4
TENLEY
Hayden’s answering smile dissolved any final reservations, like I’d done him some great service by agreeing to look through a bunch of relics with him. Spending time alone with him was probably a bad idea on my part, but I couldn’t resist the temptation. And I didn’t want to. Over the past several weeks I’d tried to avoid him, but it had become too difficult. After so many months of self-imposed exile, I craved a connection with someone. His hard exterior made him safe–he seemed just as guarded as me. He tugged on my wrist and I relented, taking him to the pile of boxes with his name scrawled on them in the corner of the basement.
“I don’t know how much you’ll want to keep, but this is the stuff that was set aside.”
“You organized all of this?” He took two chairs from a dining set and offered me one. For someone so menacing, he had manners, aside from having no concept of personal space. I dropped onto the velvet cushioned seat as he did the same.
The week after I moved into the apartment upstairs from Serendipity I asked Cassie if she knew of anyone in need of some part-time help. The issue wasn’t money but too much free time. I’d relocated to Chicago in mid-August, more than a month before the fall semester began. While I was content to research my thesis and pre-read for my coming courses, it didn’t keep me as occupied as I wanted. I could only do so much until I met with my professor and that wouldn’t happen for another week or two. Cassie showed me the basement and gave me a job, solving her problem and mine.
“You should have seen this place before I started,” I told him as he opened the closest box. “I almost couldn’t get down the stairs, there was so much stuff.”
“I’ve been down here before; it’s like an anxiety attack of clutter. It looks a lot better now, though.” He rolled his shoulders, dusting off a Victorian-era candelabra. He made a face and looked for a place to wipe his hand. “You got a cloth or something around here?”
“Why? Afraid of a little dirt?” I joked.
“I don’t have a problem getting dirty,” he said with a sly grin. “I just can’t afford to go back to work looking like I rolled around on a basement floor.”
His velvet tone made it difficult not to read innuendo into the comment. Before the mental picture developed further, I stood up and crossed to the other side of the room. The dusting cloths were in the cabinet with the cleaning supplies. Tossing a couple to Hayden, I kept one for myself and sat back down beside him.
He was organized and methodical as he inspected each treasure, wiping them down with gentle hands. The care he took as he handled delicate pieces, even the things he didn’t want, gave me insight into the kind of artist he was. I imagined he worked on his clients with the same vigilant precision.
“You want to tell me what really happened to your hand?”
I peeked up at him, thankful my hair created a barrier through which to view him and still shield my face. I didn’t know why the question surprised me. It shouldn’t have. “Nope.”
He chuckled and remained quiet for some time, sifting through the boxes. He handed me the things he didn’t want, and I put them into an empty box. Each time he did, I surreptitiously inspected the artwork on his arms.
“Lisa tells me you have an idea for some ink.” Hayden stopped sorting to focus on me.
I nodded. I had already entertained showing him the design, thanks to Lisa. Since being near him made me feel like I was having heart palpitations, I couldn’t help but be wary. There was intimacy in committing art to skin. I already found Hayden unnervingly enticing for a variety of reasons, not the least of which had to do with his severe brand of beauty. Being around him more wouldn’t lessen that, and the piece I had in mind was no small thing.
“I’d be happy to check it out if you want to stop by the shop later.”
“I’ll think about it.” After a protracted silence I finally asked, “How long have you been a tattoo artist?”
“Close to six years. I started as a piercer when I was eighteen, but it wasn’t for me.”
“Why not?”
Hayden wiped his hands on a fresh cloth and tucked my hair behind my ear, tracing the shell as he did so. The ladder of helix rings clicked dully against each other. “You’d look good with an industrial,” he said softly. I shivered even though I suddenly felt hot.
He motioned to his face and poked at the viper bites with his tongue. “If they were all this kind of thing, it wouldn’t have been an issue.”
“What was the issue?”
“I’m afraid I’m not much of a sadist, and it takes a certain type of person to be able to stick a needle through a dick.”
