by Cora Brent
“I love you,” I said.
Steph opened an eye and grinned. “I love you too, you freak.”
I lightly smacked her ass. “In response to your insolence I’m tying you up next time.”
She sat up. “That sounds fun.” She looked around for her clothes but they were all in far flung locations. “You really think my work clothes are slutty?”
“Princess, you could wear a lawn and leaf bag and I’d think it was slutty.”
Steph gave up and grabbed a throw blanket from the couch. “I’m turning on the light now.”
“Okay.”
“The blinds are still open, Chase.”
“So they are.”
“You just going to sit there with your dick hanging out?”
“Sure. Dicks need to breathe too.”
Stephanie cracked up and flopped on the couch. She took an interest in the bottle I’d been drinking, picking it up and sniffing. “Root beer?”
“Yup.”
Contrary to my offhand bravado, I didn’t really want to parade around naked in front of my crazy college neighbors so I twisted the plastic rod hanging from the patio door until the vertical blinds closed.
Stephanie was watching me. “You sorry to be leaving this place behind?”
I swiped my boxers off the floor and pulled them back on before joining her on the couch. “It’s been a nice stretch. We’ve been here what, three and a half years?”
She nodded and looked around just as a pack of roaming ASU students started making a racket out in the courtyard.
“I’ll tell you,” she said. “I won’t miss all the noise. Won’t miss all these kids.”
“We used to be these kids.”
“And now we’re us.”
“Hmm.” I thought about that. “I guess our old bones will sleep easier at the new place.”
“You’re old. I’m not old.”
“You’re nearly a quarter of a century old, sweetheart.”
“Yes. But you’re a mere four years away from the big three oh.”
“Ouch.”
She played with her hair. “It’ll be quieter.”
“You sure about that? Some of those brooding suits we saw when we left the rent deposit looked a little sketchy.”
Steph laughed. “They did, didn’t they? I haven’t even thought about packing yet.”
“Why would you? We’ve still got close to two weeks.”
She snuggled against me and I slung my arm over her delicate shoulders, kissing the top of her head. We were moving to a trendy up and coming artsy neighborhood in downtown Phoenix. After graduating from ASU, Steph had put her law school plans on the back burner and had taken a job as a financial analyst. She’d been commuting from the east valley for the past year. Now that I had just graduated and had been offered a position teaching history at a high school in the Phoenix district, it seemed like a good time to rearrange things a little. I wouldn’t mind rearranging things a lot; rings, marriage, the whole deal but I wanted to be bringing home a solid paycheck with benefits first. We hadn’t even talked about it in a while. I guess somehow we were afraid of disturbing what we had.
I ran my fingertips up and down her arm. “You hungry?”
She gave me an arch look. “What are you offering?”
“I grabbed some Chinese food from Magic Garden. It’s in the fridge.”
“You get pepper steak?”
I snorted. “And she asks if I got pepper steak. Of course I got pepper steak, Steph. Do I look like I’m new here?”
We sat on the floor of the kitchen and ate cold Chinese food out of the white paper cartons. Best damn meal ever.
Stephanie yawned and rested her cheek on my shoulder. I set my carton of Chinese food down and wrapped my arms around her.
“I tire you out already, baby?”
Another yawn. “It’s not you. Long day. What time is it?”
“A watch doesn’t go with this ensemble.”
She looked me over. “What ensemble?”
“Exactly.”
She squinted at the clock above the stove. “Only eight o’clock. Hey, you’re hanging out with your brothers tomorrow night, right?”
“That’s the plan. With one thing or another it’s been a few weeks since we’ve been able to be in the same place. Haven’t seen the boys since the night of my graduation. I’m sure we’ll just shoot the shit at the tattoo shop, maybe head to dinner and a bar. You want to come along?”
She shook her head with a smile. “No. Far be it from me to interfere with the Gentry boys.”
“You couldn’t interfere with the Gentry boys. You’d only enhance them.”
