“It’s going to make the publishers happy, that’s for sure. Hey, since we’re finally on track with our deadline, do you want to start maybe talking about our secret project?” I’d been waiting to ask her about it all day.
“Abso-fucking-lutely.”
We took a break from writing a book to write another book. That was how we rolled.
“Can we come up with a better word for ladyparts for this one? I’m tired of pussy,” Raine said. Here we go again.
Raine gave her two weeks’ notice and we started work on our new book It was dark and intense and more lyrical than our previous work. It might even have a little bondage in it, if things went the way I thought they were going to go.
I’d talked to Declan via text and on the phone a few times, but he was so busy that we didn’t get much time. I couldn’t imagine having his life of working full-time, going to school and raising Drake. That would be a lot for anyone to handle, let alone a twenty-two-year-old. Most of the guys I knew around my age were still too busy getting drunk, getting laid and putting off figuring their shit out as long as possible. Not all, but that seemed to be the trend for most.
Friday night we went out with Angie to celebrate Raine quitting.
“To getting the fuck out of the corporate world!” she yelled, raising her shot. Blue had even mixed us a special drink for the occasion. I had no idea what was in it, but it burned like a motherfucker when it went down my throat and I choked on it.
“You need another,” Angie said, signaling to Blue to make another set of shots. “Hurry up, shot slave.”
Blue gave her a look and then shook his head. He would never let anyone else get away with what Angie did. Proof of his long-standing love for her that he would never admit to.
“You push my buttons, woman, and one of these days, I’m going to throw you out and not let you come back.”
Angie threw her head back and laughed.
“No you won’t. You love it too much.”
He just slammed the shots down and went to the other end of the bar.
“Hey, I’m getting a new tat, you want to come with?” she asked me. I’d also been pondering some new ink. It was like we were tat twins.
“Absolutely. Have you called Serenity?” Believe it or not, our tattooist’s real and legal name was Serenity Rainbow. Her parents definitely set her up for an alternative career.
“Yeah, she’s set aside time for both of us. I had a feeling you’d be up for it.”
“You rock,” I said, giving her a high five.
“You know it.”
“I think I want one too,” Raine blurted out. I nearly fell over.
“Are you serious?” I said as she grabbed her second shot, tossed it back and slammed the glass down on the bar.
“Yes, I’m fucking serious. Serious as, oh my God that is strong.” She squinted her eyes and coughed a few times. “Serious as that shot.”
“And how long have I been wanting you to get one?” I said.
“I know, I know. But I feel like now is a good time. You know, literary career taking off and all that.” It was true. Now was a good time, I had to admit.
“So what are you going to get?” Angie asked, downing her second shot with barely a blink. She had a strong constitution for alcohol. Must be those Irish roots.
“I’m thinking a small red rose. You know, Scarlet Rose?” It seemed so cliché.
“Hey, I have an idea. How about we get one together? Like, the same one?” I said.
“OMG, that’s awesome!” Raine jumped up and down and almost crashed into a guy trying to get to the bar. He gave her a dirty look and she just blinked at him and then turned her attention back to me.
“Okay, so what should we get?” I had my second shot and we moved away from the bar to find a place where we could sit and talk ink.
We went through a lot of potential ideas, and then Angie suggested something that had to do with writing.
“Like a punctuation mark.”
“An exclamation point?” Raine said, but I shook my head. I didn’t want that on my body.
“What about a semi-colon? It’s like a stop and a continuation at the same time,” I said. Raine’s face lit up.
“I love it. I seriously love it. Where are we going to get it? We should get it in the same place,” Raine said. I searched my body for a good place.
“What about here?” Raine said, pointing to the inside of my right wrist. I didn’t have anything there. Yet.
“Because you’re right-handed and then I’ll get mine on my left and we’ll be twinsies,” Raine said. We could totally bang our tattoos together and activate our Wonder Twin powers.
“Perfect,” I said and we decided we needed to drink on it, so Angie went to the bar to get us a couple of beers to chase the shots.
“Ugh, we shouldn’t have done those shots,” I said the next morning when I stumbled into the kitchen. Raine was slumped on the counter next to the coffee machine, whispering to it.
“Are you begging it to brew faster?” She looked at me with bleary eyes.
“No. Maybe. Ouch.” Our tattoo appointment was later, and then I had my date with Declan. Two good things I had to look forward to, but first I had to get all the booze out of my system.
“I’ll help you.” I rested my head next to hers and stared at the coffee pot. A few seconds later, it made a horrible sound and brown liquid ambrosia started pouring into the pot.
“See? It worked,” I said, and stood up to get two mugs. “You ready for your ink?”
“No. I drank so much because I was freaking out. I should have started drinking today instead. Why do I make these decisions? You’re supposed to be my conscience.”
“Um, I never signed up for that. I have my own bad decisions to make. And I’m not a paragon of good decision making.” Definitely not.
I handed her a cup and took mine black as well. We sipped in silence and didn’t speak again until we’d finished our first cup.
“Another,” Raine demanded, holding out her cup.
“I’m not your coffee bitch. Although, as I’ve said, we could hire one. We should do that now that you’re full-time, and since I’m full-time for now.”
