by Anna Martin
“Yup.”
“I wanna go with Uncle Chris,” Cassie whined, her big eyes filling with tears as she wound a lock of hair around her finger.
“Not today, sweetie,” Lu said, reaching to take her daughter from Chris’s arms.
“No!” Cassie shrieked.
I sensed both a storm and a tantrum brewing and looked to Chris for guidance.
He beat me to it. “Do you mind if we bring Cassie, Chlo?” he asked.
She shrugged. “If you’ve got a suicide wish, it’s not my place to stop you tying the rope.”
“Be nice to your sister,” I said, although the words came out just as bored as hers.
“Come on Cassie-Bean,” Chris said, bouncing the toddler. “Find some shoes and you can come with us.”
As Cassie ran up the stairs (the kid only seemed to have one speed), Lu leaned up on her tiptoes and took my face in her hands.
“You’re more than a star,” she said, overdoing the gratitude just a little bit. “You’re an angel. You’re a god. You’re a god of gods.”
“Don’t thank me. Chris is the one who gets to look after her.”
We managed to bungle Cassie’s car seat into the back of my car and expressed very, very strong opposition to taking Carter with us as well, then escaped before Lu could pawn off any other children on us.
“Are we going for ice cream?” Chloe asked as she helped Cassie tie the laces of her bright pink Converse sneakers.
There was a sick sort of gratification in knowing that I was going to load two thirds of Lu’s kids with sugar before I returned them to her.
“That was the plan,” Chris said brightly.
“The only ice cream place around here is at the mall,” Chloe said.
Chris snorted with laughter. “So I’d heard,” he said, taking my hand over the gear stick and lacing our fingers together.
Fortunately, there was a parking space right next to the main entrance to the mall, so I didn’t have to drive around in circles for ages looking for one. As soon as she was released from her car seat, Cassie attached herself to Chris and started talking a mile a minute about school and ballet and something from the TV.
I hung back a little bit and let them lead the way, and Chloe fell into step next to me.
“I didn’t know you and Chris had exchanged numbers,” I said lightly.
She shrugged. “Do you have a problem with it?”
“No.”
“Then why mention it?”
I sighed, feeling like I was almost at the point where attempting conversation with my teenage daughter was something best avoided until she turned twenty-one. Then she flicked her eyes at me and looked so bloody vulnerable in that moment that I forgave her.
It also made me realise that maybe she needed someone like Chris in her life. He wasn’t a parent or a parental figure, and he was old enough to have experienced the big wide world and young enough to know what a fucking horrible experience growing up could be. He was gay, so he knew about going through difficult shit, and had tattoos, which made him cool and relatable.
“I don’t mind,” I said as we passed what I was sure was the second Gap since we’d entered the building.
It was completely out of character for me to reach for her hand and take it in mine. I hadn’t held her hand while we were out since she was about eight. But she let me, and didn’t complain when I brushed my thumb reassuringly across the soft skin between knuckles and wrist.
Of course, the moment was quickly broken when Cassie spotted the bright pink sign for the ice cream parlour, escaped Chris’s control, and sprinted off toward it, forcing the rest of us to chase after her before she fell over or got abducted.
I got the impression that Luisa probably wanted her back.
Chris snagged the last booth for us, and Chloe made her sister sit on the inside to reduce her escape routes. I sat opposite the girls and risked leaning my arm along the back of the booth so that if Chris leaned back, it would be around his shoulders.
When a waitress came over, Chris immediately asked for crayons for Cassie, and my heart stuttered in my chest for him. He didn’t want children, and thank God, because neither did I, but if he could have this sort of relationship with Cassie and Chloe, and maybe his brother’s children as well, it wouldn’t be such a huge waste.
“Shh,” Chris said, squeezing my knee. “I can practically hear you thinking.”
“I’ll tell you later,” I said.
He nodded and turned back to his menu card. “What are you having, Cassie-Bean?”
“Strawberry,” she said with authority, selecting a blue crayon to colour a gnome’s hair.
“Chloe? Before you say anything, I’ll tell you right now that if you try and order frozen yoghurt because you’re ‘watching your weight’, I’m going to get them to pour so much chocolate syrup on it that you’ll actually be sick.”
She smirked before answering him. “Mint choc chip sundae, please.”
“Good girl,” he said with enthusiasm. “Rob?”
“Chocolate and caramel sounds good.”
“It is,” Chloe said, surprising me by offering something to the conversation unprompted.
“That’s settled, then,” I said happily. “What about you?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Chris said airily. “I don’t think I’m in the mood for ice cream today.”
“What?” Cassie cried and slapped both her hands down on the table. “You have to have ice cream, Uncle Chris, it’s the law!”