“Go with Cord and Creed. It’s fine.” She crept over to the fridge and stowed the carton of pepper steak on the bottom shelf. “Think I’ll leave that for leftovers tomorrow night when I’m sitting here all by my lonesome.”
I grabbed her. “Let’s get a puppy.”
“What?”
“When we move. New place allows dogs up to forty pounds. I already checked.”
An odd look crossed her face. “Chase.”
I collected her back into my arms. “If you had a puppy you wouldn’t be lonely on the rare occasions I go somewhere without you. He would be so cute. We could name him Gentry.”
She tipped her forehead into my chin. “Yeah. We could.”
“Steph?”
She gave me a quick kiss. “We’ll talk about it another day.”
I got my arms under her and lifted her from the floor. “In the meantime, let’s make a night of it and go crazy. We can roll out the futon and watch a baseball game.”
She settled against me. “That sounds wonderful.”
I carried her into the living room, grabbed an extra blanket from the closet and pushed the futon into a reclining shape. For the first time tonight I noticed that she was a little pale and the protective instinct surged in me. I laid her down beside me, covered her carefully with the blanket and switched on the game. It was one of my favorite things about being us; we were just happy to be in the same place together. Before I met Stephanie I’d never had anything like it. I fucked with random enthusiasm and vaguely wondered if I’d ever find something worth a second look.
We fought sometimes, Stephanie and I. We yelled and cursed and stomped around, but always found our way back to each other before any damage was done. As I absently ran her long, curly blonde hair through my fingers I tried to imagine my life without her and couldn’t.
Saylor, my brother’s wife, once told me that love was unpredictable. And irreplaceable. Saylor was usually right. Lying here with the girl I loved in my arms was about as close to heaven as I could get and still be earthbound. There’s no way for me to know if it’s the same for all men. My brothers had found it. I’d found it. That right there said something meaningful, that a set of no-good boys born to a trashy small town family could somehow earn their places in the hearts of incredible women.
Stephanie seemed to sense my thoughts were burning deep. She took my hand, kissed my knuckles and then opened the blanket she’d tied around herself so we were lying skin against skin.
Honestly, I would have been in the mood for more fun and games but Steph fell asleep after two innings. When I put my mouth on her body she merely stirred and sighed in her sleep.
So in the end I just kissed my princess gently and then carried her to our bed so she could rest.
CHAPTER FOUR
CORD
“She wants what?”
“Side by side skulls.”
“And she wants them where?”
“On her ass cheeks.”
“Fuck, really?”
“She wants them to appear in a way that when she squeezes them together it looks like they are kissing.” Aspen turned around and kindly pantomimed by pointing to her own skinny ass, clad in orange cargo pants. She pursed her lips and made a kissing noise.
I sighed heavily and straightened my back, which was a little sore from being h
unkered over Deck’s desk all morning, going over the books.
“So they’re skulls, right?”
Aspen was enjoying this. Her brown eyes practically gleamed. “Right!”
“Then they do not have lips.”
“Nope.”
“So how the hell can they kiss?”
Aspen considered. “I suppose they will just kind of press their exposed teeth together and grin.” She jokingly stuck the tip of her tongue through the small gap between her own two front teeth.
I snorted. “Awesome. Brick can’t take care of it?”
“Brick is busy. Brick is inking an eye on the back of a bald head.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “Yeah. This hell-for-leather dude who rolled in an hour ago with half the desert stuck to his clothes and a homicidal look on his face. Apparently he’s a friend of Deck’s.”
I smiled at the mention of my wild cousin. Deck Gentry looked like one of the roughest men on the evolutionary scale but he’s got just about the best heart around. Right after my girls were born, Deck rented a vacant storefront down the road from the university, announced he was opening a tattoo shop and promptly insisted on making me part owner. Deck’s been in the habit of doing me colossal favors all my life. He’s as much a brother as Creed and Chase in every way that counts.
