“Okay.” He crosses his arms, turning to look at me head-on. “Then what’s the problem?”
Chewing on my bottom lip, I shrug. “Maybe there are better things we could be doing with our time? I doubt this is what you had in mind when you bid on me earlier.”
His eyes narrow, and he takes a step toward me. My heartbeat picks up, pounding like a snare drum inside my chest, resisting his magnetism even as it tries to yank me into him.
“You don’t know what I had in mind when I saw you at the gala.” Those gray irises grow heavy. Dark with something unspoken that I feel in my core. “Is there something else you’d rather be doing?”
My head shakes.
His jaw tics. “You want a tattoo, right?”
I nod, my throat tightening.
“Then you’re getting a goddamn tattoo. Stop making excuses, angel, and do whatever the fuck you want tonight.”
What I want and what I can actually have are very different things, I almost say. Desire unlike I’ve ever felt before surges up in my chest as he turns away, carding a veiny hand through his hair.
I wonder what his hands would feel like on my skin.
Gliding, touching, pleasing.
An image flashes of his lips on mine, traveling lower, slicking down my navel. I rub my thighs together, trying to relieve the ache between them.
My stomach twists, knowing these are fantasies I can’t act on, regardless of what he tells me. Aiden and I are from totally different worlds. He deserves better than what mine would do to him.
The pixie-haired receptionist comes out from the back with two clipboards in hand, lips smacking as she chews on a piece of gum. She shoves one at me and tosses a black pen on top, then turns to Aiden.
“You’ve been here before,” she says, tilting her head as if just recognizing him.
“Every time I come to the city. No one I trust more than Gio to slice me open.”
My face flushes and the receptionist runs her tongue over the stud in her upper lip, giving me a bland expression. “That’s not how tattoos work.”
Turning on her heels, she takes the other clipboard with her to the back, and I sit down on a bench in front of the window, filling out the questionnaire.
Aiden doesn’t come over, eyeing the glass behind me carefully, as if he’s afraid of someone peeking in and noticing him. I tap the pen on the edge of the board after writing my name.
“I used to own all your albums,” I say, breaking the uncomfortable silence that starts settling in around us. “Herculean Effort was my favorite, for a long time.”
One of his brows arches. “Oh yeah? The way you’ve acted tonight, I assumed you weren’t a fan.”
“I’m not.”
“Ouch.”
My head snaps up, eyes wide. He’s got his hand pressed to his chest, and he’s smirking. God, that fucking smirk. I drop my gaze to the silver chain around his neck, heat flooding my face.
“I didn’t mean it like that, it’s just… I don’t know, I guess I outgrew you.”
He snorts. “You’re bad for a man’s ego.”
Pushing my tongue against my cheek, I roll my words around in my head, trying to filter out what to say next.
I want to ask about his inspiration for his songs, if there’s a reason they have mythological undertones, as if he takes the public’s references to him being a modern-day Orpheus to heart.
Want to ask if it’s hard being talented and under constant scrutiny. I can’t imagine there’s much room for creativity under a microscope.
I mull over each potential question, trying to figure out what the old me—the wannabe groupie—would want to know most.
The receptionist returns before I can continue, taking the clipboard from me and holding out a manicured hand.
“License?” she asks after I’ve spent more than a few seconds gaping at the length of her glittery black nails.
How she gets anything done with those claws is beyond me.
Slipping the card from my purse, I place it in the center of her palm and hook a thumb in Aiden’s direction. “Can you make sure he doesn’t see that?”
Her dark eyes narrow, sliding from me to him. “Why?”
“I don’t want him to know my name.”
Aiden laughs, the sound loud as it echoes off the cement walls. The receptionist frowns, curling her fingers around my license, and looks back at me. “This feels illegal.”
Gio, a tall, burly man with a braided red beard and a silver bar through the bridge of his nose, returns to the front of the shop with stencils and a clear spray bottle. He steps into one of the cubicles and starts rustling around, though I can’t see what exactly he’s doing.
“It’s not illegal, Jenna.” Aiden rolls his shoulders, and I hate the way he says her name. “Just a little game we’re playing.”
Twin storms rake down over my form, traveling so slow on their ascent that it feels like a caress. My breath catches in my throat as he pauses at my lips, reaching up to scrub his jaw with the side of one hand.
Never in my life have I wanted so badly to touch another person. To be touched by them.
The longer we stand here, stuck in some sort of impasse, the heavier that want gets. It presses down on my stomach, flattening my insides until want morphs into need, and I’m tempted to launch myself across the room and into his arms.
I have no clue if he’d catch me, but it doesn’t matter, because before I have a chance, Gio calls his name and gestures for him to enter the cubicle. A few moments later, that buzzing sound from before picks up, and I clench my jaw.
The receptionist watches me while she photocopies my license, and I shift in my seat, her stare unnerving. She walks back over, handing me the card, and tilts her head.
“Whatever this is,” she says in a low voice, just for me. “It’s not going to end well.”
Slipping my license back into my purse, a wave of unease washes over me, flushing out any good feelings I’ve had about tonight.
There’s truth in her words, but I don’t want to acknowledge them.
So, instead, I sit back down on the bench, slump down against the window, and wait. Pulling my phone from my pocket, I try not to feel too disappointed when I see there are still no messages or calls from my “friends.”
Then again, I’m not sure what I expected. Outside of school, we don’t really interact, and the only reason I roomed with them for the trip was because I had to.
Still, a little concern would be nice. Especially since they’d have to report to the chaperones in the morning, not to mention the police, if I was really missing.
Snapping a picture of the artwork hanging on the wall behind the mahogany desk, I send it to my brother’s girlfriend, unsure if she’s even awake right now.
I wince when the little bubbles pop up, indicating her reply. Awake, and probably getting reacquainted with Boyd after days apart.
Fiona: He’s gonna kill you.
Grinning, I swipe out of the app and switch over to social media, scrolling through the boring posts of the people back home. For a town living under the thumb of organized crime, the people there sure don’t have a lot going on.
Glancing up, I see Aiden’s dark head of hair over the cubicle wall. The buzzing continues on, echoing ominously in my ears as I pull up the hashtag with his name, filtering through thousands of tagged photos for the first time in years.