The Strongest Steel

by Scarlett Cole

  “Modest too.” Cujo twisted the sketch of the tattoo on the table so he could see it better. “It’s for a girl, clearly. Gonna take a while. Who is she?”

  How to describe Harper? Where did he begin?

  “New client.” Trent watched Cujo trace his finger along the fiery edges. To talk about her situation with anyone, even his best friend, seemed like an abuse of her trust.

  “She already tattooed?” Cujo moved from the table and took a seat on the arm of the sofa.

  “No.” Trent pulled the drawing closer. It was crazy, but watching Cujo touch it irritated him. It belonged to Harper. And him. Something deeply personal between the two of them.

  “Everything okay, dude?”

  Best friend or not, Trent wasn’t ready to share his thoughts. “Yeah. Why?”

  “You’re being a bit binary in your responses. You seem kinda cagey.”

  Trent pursed his lips, picked up his pen, and started to spin it around his fingers. “Just not going into details. It’s her story, not mine.”

  “Does she know what it’s going to take to sit for this?”

  “No more than what she’s already been through.” The worst pain wouldn’t be physical. The true test would be when he put the tattoo machine against her back and drew the first outline. He could only imagine the emotional hell she would be in.

  * * *

  It was a dumb idea. Harper looked down at the white box in her hand and cursed. Trent had been so nice to her yesterday—insisting on getting her a cab home and even going so far as paying the driver in advance for her—that she’d wanted to do something to say thank you. The pastries had seemed like a great idea, but standing outside the studio now, Harper wasn’t feeling quite so certain.

  Taking a deep breath, Harper squared her shoulders and walked into the store. Every tattoo station had someone in it, some lying on their fronts and others seated, and there was a line of people waiting at the desk. Harper blanched when she spotted a bald guy getting the image of a brain tattooed on his skull. She looked away quickly when he smiled at her, revealing a set of gold teeth.

  A couple of young men were standing near the doorway engrossed in a booty-shaking rap video. A group of girls sat on the long, black sofa filling out pieces of paper attached to clipboards. Loud music blared and rock videos played on the flat-screen televisions as tattoo machines whirred in the background. Compared to the silence of the previous evening, it was an audible assault.

  A tiny young woman with bright purple, bobbed hair sat at the front desk, the phone tucked between her ear and shoulder as she furiously typed something into a laptop. Her hair matched her metallic purple bustier and long purple nails.

  Was Trent even here? Harper looked around until she saw the black baseball cap, the dark messy hair sticking out the back giving him away. He was doing the back of a man’s leg. A ferocious, fire-breathing dragon was taking shape, wrapping itself around the guy’s calf.

  “Hi. Can I help you?” asked the reception girl. “Do you have an appointment?” She leaned forward on the desk, revealing incredibly realistic swirls of colorful flowers up one arm.

  “Hey. No. I just … um … well, I came last night and saw Trent. He’s doing a design for me. I just brought these pastries by to say thanks.” Oh my goodness. How lame did this all sound? “I can see he’s really busy. Can I just leave them here and you can give them to him later?”

  The woman gave her a bright smile. “No way. You leave them here and Cujo the human vacuum over there” —she stabbed her pen in the direction of a huge, attractive guy with well-defined biceps, a shaved head, and a bar through his eyebrow—”will eat them before you get out of the door.”

  The man named Cujo looked up and blew a kiss to the receptionist that she returned with a poked-out tongue. He stared at Harper, a strange look of recognition crossing his face.

  “Trent,” the receptionist yelled over the music. “Delivery.”

  Trent stopped what he was doing and turned on his stool. He smiled at her, putting his machine down and leaning over to say something to his client.

  “Hey, Harper. What’s up?” he said, heading over to her. He pulled off his black gloves, tossing them in the garbage. He was wearing a black fitted shirt, the short sleeves highlighting his incredible arms, and dark jeans that hung low on his hips.

  “I brought these for you. To say thanks. For last night.” She saw Cujo look up from his station and raise a pierced eyebrow at Trent.