“If he’s Deck’s friend he’s all right.”
Aspen cocked her head. “Have you heard from him?”
“Deck? He called yesterday. I told him I didn’t want to hear from him again for a while.”
Deck had worried he was leaving too much on my plate before he embarked on a two month round-the-world trip with his girlfriend, Jenny. She’d always wanted to travel and Deck surprised her the night of her graduation a few weeks ago with news of the trip. They left for India the following morning. Before he left I assured him I could handle things just fine and I meant to do just that. Deck deserved to have the time of his life with the girl he loved.
I grabbed a pen and sketchpad. “Guess I better get to sketching some ass skulls. Tell the client I’ll be out in fifteen.”
“Oh!” Aspen clapped her hands together. The absurd giant pink bow that sat atop her blue hair wobbled. “I almost forgot. She wants wings too.”
“Pardon?”
“Coming out of the sides of the ass skulls. She wants them to resemble black feathery ears.”
I threw the pen. “You better not be making this up.”
“Hell no, Cord. My creative talents are reserved for my man. Hey, you want Brick to pick you up something from Pita Palace? He’s running down there as soon as he’s done with Baldy.”
“Nah, I’m closing up at six and having dinner with the boys.”
“Oh dear,” sighed Aspen as she slumped against the office door. “You can’t just inflict all that Gentry testosterone on the town without warning. If I wasn’t already so passionately attached I might swoon.”
“Swoon away, kid.”
“Only if you’ll catch me. I feel so lightheaded.”
I chuckled. Aspen liked to give me a hard time but she was completely in love with Brick. If you thought about them separately they were an odd pair; the crew cut former military man and the colorful wild child. But when you saw them together it somehow made complete sense.
“I think you’ll recover,” I told her wryly and started my sketch.
It was Deck’s idea to name the shop Scratch and it’s been in business going on three years now. In that time we’ve built up a brisk customer base, mostly through word of mouth. Deck never considered himself much of an artist so these days he only sat down to ink when we were in a tight spot. Besides me, the hulking ex-Marine Brick was the other full time artist on staff. But lately we’d been busy enough to toss around the idea of hiring someone else. Aspen was around part time handling the front desk, the phones and other administrative crap.
It didn’t take me long to get a pretty decent sketch worked up. I could hear Aspen’s chirpy voice in the front as she entertained the client.
When I was satisfied that I had a solid mockup of the ass-kissing feathery skulls I headed out there, sketch in hand.
The woman was too skinny, blonde, wearing a gray tank top that did nothing to mask the tracks on her arms. Junkies aged too quickly so it was difficult to estimate her age but I would have guessed her to be in her mid thirties. Her eyes were sharp though, meaning she was off the habit, at least for a while. I could tell the difference. My own mother was cut from the exact same cloth.
“You must be Cord,” she said pleasantly and her smile gave me a sudden chill. The ruined teeth, the blonde hair, the way her clothes hung on her tired flesh, it all reminded me too much of Maggie Gentry.
None of that was apparent though in the way I smoothly shook her hand and led her down the short hall. Along the way I passed a tiny room where Brick was inking the biker. It was kind of a comical sight at first glance; two bulky, muscled men, one lying face down on a thin cot and the other looming closely over his bare head while he worked on coloring the details of a giant blue eye.
I led the woman into the adjacent room and she immediately settled into the black hydraulic chair.
“Just so you know,” she said shyly, “I can pay you. I have cash.”
“Good,” I nodded and pressed a button to get the chair into a reclining pose.
She smiled at me and again a shudder rolled through my soul. A memory, a sense of foreboding. Whatever it was I willed it away. I didn’t want to think of my mother right now. My hometown of Emblem was only an hour’s drive from here but I hadn’t seen my own mother in years. She’s never met my wife or laid eyes on her grandchildren. It’s only because Deck keeps tabs on things down in Emblem that I know she’s still alive.