Fortunately, I wasn’t holding anything breakable. “Okay. Right. I didn’t think about that.”
He laughed at my reaction. “I pierced for a few months before I started apprenticing to be a tattooist. For about a year and a half I had to do both. After a few years I built up a solid client base and a decent reputation in the business, and Chris and Jamie convinced me we should go out on our own.”
“So you opened Inked Armor?”
“We did. I was only twenty-one at the time, but it’s been four years and we’re still doing well.”
“You were so young.” I couldn’t imagine taking on that kind of responsibility at this point in my life.
He shrugged. “I’ve been on my own since I was eighteen, and it seemed like a smart thing to do. Anyway, I haven’t put a hole in anybody’s junk since we opened our shop.”
“So you’re not a fan of piercings from the neck down?” Heat climbed my chest toward my cheeks. I shouldn’t have asked that question, because all sorts of inappropriate images popped into my head.
“I didn’t say that.”
I opened my mouth, searching for words. None came.
“The ones from here down aren’t just decorative.” He ran his hand over his chest, down to his belt buckle.
“You’re not one for holding back, are you?”
He grinned. “It’s not really my style.”
I changed the subject. “So you like it? Being a tattoo artist?”
My curiosity was genuine, as was my long-standing interest in body art and art in general. It had played a significant role in my decision to pursue a master’s in sociology. It gave me a valid reason to focus on what most considered social deviance. After the crash I turned toward what I really loved—art and modification, delving deeper into subcultures and extreme factions. My advisor, whose school of thought was rather antiquated, seemed to have a difference of opinion on the direction my thesis proposal should take.
“I get to be an artist and not starve, so that’s a bonus. Some of the tattoos can be boring, standard shit, but the pieces I get to design? Those are the ones that make the job worth doing. I don’t think there’s anything quite as gratifying as creating art out of someone’s experiences. Well, some things are more gratifying.” He looked me over, his perusal blatant. “Are you hiding any ink under those clothes?”
“No,” I lied. I rooted around in a box to conceal my face lest he press for more information.
“I think you’d look good with my art on your body.” Judging from the rapacious gleam in his eye, his phrasing was purposeful. “Anyway, the offer stands. You should come by again when you have a chance, maybe stay longer than two minutes. I can show you my albums, and you can show me your idea for ink. Maybe I could work on you.”
“Okay, maybe.” I didn’t miss the dig at my boomerang visits, or that he’d noticed them in the first place.
“I’ll take maybe over no.”
I’d been working on a sketch for a long time; even before the crash I’d had several ideas for tattoos. Originally the piece had just been art, but it had changed in the past several months into a symbol of my loss. It would be rather revealing to hand something so personal over to Hayden.
“Did you design any of your own tattoos?”
“Most of them.” Hayden shoved the sleeve of his shirt up above his el
bow and held his arm out toward me, the inside facing up.
There was an anatomically correct heart wrapped in thorny vines set close to the crease in his elbow. Blood ran down the vines in rivulets, dripping from the thorns. Budding flowers juxtaposed the darkness of the piece, tempering it. As the flowers moved away from the heart, the tiny blossoms became more vibrant and open. Hayden rotated his forearm, and on the other side, the same vines traveled from his wrist to his elbow, but they were thicker. The ones at his wrist were dry and cracking, the flowers dying, petals falling off, but as they closed in on his elbow the flowers exploded into life, pulled into a wave of water. The head of an orange-and-white fish peeked out from his sleeve, the rest of the design obscured.
I reached out to touch a length of vine on his forearm and hesitated, seeking permission. “May I?”
“You asking to feel me up?”
“Um—”
“Sorry, you’re easy to rile, it’s hard to resist. Be my guest.”