She nodded and then winced.
“I think we could do that. Could we hire a hot guy and make him work shirtless?” Of course that would be where her mind would go.
“No, I think that’s illegal in this country.”
“I can work around illegal.” I was sure she could.
“Raine. It’s too early and I’m too hung over to do this with you right now.”
“Fine, fine. I’ll behave. I’m scared, though.”
“About the tattoo?” I went to the fridge to get something to eat for breakfast. Second to coffee was food that I needed. “It’s going to be so small that it will only hurt for a second. And it just feels like a really bad sunburn. Plus, I’ve managed to survive a bunch. No harm done.” I found some eggs and cheese and tomatoes and set to making some scrambled eggs. Raine got upright to help cut up some fruit to go with it.
The two of us had lived together so long, we knew each other’s movements and we could work without speaking. We had a symbiosis that I didn’t know if I could have with another person. Declan’s face appeared in my head and I pushed the image away. Declan and I weren’t going to be like this. We were going to be a brief bright blip in my life that I’d look back on fondly and tell my grandchildren about.
Oh well. I didn’t have to worry about that right now, which was the beauty of not having any definitions or expectations with Declan. No worry about the future.
But tattoos, those were permanent, and Raine was freaking about that permanency for the rest of the day. I had to calm her down about that and the pain.
“We don’t have to do this,” I said as we stood outside the She Slings Ink Tattoo and Body Piercing Studio.
“No. I’m cool with it. We’re doing this. Together.” She nodded jerkily and held up her hand. I t
ook it with mine and we walked in together.
“Blair!” Serenity screamed and shot across the store to hug me. She was one of the tallest women I’d ever seen and had the body of a supermodel without even trying. But her eyes were what drew you in. They were such a pale green that they were almost translucent, and in conjunction with her high cheekbones, she was so beautiful that it hurt to look at her. From the neck down, though, she was covered in ink, most of them she’d done herself, and her husband, Andrew, another tattoo artist, had done a lot of the others.
When I thought about epic love stories, I thought about Serenity and Andrew. They’d met when they were children and had been best friends who had always been in love with each other. I wanted to write a book about them someday. I’d gotten tattoos from both of them, but Serenity was my favorite.
“It’s been ages, I’d thought you’d found someone else,” she said, squeezing me.
“I would never.” We released each other and I tugged the terrified Raine forward. “We’re getting matching designs. This is Raine.”
“Oh my God, Raine!” Serenity threw herself at Raine, who looked like she’d walked into her worst nightmare. You’d think, living with me, she’d be okay with the whole tattoo thing, but I guess not. I’d never brought her here, but I’d talked enough about her that Serenity probably felt like she knew Raine. And vice versa.
“Hi,” Raine said, engulfed by Serenity.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I just feel like I’ve known you forever because Blair talks about you so much. That was really weird to hug you like that.” Serenity flapped her hands a little, making her look like a bird. I was sure she’d been one in a past life.
“No, no, I’m just nervous. This whole thing kind of freaks me out,” Raine said, motioning to the tattoo shop. Actually, for a tattoo shop, it wasn’t that scary. Serenity had an affinity for the 1950s, and she’d decorated the place to look like a soda shop turned tattoo parlor. The floor was brightly tiled and the chairs were covered in candy apple red upholstery. She’d even bought a few stools from an old soda fountain and set them up in the waiting area. I always felt comfortable here, like I was going to get a tattoo followed by a milkshake. She played old classics like Sinatra, Martin, Elvis, the McGuire Sisters and the Chordettes constantly.
“First tat?” Serenity asked, ushering us further into the shop so we could sit down.
“Um, yeah. Does that make me a loser?” Raine said.
“No, not at all!” Serenity said, having Raine sit down on one of the swiveling chairs. A bell over the door clinked as Angie walked in and I went over to meet her as Raine talked with Serenity and started filling out some of the paperwork.
Angie looked like she’d just come from the spa, but she always recovered from hangovers well.
“Is she tweaking?” she asked, nodding at Raine.
“Pretty much. We might have to hold her down so she doesn’t run away.” Raine gave me a deer-in-the-headlights look. It was worse because her eyes were so big and wide to begin with.
“Poor thing. You’d think after living with me for so long, she’d get the idea, but no.” I went to rescue Raine and we told Serenity what we wanted. She did a quick sketch and showed it to us.
“What do you think?” she said, holding up the small design.
“How much is it going to hurt?” Raine had already clamped onto me and was in the process of slowly crushing the phalanges in my hand.
“Oh, it will be a snap. Super quick. What really hurts when you get a tattoo is the color, and I’m barely going to have to do anything to fill this in. It’ll be over before you know it. Like the night I lost my virginity.” That made Raine laugh and I felt her ease up just a touch.
“You go first,” Raine said, but I shook my head.
“If I go first, you’re going to back out. You’re definitely going first.” I had Angie clamp her hands on Raine’s shoulders and I held her right hand as Serenity cleaned her skin and then applied the design.
“Are you ready?” Serenity asked as the needle buzzed.
“No,” Raine squeaked. “But yes.”
