by Anna Martin
Shaun reached over and squeezed Max’s shoulder. “If you need anything you can call me, you know that? I can come back here, or we can talk on the phone. Right?”
Max nodded. “Thanks. I was really stressed about everything before I got home, but now I’m here, it’s better. I can see for myself that my mom’s okay.”
“Good.”
Shaun leaned back so their server could deliver their burgers, and neatly changed the subject so they didn’t have a private conversation overheard.
“The studio looks great, by the way.”
“Sorry,” the server said, brushing her hair from her face. “Are you Max? From Sweetwater Ink?”
“That’s me,” Max said with a winning smile.
“I keep meaning to come talk to you about a tattoo I want. Everyone says you’re amazing.”
Max wriggled so he could pull a business card from his back pocket. He’d started carrying them around everywhere now.
“I open again on Wednesday,” he said, passing her the card. “But if you want to drop me a message or look me up on Facebook, we can start talking.”
“That would be great. Sorry for interrupting. Enjoy your meal.”
“Man, you’re practically a celebrity around here,” Shaun said as he pounded on a ketchup bottle.
“The youngsters like me,” Max joked. “The older generation haven’t come around yet.”
“You’re coming to our cookout, right?” Shaun said, distracted as he covered his burger in ketchup.
“Tyler mentioned it, yeah.”
“Does that mean you’re coming?”
Max had already put the date in his appointment book so he didn’t accidentally book in any clients.
“Was planning on it, yeah.”
“Okay, good.”
“Are you bringing anyone?”
Shaun rolled his eyes. “Are you kidding me? Showing up with a girl would practically be like a wedding announcement.”
“You should try being gay,” Max teased. “My mom has never asked me when I’m getting married or having kids.”
“There’s plenty of gay in my life already.” Shaun stuffed a forkful of fries into his mouth, then spoke around them.
Max definitely wasn’t about to tell Shaun about his brother. He would give his best friend some more time to come to terms with some more gay in his life.
It was still light outside when Max pulled up outside Tyler’s house on Monday night. Tyler’s house reminded Max a lot of the home he’d grown up in; it was small and modest but packed full of character and energy and love. Dinner was early because of June needing to get to bed, and Max honestly wasn’t bothered. He was still reeling from being invited.
When he knocked on the door, arms full of dessert rather than pizza this time, he heard the regular pounding of little feet on hardwood floors, and then June answered the door.
“Hey, Mr. Max,” she said, sounding out of breath. “Daddy said I could answer the door.”
“Hey yourself, Juniper.” He waited for a moment. “Can I come in?”
“Oh! Yes. Sorry.”
He helped her close the door and put the chain on the lock, then made his way through to the kitchen when June took off upstairs.
“Hey,” he said softly, smiling at the sight of Tyler in an apron, vigorously poking at something on the stove. Because June wasn’t around, he risked kissing Tyler’s cheek.
“Hi.” Tyler turned and leaned in for a proper kiss on the lips.
“I brought strawberries and ice cream.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“I wanted to. Let me put this in the freezer before the ice cream melts. I stopped at a stall on the side of the road where some kids were selling the strawberries.”
“Off Lynch Street?”
“That sounds familiar.”
Tyler rolled his eyes. “Someone called it in yesterday, complaining that the kids were selling without a permit. I had to go fix it.”
“What a bunch of spoilsports.”
The freezer was full of premade meals, each carefully labeled. Max guessed Tyler’s mom was responsible for them and made a mental note to make fun of him about it later. He found space to tuck the tub of ice cream in and put the strawberries in the fridge.
“I much prefer dealing with that over domestic disputes,” Tyler said. He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Sorry. Some things just get to you, you know?”
“I know.”
“Help yourself to something to drink,” Tyler said, clearly wanting to change the subject. “This should be ready in a minute.”
“What are we eating?”
“Honey garlic chicken. And rice. With broccoli. Not that June will eat broccoli, but I’m working on it.”
“Sounds delicious,” Max said, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge. “Can I help with anything?”
“No, June already set the table. Or she told me she did, anyway.”
“It looks set.”
Max set his water down on the table and stepped up close behind Tyler to gently massage his shoulders.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“Yeah. Sorry. Today has been crazy, and I really wanted tonight to be good.”
Max gave his shoulders a squeeze. “It’s already good. Don’t worry. Do you want me to go get June?”
“Please. Can you ask her to wash up too?”
“We can do that.”
Max had never been upstairs in Tyler’s house. The house was very much a home—a little worn in, a little messy, but with pictures of Tyler and Juniper everywhere. Max paused on the stairs to look at a picture of a much younger-looking Tyler, cradling a newborn to his chest, his lips carefully pressed against her head.
“Juniper?” he called when he finally tore his eyes away from the picture.
“Mr. Max?”
He stopped in the doorway to her room. He’d been expecting a pink explosion and was surprised to find the room painted lemon yellow with daisies on a border around the middle. The sheets on the bed were printed with pictures of Moana, from the Disney film, and the bookshelf in the corner of the room was groaning under the weight of what must have been hundreds of books.