He laughed and leaned into my side. “Okay. If it’s the law, then I’ll just eat your strawberry sundae, then, yes?”
“No,” she countered, sounding scandalised.
“But strawberry sounds so good.”
“Then have one of your own.” For a three-year-old, she was a surprisingly bossy, eloquent little madam.
“That sounds like a fantastic idea,” Chris said. Then, to the waitress who had just appeared, “Two strawberry sundaes, one mint choc chip, and one chocolate and caramel.” His voice dropped to a stage whisper. “Extra sprinkles on the strawberry ones, please.”
The waitress, an older lady with chin-length grey hair and a red hairband threaded through it, nodded and winked, joining the conspiracy, and collected our menu cards before leaving. I was quite happy to let Chris take charge of this particular excursion; he seemed to be able to easily juggle the attentions of all three people at the table with his limitless enthusiasm and energy, the sweet, childlike side of him shining through.
When our orders were delivered, I couldn’t help but laugh at the huge swirl of whipped cream on top of Chris’s dessert, covered in brightly coloured sprinkles and a shiny red cherry. Cassie’s eyes looked just about ready to pop out of her head.
“Looks good,” Chloe said with a little smile in my direction. “Thanks.”
After the ice cream, we walked off some of the calories, letting the girls drag us from one store to another but buying very little. Chloe needed new sneakers for the cheerleading squad try-outs and let me buy them for her as a good luck charm. Cassie got a new tiara to match her dress.
“We have spent far too long doing girly things today,” Chris said as we loaded up the car to drop the girls back home.
“I’ve probably got a couple of ideas for some boys-only activities later on, if you like?” I returned, keeping my voice low. It served the dual purpose of making sure the girls didn’t hear me and being something akin to my bedroom voice.
Chris smirked.
“I’m sure we can think of something, Professor,” he said with his tongue lodged firmly in his cheek.
“You,” I said, opening his door and giving him a light smack on the arse as he climbed in, “are trouble.”
Chapter 10
I was mid-lecture when a phone beeped; I scowled and let it disrupt the flow of what I was saying to make a point, but didn’t comment at the time. It was only when it beeped with a reminder that I realised that the noise was coming from my o
wn briefcase and not from my rather un-enraptured audience.
Since ignoring these things and pretending they didn’t happen is always the best policy, I continued on until the end of my lecture and physically crossed my fingers that it wouldn’t go off again.
It seemed to work, although I still didn’t dare to check the message until after the last of my students had filed out.
What are you doing on the weekend?
Of course the message was from Chris. Who else was going to be texting me on a weekday afternoon? I decided to mentally not answer that, and sent him a quick message back. It wasn’t my weekend with Chloe so I was pretty much free. We made tentative plans for Saturday afternoon, which would undoubtedly spill over into Saturday night if I knew Chris well enough, so I ended up staying in my office until nearly midnight on Friday to get all my work completed.
The arrival of my weekend was bright but bitterly cold, and I wished that there was a warm body next to me to wake up with. I thought about giving him a call and offering to take him out to breakfast, then thought better of it, then caved and sent him a text. I was trying so hard not to appear needy and/or desperate, but the man evoked both emotions so frequently I was afraid I was nothing but.
When he arrived to pick me up with a spare motorcycle helmet, I knew that this was the moment I had been dreading.
“Do you feel like being naughty?” he asked with a gleam in his eye.
“No,” I told him firmly. He only laughed.
“Come on, Rob. Live a little.”
I changed into jeans and a beat-up leather jacket to give me the minimum amount of protection if Chris managed to crash the bike. He wasn’t too impressed when I expressed my concerns.
“I’ve been riding since I was fifteen,” he said. “I’ve only ever crashed once, and then it wasn’t my fault.”
I gave him a dubious look.
“Honestly,” he said. “I’ll tell you later, after you’ve survived.”
“Thanks,” I told him. “You know how to just fill me with confidence.”
Still, I got a peck on the lips before he showed me how to adjust the helmet to fit me. It belonged to John, who had either a larger head than me or a lot more hair. I suspected the latter.
There was no point in asking him where he was taking me—he wouldn’t tell me, even if I begged. But it would be an understatement to say I was surprised at pulling up outside a tattoo shop. Tattoo studio. Whatever they call them now.
“Really?” I asked him.
Chris nodded. “I just want someone to hold my hand,” he said innocently, blinking his big blue eyes at me.
And how was I supposed to resist that?
The studio had a peculiar smell of ink and antiseptic. That, and the buzzing of what sounded like a swarm of angry bumblebees and the presence of a pink-haired, highly pierced young lady made me feel like an old, old man.
“Chris Ford,” Chris said to the young lady, who I took to be a receptionist. Of sorts. “I’m booked in with Payne.”
