I watched him thinking for a moment and then he shrugged. “My brothers come over for poker every weekend. That’s fun.”
“I’m not talking about doing the same old boring thing every weekend. I mean, go do something that’s crazy and makes you feel alive.”
“You mean like bungee jumping?” He smirked. “I saw your photos in your house.”
“So, you’re too afraid to try something like that?”
“I don’t like heights.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re an engineer.”
“And there are safety precautions in place to make sure that everyone is safe at all times.”
“God,” I groaned. “Do you hear yourself? Safety precautions and poker. Where’s the fun?” He didn’t say anything, just kept chewing. “Look, how about this, since we seem to have so little in common, how about we both try doing something that the other likes.”
“You’re not going bungee jumping.”
“Obviously. I’m pregnant.”
“And I’m not jumping. That’s not safe. I’m not willing to risk my life for the thrill of falling to my death, only to be yanked up at the last minute. And that’s if the cord doesn’t snap. Have you seen the episode of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air where Trevor dies?”
“That was a TV show, and I wasn’t recommending anything as dangerous as that.”
He looked at me curiously. “Then what are we talking about?”
“I don’t know. How do you feel about tattoos?”
“This is ridiculous,” he grumbled. “And completely unsanitary. Do you know how many people die from getting tattoos?”
“They don’t die,” I corrected him. “They might get hepatitis, but they don’t die.”
“And so you think I should do this?”
We stood in the entryway in the tattoo parlor and checked out the designs. I smiled to myself as he squirmed next to me. It wasn’t asking a lot. Sure, it was permanent, but I wasn’t asking him to risk his life.
“It’s just…” he cleared his throat, pulling at his collar, even though it was unbuttoned. I turned to him fully and looked into his eyes. He looked scared.
“Are you afraid?”
“What?” He snorted and shook his head. “Why would I be afraid? It’s just a tattoo.”
“You look like you’re going to puke.”
He swallowed hard and shook his head slightly. “Let’s just get this over with.” He stalked forward to the counter and clenched his jaw hard. “I need a tattoo.”
“Do you have a design in mind?” the woman behind the counter asked.
“No.”
“Do you know where you want it?”
“No.”
“Color or black and white?”
“I don’t give a shit.”
She leaned forward, resting her crossed arms on the counter. Her cleavage hung out of her tank top, but he didn’t even seem to notice. “Is there anything you do know?”
I walked forward and slipped my arm through his, trying to comfort him. “We’ll just look around at some designs.”
She shrugged, like she really didn’t care. “Fine, but he only has one opening for tonight, so you have about fifteen minutes to decide. Then you lose your spot.”
“Fine, just give me that one,” he said, pointing to the barbed wire tattoo image that was hanging on the wall. The woman glanced at it and then gave a bored look to Eric.
“Original. I’m sure Decker’s gonna be thrilled to do that one. Again.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
She quirked an eyebrow at him. “Seriously? That was popular when I was in high school. Twenty years ago.”
He cleared his throat. “Whatever. It’s simple.”
I had to agree with the woman. It wasn’t that it was a bad design, but it was so boring and unoriginal. I could remember half the guys in my graduating class going out and getting similar designs on their biceps. I really didn’t want Eric walking around with a cliché tattoo, especially when I was the one that talked him into doing this. The point was to make him like me, not to make him hate me even more than he already did.
“Maybe you should look around a little more,” I suggested.
“No, it’s that one. It shouldn’t take too long. Then we can get out of here and just end this night,” he muttered under his breath.
We took a seat in the waiting area. His right eye was twitching, just like the day I told him I was pregnant, and his leg wouldn’t stop bouncing. Maybe this was pushing him too far out of his comfort zone. Maybe this really was a bad idea. But before I could decide whether to call the whole thing off, we were called back and his arm was getting sterilized.
“So, DeeDee tells me that you want to go the boring route,” the man sighed, tossing the paper aside. “Fine. Ruin your body with this shit.”
“Wait, aren’t you going to use the stencil?”
“Don’t need to,” Decker said. “I’ve done this design so many times, I could do it in my sleep.”
He whipped out the tattoo gun and buzzing filled the air. Eric’s eyes went wide and sweat coated his upper lip.
“Scared of needles?” Decker smirked. Eric turned his head, but as soon as the needle touched his arm, he passed out. Decker looked to me with a quirked eyebrow. “So, are we still going through with this?”
“Yes, but not that design.”
Eric
I woke up to something wet being brushed on my arm and then I felt tape. I glanced down and saw that my arm was bandaged. “Did you do it?”
“Yep. Here are the care instructions,” Decker said. “Let me know how you like it,” he smirked. He got up and walked out, leaving me alone with Katherine. She looked nervous, fidgety.
“What?”
“Uh, nothing. We should go.”
“What happened?”
“Well, you passed out-“
I shot her an irritated look. “I know that.” I glanced down at my arm again, noticing that the bandage was only on part of my arm. If he did the barbed wire tattoo, wouldn’t the bandage go all around my arm? “The bandage doesn’t go all around my arm.” My gaze shot up to hers. “Why does the bandage not go all around?” I asked accusingly. “What did you do?”
