you like your motorcycle,” Gushy-girl interrupted and then she made a revving sound, only it sounded like a raspberry, the kind one would give an infant on his pudgy stomach. I bit my cheek, holding back laughter.
“Saddle up the guns, sweetheart,” he addressed me, and I shivered with the endearment. His eyes roamed my body despite hugging a girl under his arm. He winked. “You can do me next if you wish.”
“And on that note, we’re closed.” Riordan stepped closer, placing a hand on the man’s arm.
“Hey!” Burly-man shouted, snatching his arm away from Riordan. “Don’t touch me.”
“Man.” Riordan held up his hands in surrender. “It’s time to leave. We aren’t tattooing you two tonight.”
Burly-man didn’t look at Riordan but spoke to me over his head. “The sign says you’re open.”
Riordan stepped around him and pulled the string. The neon light flicked off.
“Now we’re closed,” he said. Everything after that happened in a flash. Burly-man reached for the light. Riordan grabbed his arm. Twisting it at the wrist, the man’s forearm was pinned behind his back in an instant, and his face plastered inches from the hot neon. Riordan was a decent-sized man. Six plus feet and solid, but Burly-man had twenty pounds on him and stood inches taller.
“Can you read?” Riordan asked.
“Fuck you,” the man growled.
“Nope, it doesn’t say that, but thanks for the offer. I think that’s what your girl is for.” With that comment, the big guy grew more agitated, attempting to wrestle out of Riordan’s hold. The struggle was real, but Riordan held him so tightly, it was like one trying to unscrew the stubborn lid on a jar. The man wasn’t budging under his hold.
“Get the door,” Riordan barked at Gushy-girl, who suddenly quieted and stumbled toward the entrance. Riordan slid the man across the window glass before pulling him back and launching him out the open space. As soon as she exited, Riordan turned the lock, but the impact of something against the glass jolted my body. A heavy fist came at the glass again. Riordan didn’t flinch. He only stood still watching the man pummel my glass door once again. On the third hit, the glass cracked.
“That’s it.” Riordan unlocked the door and opened it just as a fist stretched forward. That time, Riordan caught it in his open palm and punched the man with his opposite hand. The sound of cracking bone filled my small waiting area, an
d Gushy-girl and I screamed in tandem.
I raced around the front counter, watching as Riordan followed the man into the small entrance alleyway. Continuing to pummel the drunken man, Riordan seemed out of control. Anger was a viable emotion that filled the space between my business and the Chinese trinket shop across the way.
“Charlie!” I screamed, drawing his attention too briefly and providing the opportunity for a strike to hit him in the face. I yelled again, pushing the worthless drunk girl out of my way and attempting to slip between two out-of-control, fighting men. Thankfully, within seconds, the police arrived, at first cuffing both men.
“No, Officer Klupich, Charlie didn’t do anything. He works for me.”
“Got a call about a disturbance. Didn’t know you had a new employee, Iris.” My name rolled off his tongue in a wave of familiarity, and Riordan’s bloody face shot up to mine. His eyes blazed with heat, anger vibrating off his skin. His tattooed arms looked alive. The fire flaming, the phoenix flying. Ragged breaths sucked at his chest.
“This is Charlie Riordan. He belongs to me.” The words softened the expression on Riordan’s face, and his eyes blinked. His cheek began to swell, and his nose continued to bleed.
“However, this man refused to leave the premises after I refused to tattoo him. He’s drunk.” I had nothing against a good time except when it got out of control, cracked my window, and broke someone’s nose.
“Charlie.” The breathless sound of his brother filled the too-crowded alleyway.
“Shit!” Riordan spit.
“You promised.” With those words, Riordan shook his head, lowering it to face the cement at his feet.
“It’s not what you think,” he offered his brother, but the weak words were filled with an even weaker tone. His brother’s deep-green gaze was too intense. A strange need to defend Charlie rippled over my skin, but before I could speak, his brother added to his accusation.