“Pain?” I said faintly.
He laughed and spelled it to me. The receptionist snapped her gum at us. It was the same colour as her hair.
“Take a seat. She’ll be out in a minute.”
“Payne is a woman?” I whispered as we took a seat on a wide black leather couch.
“She’s the best in the area,” he said. “I’m going to get my chest piece started.”
My opinions toward tattoos were changing the more I got to know Chris; his told a story, one about his life, his family and friends, the experiences that had shaped him. I wasn’t a fan of the idea of a tattoo on me, and I was pretty sure I’d be fairly unhappy if Chloe came home with one, but I could see the appeal. On some people.
Payne seemed, at first, to be a thoroughly sensible young lady, unlike her gum-snapping receptionist. Her rich dark hair was braided down her back, and she wore soft makeup, long socks, brogues, and a blue and white dress. It was only when she removed her thick knitted cardigan that I realised both arms were covered in ink from shoulder to wrist.
I tried not to stare as she led us back to her station, a long, black leather-covered table and a tiny, fingertip-sized pot of black ink.
“Is that all you need?” I asked, imagining pots of the stuff would be needed to cover Chris’s chest.
“Yeah,” she said with a small smile. “I’ll only do the outline today. The colour will come later.”
It took a while for her to finish setting up, to get the stencil aligned over the curves of muscle and bone that shaped Chris’s skin. I allowed myself to be pleased with the fact that she opened a new needle in front of us and threaded it through her machine and snapped on a pair of black latex gloves before asking Chris if he was ready.
“No,” I answered for him.
Chris just laughed. “Go ahead,” he said.
There was a black plastic chair next to the table, and I took my seat there and reached for his hand as the buzzing started.
“Does it hurt?” I blurted after a few minutes.
“It’s not so bad,” he said. “Not the worst. Not yet, anyway.”
“My chest piece was pretty rough,” Payne said. “But I’m a girl. And our anatomy in that particular area is obviously different.”
“Why do you have them?” I asked. “You’re so pretty.”
She glanced at me with a small frown. “I get that a lot,” she said carefully. “People think that girls can’t be attractive if they have tattoos. Or that they’d be more attractive if they didn’t. Do you think Chris would look better without his?”
“No,” I said. “I like them.”
“But it’s different on a girl?”
I was forced to reassess my views on modern femininity pretty damn quickly. “I have a teenage daughter,” I said after a moment’s hesitation. “I’m using that as an excuse right now.”
Payne smiled then, just a little bit. “I don’t blame you,” she said. “It’s a standard view that women with tattoos are still on the fringes of our society. It’s almost like we’re still in the 1930s, with the tattooed lady being the freak show at the circus.”
“I don’t think you’re a freak show,” I said quickly.
“Good.”
“Is your name really Payne?”
She laughed then, lifting her needle from Chris’s skin and throwing her head back. “Yes. Elizabeth Payne.”
“You don’t look like an Elizabeth.”
“I know. For this job, going by my surname works rather well for me.”
Our conversation drifted to other areas as Payne worked on the heart and crown and wings and fire that would eventually make up the bold design that stretched outward from his sternum to the tips of his shoulders.
“How long have you two been together?” she asked after a while. I looked at Chris and smiled.
“A couple of months.”
“Is that all? You act like you’ve been together forever.”
“We’re pretty tight,” Chris said. I liked that. I knew the modern connotations of the phrase, but to me, it always brought to mind keeping him close. Holding him tightly.
“Would you ever get a tattoo, Rob?” Payne asked. “One for your daughter, maybe.”
“No,” I said quickly. “My mother would kill me.”
“How old are you?”
“Too old,” I said, at the same time Chris answered, “Thirty-two.”
“Ancient,” I added. “And far too old to worry about what she thinks. But the fact remains that she would kill me.”
“Just a little one,” Payne said slyly. “What’s your daughter’s name?”
“Chloe,” I said. “And still no.”
“Rob was telling me once about living in Edinburgh when he was a kid,” Chris said and winced when Payne hit a sore spot. “His house was next to a church that was covered in gargoyles. I thought that would make a great upper arm piece.”
“Black and grey,” Payne said immediately. “Something that wraps ar
ound the bicep a little bit. Sort of coming out of the skin.”
“Exactly,” Chris agreed.
“It sounds wonderful,” I added. “But you’re not doing it.”
Chris squeezed my hand. “I thought you said you weren’t going to be a grumpy old man anymore?”
“When did I say that?” I demanded. “I like being a grumpy old man. It suits me.”
“He likes saying he’s old,” Chris said to Payne, ignoring me like I wasn’t in the room at all, “But really he’s just a hermit who likes books more than people.”