He rested his arm on his knee, palm up, hand relaxed and open. He didn’t look all that sorry with the way he was smiling, but I was too curious, and he was willing. The muscles in his arm flexed when I traced the vines leading to the heart. The inside of his forearm seemed a sensitive place to tattoo. Wherever there was color, the skin was slightly raised, not by much, but enough that I could feel the dimension of the design.
“This must have taken a long time. Did it hurt a lot?”
“Pain is relative, isn’t it?”
I gave him a quizzical look.
“These—” He skimmed my ear. “They hurt, right?”
“Sure, but not much.” Disappointment followed when he dropped his hand.
“But there’s still gratification in the pain, yeah?”
I nodded, even if I couldn’t be sure how much I agreed with that statement. Hayden must have picked up on my uncertainty.
“Any kind of modification, whether it’s to alter physical features, like cosmetic surgery, or to decorate, like piercings and tattoos, cause some degree of discomfort. But that’s the point, isn’t it? It’s cathartic because it’s the promise of change in some form or another. My tattoos give the memory related to the art a place to exist outside of my head, on my body. At least that’s my interpretation, but not everyone feels the same way I do.”
Expelling pain by giving in to it held quite the allure. The reasons I wanted to put my own art on my skin were difficult to reconcile. I swiped at an inked droplet of blood, almost expecting to feel the wetness against my fingertip.
“It looks so real.”
“Jamie’s an amazing artist.”
“Lisa’s boyfriend?”
Hayden nodded.
On the occasions I’d dropped by Inked Armor he’d always been with a client, but I’d seen him and Lisa leave together many times.
“So he did this?” I asked.
“Most of my tattoos were done by either Jamie or Chris.”
“You designed them and they put them on you?”
“Yeah. Or we collaborated. The only one I didn’t design was this one.” He pulled up the sleeve on his other arm. It was covered in a black pattern I couldn’t decipher.
“How far does it go?”
“All the way up my arm and over half my torso.”
“What is it?”
“If you come to the shop, maybe I’ll show you.”
The idea of Hayden shirtless was like a shot of fire through my veins. I didn’t hesitate this time. “Okay.”
“That’s better than a maybe.”
He was openly flirting. As apprehensive as he made me, part of me enjoyed the nervous anticipation and the warmth under my skin. The heavy strains of a rock anthem came from Hayden’s pants, and he dug in his pocket. He looked annoyed as he checked his phone. Instead of answering the call, he silenced it.
A minute later Cassie appeared at the top of the stairs. The call he avoided had been Lisa; his client had arrived and she was still waiting for her latte.
“Duty calls.” Hayden hefted the box filled with keepables under his arm. “I’ll go through the rest another time. You’ll stop by the shop?”
“Sure.” I wasn’t sure at all. Talking to Hayden had only served to ratchet up my infatuation with him; indulging in his presence wasn’t likely to make that dissipate.
He gave me a look but dropped it. “Thanks for keeping me company.”
“No problem.”
In an unexpectedly tender gesture, he leaned down and kissed my cheek, those steel rings piercing his bottom lip treacherously close to the corner of my mouth.
I stood there long after he left, my fingers pressed to the spot where his lips had been. Warmth radiated out with the echo of sensation, moving down until it settled low in my stomach. I felt suddenly vulnerable as the vortex of emotion that followed threatened to lift me up and take me away. I hadn’t expected him to do that. At all.
If I’d been stronger, I would have left him to sort through things on his own. But I didn’t, and now I had this memory of his lips on my skin. As innocent as it might have been, it brought with it unexpected feelings. I hadn’t felt anything close to lust in almost a year. That one simple gesture of affection had awoken the dormant desire I’d been fighting since the first time he came into Serendipity.
Hayden was the opposite of everything I’d ever known. He defied convention at every turn, and it made him that much more of a weakness. He was not only inordinately gorgeous but intelligent and passionate as well. Beyond the hard exterior, the brash comments and flirtation, a sensitive side lurked. But, like me, he was closed off; his tattoos formed his walls. I knew all about walls. I had built my own. With him I wanted to let them down, if only just a little. It was a dangerous thing to contemplate because in doing so they could very well crumble completely.