She backed up a step, holding her hands up placatingly. “Now, Eric, just hear me out. You picked out that terrible tattoo and I didn’t want you to hate it. This is permanent.”
“So, you chose for me?”
“It’s really good. I promise. You’ll really like it.”
I stood from the chair and stalked toward her. I felt like I was going in for the kill, which I very well could be, depending on what she had done. “What the fuck were you thinking? That’s permanent.”
“Which is why I chose a different design for you. The one you chose was awful. You would have hated it.”
“I hate everything about this. I never wanted to do this. You’re the one that insisted that I do this.”
“Only because I was trying to break you out of your comfort zone a little. I mean, you’re just so uptight.”
“So, it’s okay for you to permanently destroy my body to make you feel better about the way I look or how uptight I am?” I asked angrily.
“Look, I’m sorry, but I just wanted something that fit you-“
“Yeah? What did you get me? A tattoo of underwear wadded up?”
“No, but that would have represented you fairly well,” she snapped.
“Look, you were right,” I said, grabbing my shirt and pulling it back on. “We’re too different. I don’t know why I thought that we could make this work, but this right here shows that you have no respect for me, and you really don’t fucking understand me if you think it’s okay to pull this shit.”
“I guess you’re right,” she shot back. “It wouldn’t have worked. I only came on this date because you were all sad about wanting to be part of your kid’s life. It was clear from the night we met that it would never work between us.”
“Then I’ll take you home and we can call this what it was, a sorry excuse for a date.”
“Fine.”
I grabbed my suit jacket and shoved the tie in the pocket. We walked out of the tattoo shop, but even then, I couldn’t let my good manners slip. I held the door for her, and when we got to my truck, I helped her up into the cab. As I slammed her door, I shook my head. Sometimes I really wished that I could just be a complete asshole.
I dropped her off at her townhouse. She didn’t say anything as she got out of my truck, and she didn’t look back at me as she walked into her house and slammed the door. Fine. I didn’t give a shit anyway. I was so fucking pissed. Who did she think she was to change the tattoo that I picked? She didn’t know me. All she knew was that I was her child’s father. We didn’t have deep, meaningful conversation.
I sighed when I pulled in my driveway and saw that my brothers were home. They knew I was taking her out tonight, so they were probably going to grill me about it when I got inside, especially about the fact that I was home so early. Fuck, I didn’t want to deal with this right now.
I walked up the steps and as expected, Joe stepped out with a huge grin on his face. “So, I’m guessing you didn’t try to close the deal.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
I shoved past him, grimacing when my shoulder brushed against his. My hand instinctively went to my arm and Joe noticed.
“What happened? Did she beat the shit out of you or something?”
“No,” I said tersely.
“Then what happened?”
“Nothing. Can we drop this?”
“You don’t have to be so salty. I’m your brother. You can talk to me.”
I didn’t want to talk to him about this, but I also saw an opportunity for myself, a chance to not have to deal with his shit if I played my cards right.
“Fine,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “I’ll tell you what happened, but you have to talk like a normal person for the next month.”
He glared at me. “Not cool, Hunty.”
“See? Shit like that. My name isn’t Hunter or anything close to it. Why the fuck would you call me that?”
“It’s just a saying. Like when you walk around and call Will bro.”
“I say that because he’s my brother,” I said testily.
“Whatever. Fine, I’ll agree to speak like a normal person, only around you, for the next month, if you tell me what happened.”
I noticed how he took the extra time to make sure that he didn’t speak like a Millennial that whole time.
“Fine.” I jerked my head for him to follow me. We went inside and Andrew met us in the kitchen.
“How’d the date go?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows at me. “It’s kind of early to be home.”
“She coerced me into getting a tattoo,” I said angrily.
“And you didn’t think that was a littles sus?”
I glared at Andrew. “What?”
“Suspicious,” he said slowly. “She said she wanted you to get a tattoo and you just went along with it?”
“Look, it was obvious that we didn’t have anything in common, so we made this sort of deal that we would do something the other liked, as a way to get to know each other.”
“She totally played you,” Joe grinned. “She was just trying to make you get out of your comfort zone. That’s so-“ he grinned wide, but when I shot him a death glare, he cleared his throat and thought hard about his next words. “Cool.”
“Really?”
“What? You want me to speak like a normal person. I’m trying.”
“Let’s see it,” Andrew said excitedly. “Man, it’s like she put a tramp stamp on you or something.”
“It’s on my bicep. That’s hardly a tramp stamp.”
“Yeah, because getting tatted by a woman is so not cool, said no one ever!”
I took a deep breath and blew it out. I just needed to get this over with. Then I could get the fuck away from these morons and drown my misery in beer.
“Show us that tat,” Joe urged. “What did you go with? I bet it’s lit.”
I unbuttoned my shirt and started to strip it off. “I don’t know. I picked out a barbed wire tat, but apparently, she decided that it wasn’t good enough.”