  “Can it, Cujo,” Trent barked, but he was smiling.

  Warmth surged through her cheeks. She was sure her face was bright red.

  “Crap, not like that. Just. You know what I mean.” Trent laughed, her humiliation now complete.

  He looked down at the pastry box she held toward him and licked his lips. “Mmm. I skipped lunch. What you got in there?”

  He put one of his hands over one of hers and used the other to open the lid. Her heart started to pound as her fight-or-flight mechanism kicked into high gear. A light-headed swirl came over her as the box shook in her fingers. He looked from their hands to her eyes, almost daring her to pull away.

  Trent leaned toward her, whispering, “We’ve done this before, Harper.”

  His hand was warm over the top of hers, and though blood rushed to her head, it wasn’t debilitating her as much as that kind of contact usually would. She took a deep breath.

  “Éclairs!” He took one out, taking a huge bite, his perfect white teeth cutting into the pastry. “Man, that’s good.” He seemed oblivious to her internal panic attack.

  “I didn’t know what you would like, so I brought you a bit of everything,” Harper finally managed to get out.

  “Seriously, seventeen kinds of thank you,” he mumbled with his mouth stuffed full of the sugary confection. “You didn’t have to do this.” He took another giant bite.

  She wondered briefly if his lips would be as soft as they looked. Trent smiled at her as she blushed, immediately embarrassed to be caught staring.

  “How are you after last night?”

  She looked around, very aware of the number of people in the small space. “Good. I think,” she whispered as she watched him put the last bit of éclair in his mouth before licking the chocolate and cream off his finger. How could a guy look so incredible doing something as terribly mundane as eating?

  Trent’s fingers brushed over hers as he took the box from her.

  Raised voices from the line of people behind her distracted him. She turned to see two girls arguing with Pixie about their wait time, a reminder of how busy Trent was.

  It had been silly to just stop by like this. And it was awkward. Harper nodded toward the door. “Anyway. Sorry for interrupting. I better get going.”

  Trent stared at her, brows furrowed for just a fraction of a second. A flicker of frustration crossed his face. “Don’t worry about interrupting. Ever. Sorry I don’t have more time right now. It’s kind of crazy today.” He nodded his head toward the sofa of waiting people. “You still coming by tomorrow to check out your design?”

  “Yes. I’ll get off at three. Can I swing by then?”

  “Sounds good. I’ll make sure I’m free. And Harper, I was serious when I said you should swing by whenever.”

  “Okay, well, I’ll see you then. Bye, Trent.”

  “Harper,” he called as she reached the door. She turned and watched him take another bite of pastry. “Remember. Anytime,” he said with a wink.

  * * *

  “Bye, Harper!” Cujo’s singsongy voice rolled over the top of the music.

  “F.U. Dude.”

  “Aw, come on! Cute chick rocks in with pastries to say thank you for last night. What else is a man to think? You’re asking for that shit. You gonna share whatever the hell is in that box?”

  “Nah. S’all mine, brother, and man, they taste good.” He made a big show of taking another one out of the box and eating it on the way back to his workstation.

  Laughing at Cujo’s
one-fingered salute, he offered his client one of the pastries—not because he was a nice guy, but because it would be downright rude to eat them all while the client lay on the bed waiting for his tattoo.

  It had been a surprise to see her standing there in his studio, and yet for some reason it seemed very right. It was like a million degrees outside. Most girls in Miami were wearing as little as humanly possible, but she still managed to look adorable in her white button-down shirt.

  Her fashion choices made a lot more sense now that he knew what she was hiding. He couldn’t imagine having something so heavy hanging over his life. What defined “getting past it”? Simply surviving? That didn’t seem enough. You weren’t over shit if it held you back from the rest of your life.

  Feeling guilty, he shouted at Cujo. “You can have one if you close for me tonight, dude.”

  The box was whisked out of his hands before he’d finished the sentence. “I’m supposed to be here ’til close anyway, you dumb-ass. Man, what did you do to warrant these anyway?”