“You can just call me Max, Juniper,” Max said, smiling at her as he leaned against the doorframe. She was surrounded by half a dozen dolls and dozens more tiny pieces of clothing. “We’re friends now.”
“Then you should call me June,” she said seriously.
“Okay, June.”
“Have you been practicing ASL?”
She didn’t need to know how many hours he’d stayed up in front of YouTube videos, frantically cramming to try to bring himself up to her speed. He was now slightly more confident that he wouldn’t embarrass himself quite as badly when June broke out the flash cards.
“I have. We can practice together later, okay? Your dad said dinner’s nearly ready.”
Max was always a little surprised at how easy it was to talk to Juniper. She didn’t act like some other kids he’d interacted with before. Whether that had something to do with growing up without a mom or just living with one adult, or if she’d inherited that stoic nature from her father, Max wasn’t sure. But he liked the kid a lot.
She even tried some broccoli with dinner. Just a tiny bite, and screwed her face up at the taste, but she tried it when Max made a big fuss of how delicious it was.
That night, June didn’t go to bed quite as easily as she had the last time Max came over, and Max crept halfway up the stairs to listen to Tyler reading her one bedtime story after another before she finally settled. Not that he minded.
When Tyler finally came back downstairs again, he looked exhausted.
“How are you doing?” Max asked when Tyler collapsed onto the couch next to him.
Tyler turned his hand over so it was palm up, facing Max. Max could take a hint—he reached over and threaded their fingers together.
“This being your big gay crisis?”
Max was relieved when Tyler laughed. He didn’t want to make fun of Tyler, but he also desperately needed to lighten the mood.
“I don’t think Josh ever had a crisis. Neither did Toby, by the sound of it. They’re both so secure in their sexuality, and in their relationship. It’s really nice, actually. I’ve been jealous of them for a long time.”
“Because they’re so open, or…?”
“Because they have each other,” Tyler said with a little quirk of his shoulder that spoke volumes. “They were together for about five years before they got married, then waited another five years before they found a surrogate and had the twins.”
“How long were you with Victoria?”
“I proposed after we’d been dating for about a year,” Tyler said, not looking at Max and fiddling with the hem of his shirt. “She was a good Christian girl, so we did what good Christian kids do and got married after we graduated, and June was a honeymoon baby. An unplanned honeymoon baby,” he amended wryly. “I never intended for us to have kids that early.”
“Ah.”
“I haven’t been in a relationship since Victoria,” Tyler said. “I didn’t have sex for almost five years.”
“Okay. That’s not…. Tyler, that’s not something to be ashamed of.”
“I’m trying to confess, here,” Tyler said with a self-deprecating laugh. “I’m an emotionally stunted thirty-two-year-old man, who has very little relationship experience, no game whatsoever, and has already committed my whole life to another person.”
“If that other person is June, you know that’s fine by me. And I like the fact that you don’t have game,” Max said. “I’m not saying I want us to jump straight into a serious relationship. We should definitely date for a while, figure out if this is right.”
“It feels right,” Tyler said.
“You say that now. But we might be horribly incompatible. Plus, you’re still having your big gay crisis. I totally wouldn’t blame you if you decided you want to go out into the world and see what delights the gay community has in store for you.”
That, at least, made Tyler laugh.
“It’s not like Sweetwater has much of an LGBT community. Or Richmond. I’d need to go to—hell, probably Pittsburgh or DC for that. And I’ve never been the sort of person who dates lots of people. Not that I’m opposed to the idea, or people who do. I just….” He shrugged helplessly. “I find someone I like and I stick to them, I guess.”
Max was not about to tell Tyler just how much that idea terrified him. He’d purposefully kept his dating life casual. Even when he was in a more serious relationship—that one time—he’d never gotten as far as living with a boyfriend before. Max wasn’t one for examining his own flaws too closely, but he was always aware when he was growing up how lonely his mom was as a single parent. He’d never wanted anyone to break his heart the way his dad had broken hers.
“I need to keep this light,” he said instead. “Just for now, okay? You have June, and your whole family, and I just got back here. I need….”
“I’m not going to rush you into anything,” Tyler said quickly. “You should probably know that I won’t be dating anyone else, though.”
“Okay. That’s not a problem for me. It’s not like there are lines of people waiting to date me, anyway.”
Tyler leaned over and gently kissed his cheek.
With June asleep upstairs, that was probably as far as anything was going to go tonight. Max was more than okay with that. He let his head drop to Tyler’s shoulder and leaned into his side, content to relax and just be for a while.
Chapter 12
Tyler finally found time to book his tattoo appointment with Max a few weeks after they’d tentatively started dating. He couldn’t help but feel nervous, not about the design or the tattoo itself, more about being shirtless in front of Max for as long as it took to finish. He’d definitely not lost that fifteen pounds he’d gained after becoming a father. Almost seven years ago. It was probably time to do something about it.