Until now I’d thought I had been managing well enough, that I was making progress and moving on. But even after all these months, I was still so broken. This man could very well be my undoing.
5
HAYDEN
Early on Tuesday afternoon, Tenley—who still hadn’t stopped by since we hung out in the basement of Serendipity—left her apartment. The entrance to the apartments above was at the rear of the store. There was a narrow alleyway between Serendipity and the adjacent low-rise apartment building giving her access to the storefront. I liked it, because it allowed me to see when she was coming or going. Not that I was watching for her or anything.
Instead of going into Serendipity, she turned in the opposite direction and headed down the sidewalk. She was wearing a dress that hugged her curves but still managed to be conservative. On the plus side, it ended midthigh. She had great legs, the kind I wanted wrapped around my waist, or my head, whichever. I wasn’t picky.
After my dreams last night there was relief in seeing she was okay. My subconscious alternated between lurid fantasy and horrifying nightmares, which had been dominating my sleeping hours as of late.
I couldn’t get the images out of my head. The bad dreams weren’t unusual; there were past mistakes I couldn’t undo. The part that was messing with me the most was Tenley’s arrival in my subconscious and the way I managed to insert her into the clusterfuck of a nightmare. Usually they revolved around the same theme—death. In this dream, though, the loser from the bar hadn’t let her go. He’d pulled a gun and aimed it at her chest. I couldn’t get through the crowd to help her. I woke up before he pulled the trigger, but it didn’t make me feel any better.
That she had been in any kind of danger, imagined or not, left me unsettled and raw. Awake or asleep, I didn’t like the loss of control.
“Have you heard a thing I said?” Chris stepped in front of me, blocking my view of the empty sidewalk.
“What?” I asked testily.
“What’s up with you? You’ve been all over the board this week.”
“What are you talking about?” I leaned back in the chair and laced my fingers behind my head, feigning nonchalan
ce. His rare moment of perceptiveness stunned me. I hadn’t realized I was so damn obvious.
“If you were a chick I’d say you have PMS. Since you’re not, I’m saying you need to get laid instead, which brings me back to the original one-sided conversation I was having while you so rudely ignored me. I’m going to the peelers tonight, you should come.”
That meant The Dollhouse. Sometimes I believed the only reason Chris asked me to come was for company in his pit of moral decay. As if my being there somehow made what he did okay. Just because I tolerated his actions didn’t mean I condoned them. Not anymore.
“Seriously? Why there?”
“You need to ask?”
“I don’t know.” I wasn’t eager for a trip down memory lane, and there was a good chance I’d run into Sienna. I had successfully avoided her for the past year. I was inclined to keep it that way.
“Come on, there’s this new waitress I’m digging. I think I’m starting to wear her down.” He flashed a grin.
I could only imagine what his version of wearing her down would consist of, but the distraction in the form of visual stimulation might prove helpful. “I’ll think about it.”
I swiveled in my chair, turning back to my station to prepare for my next client. Tenley was gone anyway, and I doubted she’d stop by tonight. I shouldn’t have kissed her on the cheek. It was too fucking forward, which was laughable, considering the alternative scenarios I’d been entertaining.
It was just before closing, and I was inking an American flag on some guy’s ass. Most ass tattoos took place in one of the private rooms because the general public preferred not to show off their parts in a busy studio. But the guy in my chair flat out refused. Maybe he had a thing for exhibitionism, because he insisted on baring it all front and center in the shop.
The only benefit to the awkward situation was the chance to keep an eye out for Tenley. It was late by the time she came home. She looked in the direction of the shop and her steps faltered, like maybe she was thinking about coming in. She didn’t, though. Instead she continued down the narrow alley leading to the back of Serendipity. A minute later, lights came on in her apartment. It was the last I saw of her that evening, but that didn’t stop my mind from wandering in her direction.
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