“Wait, where did you go?” Andrew asked. “No tattoo artist is going to just ignore what you want.”
“I don’t know. Some place in Monee. The guy’s name was Decker.”
“Decker?” Joe’s face lit up and then he started laughing. “Holy shit. She took you to a biker shop. Now I gotta see this tat.”
I wondered how he knew who Decker was, but that was a question for another time. “I didn’t actually see the tattoo getting done,” I admitted after a moment.
“Because of the needle?” Andrew asked. He huffed out a laugh, pulling his lips between his teeth as he tried not to laugh. “Sorry, I forgot about your…aversion to needles.”
“Look, I don’t actually know what he did. All I know is that it’s not what I picked out.”
“Thank God,” Joe snorted. “Barbed wire is so…old.”
“The thing is, I’m scared to look at it,” I admitted. “I mean, it’s a permanent thing and…well, what if it sucks?”
“You can have it removed. I mean, it’ll suck, but it’s not like it can’t be done.” Joe reached forward and pulled at the bandage. I turned away, not wanting to see what it was. “Fire.”
“What? She tattooed a fire on me?”
“No,” he said frustratedly. “It’s…awesome.”
“Really?”
“Totally,” Andrew agreed. “She did you a solid, man. Totally lit.”
“Then just say it’s really awesome,” I snapped. “We talked about this,” I said to Joe.
“Why doesn’t he have to agree to it?” Joe argued.
“Because I just want to piss you off right now.”
I walked into the downstairs bathroom and flicked on the light, taking my first look at the tattoo. I was shocked. It was completely badass, and was actually perfect for me. It was tattooed to make it look like my skin was peeled back and it was showing what was underneath. Inside were a bunch of cogs, just like in a machine. She had completely nailed down who I was with just this one tattoo. I was an engineer and she just showed me she knew exactly who I was. Fuck, I was an asshole.
“Damnit.”
“You don’t like it?”
I sighed, turning to Joe. “No, I do. I just realized how much of an asshole I really am.”
“You could have asked me. I would have told you.”
I flipped him off and walked away. Now I had to figure out how to apologize to her, and then, how I was going to make it up to her. I had a feeling that this would require a lot of begging, something I wasn’t very good at.
Katherine
“You did what?” Chrissy shrieked.
“Look, I know it was kind of a shitty thing to do. I mean, when he passed out, I should have just canceled the appointment, but I saw this really awesome design and I wanted him to get it.”
I took a bite of my sandwich and refused to look at her. The cafeteria was full of other things to look at. Things that wouldn’t be judging me for the bad decision I made last night.
“Yeah, but he obviously didn’t want it to begin with. A tattoo is permanent.”
“I know, okay? I know I screwed up, but he didn’t even bother to look at it before he got pissed.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Yeah, I gotta say, I’m on his side with this one.”
“It was a really awesome tattoo,” I grumbled.
“Look, I get that you were trying to bond with him, but you don’t do that by forcing someone to go to the extremes you would. Men are like scared animals. You have to ease them into situations that they don’t like. He actually seems to be handling the baby thing a lot better than the tattoo thing. Maybe it’s for the best that this date ended so badly.”
“Believe me, I know that and now
so does he. Neither of us has to pretend like this might go somewhere because it’s more than obvious that it would never work.”
She shrugged a little. “Or it just shows how inflexible you both are.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, he did go there with the intention of getting the tattoo, but you didn’t like what he chose.”
“Because it sucked! It was barbed wire. I couldn’t let him go through with that.”
“He wouldn’t have had to go through with it if you had just listened to him when he said he didn’t want a tattoo.”
I grumbled under my breath. She may have had a point.
“Look, you can’t try to change the man. He’s in his mid thirties. He’s not going to change. You can either accept him for who he is or you decide he’s not for you.”
“My point wasn’t to change him. I was just trying to show him some of my life. That was the whole point behind the whole thing, was to get to know each other better.”
“But you’re judging him for who he is. Have you tried to get to know him any? I mean, you have all these preconceived notions about him, but you really don’t know anything about him, and frankly, with that attitude, you’re never going to. And he’s going to be in your life for a long time.”
“So, you’re saying I may have been too hard on him.”
“Well, let’s see,” she said thoughtfully. “You got upset because he showed up to your baby appointment dirty, but then found out that he’s a contractor and was out on a job. You didn’t like it that he showed up at your house, even though he just came to work things out with you. And then there’s the fact that you thought he was too uptight for wearing a suit on your date.”
“Well, who does that? It wasn’t like we went to a five star restaurant!”
“He was trying to look nice for you. Why is that so bad?”
I sighed, knowing she was right. “So, what you’re saying is that I’m a bitch.”
“I’m saying chill the fuck out and get to know him better. This doesn’t have to turn into a romance, but maybe you should know who your baby daddy is before you decide he’s a terrible person.”
Maintenance Required: A small town romance (The Cortell Brothers Book 1) Page 12