He arranged to be Max’s first client of the day on a weekday, meaning Hallie wouldn’t be around and it was less likely Max would get walk-in appointments. They were late getting to school that morning after Juniper had a meltdown over what shoes she needed to wear, and Tyler had a headache blooming behind his eyes.
Instead of going home and doing the chores that really needed to be done, he parked in front of the bakery and dug a book he’d started reading months ago out of his messenger bag.
“Hey, Deputy Reed,” Kendall said as he walked into the warm, delicious air of the bakery. She stopped in her job unloading pastries into the display chiller. “You look different out of uniform.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“It was trying to be,” she said. “Sorry. You look nice. How was that?”
“Thanks,” he said with a laugh.
“What can I get you?”
He ordered a latte and a chocolate croissant, remembering Max’s advice to get a decent breakfast in before he got tattooed, using that as justification for starting his diet tomorrow. Then he sat at a little table at the back and read his book for an hour and ignored everything in the outside world.
He hadn’t done that in a very long time.
Tyler’s phone buzzed with a reminder for his appointment, and he was glad he’d thought to set one, otherwise it was entirely possible he’d be late despite only being just down the street from the studio.
He stuffed his book into the back pocket of his jeans and took his empty mug and plate back to the counter, then waved to Kendall before he left.
Max had the door open and music blaring out of the studio, and Tyler caught him dancing around as he set everything up.
“Morning,” he said, raising his voice over the music so Max would hear him.
Max jumped out of his skin. “Jesus, Tyler, don’t do that.”
“Sorry,” Tyler said, grinning. “It’s not my fault you were too busy shaking your ass to see me.”
“You saw the ass-shaking?” Max asked sheepishly.
“I was admiring it, actually.”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that and move on.”
Max went and turned the music down and closed the door. After a moment, he flipped the sign to Closed.
“I don’t want any distractions,” he explained when Tyler raised an eyebrow at him.
“Fine by me.”
“Okay, take your shirt off, and we can get started,” Max said.
Tyler winced as he pulled his shirt off over his head and tossed it on the bench. Max stared for a moment too long, and Tyler fought the urge to flex. Even though he wasn’t as toned as he once had been, he needed to stay fit for his job, so he hadn’t descended into total dad-bod.
He was going to tone up if it was the last thing he did.
“Where are we putting this thing?” Max asked as he snapped on black latex gloves.
“Here, I think,” Tyler said, tapping his fingers to his chest.
Max came to stand in front of him and held up the stencil, then moved it around, squinting at Tyler’s chest.
“I think it might work better if we put it higher, actually,” Max said. “Just because your chest hair is quite dark, and it’ll grow back over the tattoo, covering part of it. If we put it higher up, just below your collarbone here….”
“That sounds okay.”
“I’m going to put it on and you can have a look. We can always move it if you’re not happy.”
“Okay.”
Max carefully pressed the stencil to Tyler’s skin and smoothed it out with his fingertips. He was concentrating intently, and Tyler didn’t want to think about how closely Max was looking at
his body. Tyler definitely wasn’t used to being looked at like this.
“What do you think?”
Tyler stepped up to the mirror and cocked his head. “I like it.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, you’re right. The design fits in that space better.”
“I like it too. Hop on the bed for me.”
Tyler did as he was told, flinching at the cold leather at his back. Max had already selected the colors for the tattoo, the bottles of ink set out like soldiers in a row. He watched as Max poured tiny amounts of each color ink into miniscule caps.
“You don’t need more ink than that?” he asked.
“No, a little tattoo ink goes a long way. It’s different from illustration inks.”
“Huh.”
When he was done, Max adjusted the height of the bed, making Tyler lie back, and swapped his gloves before testing his machine.
“I’m going to go slow,” he said. “Tell me if you need a break.”
“Okay.”
After a second of hesitation, Max leaned in and pressed a quick, hot kiss to Tyler’s lips. Tyler appreciated it.
Tyler thought the noise of the machine was maybe the worst part—the harsh buzz vibrated through his skull. He felt hyperaware of his elevated heartbeat, of how his chest was moving with each breath.
“Breathe,” Max said with a laugh.
Tyler took a deep, cleansing breath, then closed his eyes.
It didn’t hurt, not exactly. The needle was sharp, but it was more of a scratching sensation than the hot pain he’d been expecting. After a few minutes he started to relax.
“So you said you’ve had this idea for a while?” Max asked.
“Yeah,” Tyler said. “I wanted to get her name tattooed on me the day she was born, but the nearest tattoo studio at the time was all the way over in Louisville, and I didn’t want to leave her for that long.”
“Well, for selfish reasons I’m glad you waited.”
Tyler smiled. “Me too.”
“Did you choose her name?”
“No,” Tyler said. He’d sulked for ages about it too. “We knew she was a girl, and we were arguing between Juniper and Hazel for months.”