“It’s going to be good. Promise. And once you get one, you’ll come back for another. Just look at us,” Serenity said. It was true. Between me, Angie and Serenity, we had a massive amount of ink going on.
“Okay. Okay.” Raine bobbed her head and squeezed her eyes shut. The pressure on my hand increased so much that I wanted to scream. I was definitely in more pain than Raine was.
Angie started up the needle and Raine made a high-pitched whining I’d never heard before. And then it was done.
“You’re done, sweetheart,” Angie said, turning the needle off. “Not too bad, right? You feeling okay?” Raine looked like she’d been struck with lightning, her eyes wide and her face pale. Good thing the chair she sat in reclined, so if she fainted, she wasn’t going anywhere.
“I’m. Fine,” she said, exhaling slowly.
“Raine?” I twitched my hand and she finally let go of her death grip. It was going to be a while before I got the feeling back in that particular hand.
“What do you think?” I asked as Raine’s face went back to its normal color and her eyes lost a little bit of their terror.
She looked down at her wrist, which now had a tiny semicolon a little bigger than a quarter on it.
“Oh. It’s so cute.” It was cute. I loved the idea and couldn’t wait to get mine.
“Do me up, Serenity,” I said, holding out my hand, wrist up. Serenity went and repeated the process with my wrist and before I knew it, she told me I was done. Raine was still recovering and I almost wanted to call her out for being such a wuss, but that would have been mean. I’d cried when I’d gotten my first tattoo. It had been a lot bigger, but still. It could be a scary process the first time.
We sat and watched as Angie got a set of musical notes on her shoulder.
“It’s the first five notes of ‘Let it Be’ by The Beatles. My mom used to sing that song to me all the time, so it makes me think of her.” Angie had lost her mom a few years ago to breast cancer and had few commemorative tattoos for her. When people went off about how tattoos were frivolous, or gotten by drunk people or stupid teenagers, I wanted to tell them about that. How could you say it was wrong to remember your mother? Or to remember anything that happened in your life? I’d had that argument with my own mother too many times to count.
Angie’s tattoo was another quick one and then the three of us were hugging Serenity, promising to return.
“Please come back again, Raine. You have some beautiful skin. You’d make such a good canvas.” It was a compliment, but Raine didn’t necessarily see it that way.
“I don’t want to be a canvass,” she said as we left. “But it does look pretty cool.” I held up my hand and we pretend-bumped our tattoos together so that they didn’t touch, but almost did. “I’m starving. Can we go eat now?” Raine had only had coffee and a little bit of breakfast since she was so nervous, so I treated her to lunch. Angie bailed on us and gave me a vague reason, so I just assumed she was going to hang out with Blue. That was usually where she went when she didn’t want to tell me where she was going.
“So what are you doing with him tonight?” Raine asked me when we got home. Declan had agreed that I could plan our date tonight, and I wanted to do something fun and dorky and I’d seen a poster for the local high school’s production of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (my favorite musical of all time) and I’d picked up two tickets. Pre-show, I planned to take him to my favorite fancy restaurant that had an extensive appetizer menu. You could make a meal out of that, no problem. Plus, their fried calamari was to die for.
“That’s so cute. I’m sure he’s going to love it. Some guys wouldn’t go for that, but I have a feeling about him. He’s different.” Yes. He was.
“I hope he doesn’t hate it. I don’t know if I can date a man who hates musical theater.” Raine shuddered.
“Nor I.”
“So, what a
re your feelings about musicals?” I said when Declan picked me up later.
Declan wore a gorgeous steel gray suit, and I wasn’t sure if I liked it better on him, or crumpled on the floor. I’d hopefully get to see both.
“I’m not sure, but I have a feeling my answer will determine how the evening goes. I haven’t had much experience with it, to be honest.” Okay, that was an honest answer and he hadn’t said that he hated it. So we were in the clear.
“Well, then I guess this date is going to go well. I hope. If you hate it, just lie to me and I’ll pretend to believe you.”
“Fair enough,” he said, laughing. “And here’s hoping my offspring will stay healthy tonight.” Drake had recovered from his ear infection and fever, but Declan was still a little on edge about leaving his son. I didn’t mind one bit.
“No worries at all. Life happens.” He took my hand and brushed a kiss along the back of it.
“Have I told you that you look lovely tonight?”
“Um, you might have, but I wouldn’t mind hearing it again. And again,” I said.
He shook his head at me and turned on the radio.
“I got another tattoo today,” I said, holding up my wrist where I’d covered the new ink with a Band-Aid.
“Raine and I got semicolons to symbolize our writing journey together.”
“Very nice. I can’t wait to see it. You’re brave to get them. Don’t tell anyone, but I’m petrified of needles. I have to take an anxiety pill every time I get a shot.” Now that was hilarious, and something Raine hadn’t been able to find and put in the dossier. Those were the things that I couldn’t get enough of.
“Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me, Mr. Bennet. I’m sorry, I love calling you that. I know it’s weird and formal, but I’m an Austen fan, so, there you have it.”
He laughed. “I don’t mind at all. I like any part of my name coming from your mouth.” Oh, hell. That sounded damn sexy. Maybe we should skip the musical. I’d seen it performed enough times.