  “The tattoo you saw this morning. It’s for her.”

  “No kidding. Really? What’s the story?”

  Trent swallowed hard. He and Cuj didn’t have secrets. They’d been best friends for way too long. Since the first day of kindergarten. And given that even he recognized he was behaving weirdly, it was only a matter of time before Cujo did.

  “Just leave it for now, Cujo. Here. Take the box to the fridge for me. I gotta get back to it.”

  Trent rubbed his hand along his jaw. The drone of his irons was usually guaranteed to distract him from everything going on around him, but he was certain that he wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about the intriguing woman who’d just walked away.

  Chapter Three

  Her lunch was threatening a revisit, as it had for most of the afternoon. Feelings she’d spent the last four years burying raced through her. God, if thinking about going to see the design made her feel so ill, how would she ever get in the chair?

  Harper stepped down off the bus. A police cruiser was parked on the road, the officers talking to a cyclist on the sidewalk. She dipped her head and hurried past. She’d never trust them again. If they hadn’t withheld evidence, or lied at her trial, he would have received a much longer sentence. The bitterness burned in her chest like acid.

  The walk from the bus stop to Second Circle only took a few minutes, precious time Harper used to settle herself.

  Harper pushed the door to the studio open, the coolness of the air-conditioning a blessing. The sofa was empty. Only two tattoos were in progress, and the music wasn’t pounding through her breastbone.

  “Hey, Harper.” The same purple-haired woman was behind the counter. “He’s in his office. Said to send you back.” She pointed down a long hallway toward the back of the studio. “Second door on the left. I’m Pixie, by the way. Sorry about yesterday. Wednesdays aren’t usually that crazy.”

  Harper nervously took the hand offered toward her and tried not to flinch as she shook it. “Thanks, Pixie,” she said with a tight smile before exhaling heavily.

  Breathe, she told herself. Breathe. She raised her hand to knock and yelped when the door swung open. Trent grabbed her arm with a laugh before she fell backward into the wall on the other side of the hallway.

  “Sorry,” he said, still grinning. “Didn’t mean to scare the crap out of you.”

  She felt tiny in his arms as he righted her. Her free hand was across her heart in a lame attempt to stop its pounding. Way to go on making a good impression. The warmth of his hand seeped through her blouse, burning her skin with his touch.

  “Come on in. I was just getting up to see if you were here yet.” Laugh lines crinkled at the corners of his eyes, and darn, if it didn’t make him look good.

  “I’m here. But, holy guacamole, I’m scared.”

  “Can I get you a water or something?”

  “Sure. That would be great.” He moved his hand off her arm and she immediately felt the loss of his touch.

  “Be right back,” he said as he left. “Have a seat,” she heard him shout from the hallway.

  Harper took a moment to look around the office. She’d always imagined tattoo studios to be grungy and dingy places, but she was happy to be wrong. The dark gray wool of the sofa was soft to her fingertips and the lime-green cushions were so plush that they beckoned her to fall down into them. She could imagine Trent sitting at the long table by the wall, focused on the laptop that was currently showing extraordinary artwork as a screensaver. Images of tattoo sleeves, covering from the shoulder down to the elbow or even wrist, flickered by. She wondered if they were all Trent’s work. In the middle of the room was a light table on which there were several jars of pens and pencils. The whole room was painted a soft gray. Wonderful vintage photographs of early burlesque dancers adorned the wall—girls who knew how to put the tease back in striptease. They had that classic retro style of the 1930s and ’40s, reminiscent of Bette Davis and Jean Harlow. From a dark-haired belly dancer in a bejeweled bra and sheer skirt to a stunning blonde with huge feathers and sparkling heels, they were seductive without being lewd.

  Sinking down on the sofa, Harper clasped her hands together. She didn’t need the cramp that would follow tonight from flexing them.

  Trent returned, sitting down next to her as he handed her the water. She popped the top off and drank as she watched him do the same.

  “I like your office.”