I know he’s still alive too. My father. Benton. Of course he is. Evil has a way of remaining obnoxiously healthy.
The woman asked me to call her Mary and made herself right at home by getting bare-assed and showing me where she wanted the tattoo before I was able to toss her a modest gown. She wasn’t trying to be sexy about it, which was a relief. It wasn’t unusual for female clients to assume that because I worked on skin they ought to offer me some of theirs. The wedding ring on my left hand didn’t seem to bother them. But I’d become a master at slyly shoving women away and letting them know they didn’t stand a chance without being nasty about it. At least I knew Saylor wasn’t worried. She shouldn’t be, ever. There was no such thing as a woman who could tempt me to look away from my wife.
Mary was pleased with the sketch. Indeed, she wanted the skulls to be cheek to bony cheek right smack on her derriere.
“At least someone oughta be kissin’ my ass,” she howled, cackling, for a split second resembling a skull herself.
She didn’t explain the significance of the wings coming out of the skulls. It might have had some symbolic meaning, maybe Mary’s way of hoping to fly off and leave her crappy current life behind. Or it might have an expectation of early death.
I checked my watch before I started working. It wasn’t a small job but not a huge one either. I could get it done this afternoon and be finished before the boys showed up. A low rumble in my belly reminded me I hadn’t eaten since breakfast but I knew it would subside. When I was laying ink I went into a zone where the world receded. I wondered if Michelangelo had felt the same way when he worked, although I did have to admit that Mary’s ass was not exactly the Sistine Chapel.
As I got the area prepped, Mary relaxed, extracted her phone and a pair of ear buds from her purse and soon began singing along to Aerosmith. It didn’t bother me.
But I did wish I’d put in a call to Saylor before I sat down. No particular reason. I just loved hearing her voice. Saylor centered me. She was the sun in my formerly troubled universe, her and the girls. The hour was just after lunch, which meant Cami and Cassie would just be getting out of their preschool class, all full of giggles and energy and loaded down with pictures to hang on the fridge. Sometime
s I gazed at my bright, vibrant little daughters and tried to remember if my brothers and I had ever been the same, if we were ever hopeful, carefree children. But those kinds of thoughts opened a door to the past and the years spent in the house of Benton Gentry were not a nice place to dwell on. My girls would never know that kind of terror. I would cut off my own hands before I would let any hint of my violent, deprived childhood get close enough to touch them.
A sense of longing tugged at me as I thought of my wife and daughters. I hoped I’d get home early enough tonight to see them before they fell asleep. Again I wished that I’d made a quick call to Say before stepping in here to tackle the job. But now that the task was underway I couldn’t very well leave Mary with her exposed ass in the air just so I could wander off and make kissy noises over the phone.
“You mind if I take a nap?” Mary asked, swiveling her skinny neck around and blinking at me.
“Be my guest,” I told her and even handed over a blanket for her to tuck beneath her head.
With Mary settled in, there was nothing to do but bend down and get to work. The woman’s skin was dotted with bruises, some fresh and angry, others faded and mottled. I hoped whoever had put them there was having a fucked up day. No man had any excuse to hurt a woman. I was gentle as I cleaned the area and tucked the paper gown in to cover the places I didn’t need access to. Once I started, time was immaterial. There was just the art. And even though it was a tacky concept being forged on the backside of a lost and tired woman, it still deserved to be as good as I could make it.
By the time I came out of my creative fog, nearly four hours had passed. I stretched and winced at the way my muscles creaked from remaining concentrated in one spot for so long.
Vaguely I’d been aware that other things were happening in the shop while I was working. I’d heard Brick and his big biker client finish up the job and then engage in some kind of macho hallway discussion about crossbows and guns. Aspen ran in. Aspen ran out. Aspen talked and sang and joked with Brick. When I was finishing up and critically appraising my work both Aspen and Brick peered in the doorway.