  “You sound surprised.” His mouth was turned up at one corner, revealing the cutest dimple.

  “No.”

  He raised an eyebrow at her.

  “Okay. Maybe.”

  “What were you expecting? A frat house dump?”

  “Honestly … something a little more … I don’t know … rock ‘n’ roll.”

  “Like skulls and red velvet?” He laughed, and Harper was suddenly embarrassed by her clichéd expectations.

  “You asked,” she responded with a small smile.

  “My sister Kit is an interior designer. She helped me with the whole place.” He looked around the room. “So. Ready to do this?” he asked. “This is the easy part.”

  Harper nodded. “I think I am.”

  Trent got up and went to the light table, flicking the light on. He reached over to grab the brown cardboard tube, flipped the plastic lid off, and pulled the papers out.

  He held out his hand toward her. “There is only one rule from this point on.”

  Trying not to overthink it, she reached out and took his hand and he lifted her to her feet.

  “What’s that?”

  His dark eyes looked deep into hers unflinchingly. “Total honesty. Once we do this, it’s going to be on your back a really long time. You need to love it. Not just like it. Not just decide it’s good enough because it covers up what is already there. You have to love every single piece of it. It has to speak to you. You won’t hurt my feelings at all if you don’t like it. We’ll draw it as many times as we need to so it’s perfect for you.”

  What he was saying made sense and addressed one of her own worries, not wanting to offend him if she didn’t like what he had drawn for her. “Okay. That, I can do.”

  He unrolled the artwork onto the table, the design slowly revealing itself to her. It was too much to take in. The colors drew her eye, and the beautiful lines of the lettering captured her breath. She lifted her hands to her face in a prayer.

  She could feel Trent studying her, scrutinizing her reaction. The first tear rolled down her cheek as she moved to stand in front of the sketch and touched it with two of her fingers.

  The sword, with its jeweled handle and detailing, was spectacular. The flames were so vivid and looked so real that her fingers felt hot as she stroked over them, yet the way they morphed into fiery flowers was beautiful. The stone was dark granite with sparks within it. And the script—it was perfect. The slanted italic script swirling through the fire simply stated “…strongest steel … hottest fire.” It w
as everything she had hoped it would be. She moved her fingers over it a second time.

  Trent came to stand next to her. “Like it?”

  “Like it? It’s exquisite,” she whispered, struggling to rein in her emotions. “I’ve never … I mean … shit … sorry. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Are you sure you can do this on me?”

  “Yeah. See this area here where it’s just flames? That’s where the two biggest vertical scars are. And this part here, where the rocks are, this will be where the horizontal scar is. We’re going to draw people’s gaze away from the scars by just shading here, making the focus the sword and text down the center. That’s where all the detail will be, the fine-line work. That’s what people are going to look at. Not going to lie, though. It’s going to hurt like a bitch.”

  “No more than it did when he did this.” Holy shit. Words like loquacious, garrulous, and voluble came to mind. Had she meant to say that? Unlikely. She didn’t talk about him. Ever. Unless she counted the one time she’d felt the need to share with Drea—and that had been a long time in the making.

  “What if I can’t do it?” Harper asked. “What if it’s too much?”

  “I’ll get you through this. I promise. If it takes fifty short appointments, if I have to come to your home, if I have to sic Cujo on you, I’ll get you through it somehow. We’ll figure it out.”

  They stood in silence as Harper continued to run her fingers over his design.

  Needing to lighten the conversation, she shook the thought of not being able to go through with it from her head. “Maybe I’ll be able to wear a bikini before the end of the summer.”

  “Now there’s your motivation. You go through with this and I’ll buy it for you.”

  Harper looked up at him. “No! You can’t do that. I’ll buy it.”

  “Yes, I can. You aren’t the only one who likes a bit of motivation.” He smiled at her, but his eyes were intriguingly inscrutable. Was he flirting with her or just being nice? It had been so long since she’d had even the remotest interest in someone that she couldn’t even tell anymore. He held out his hand to her.