Page 108 of Business Casual
I squeeze his hand. “You wouldn’t deserve it.”
I’ve known what I wanted to draw for Charlie for weeks now, since that night on his couch when he put Katharine Hepburn on and pressed his thigh to mine. I doodled it on the edge of the pizza box. Seven different variations, over and over again. I’ve been doodling them ever since.
I start in the middle of his wrist, right at that heavy blue line that goes all the way to his heart. I start there and draw outward. I keep my eyes on his skin and the tiny, incremental movements his body makes. The flex and flow of the ink from my pen to the canvas of his body. I inhale deeply through my nose. Spice. Cider. Evergreen and Charlie.
I release my breath and draw some more.
“Nova,” Charlie says, voice low, a hitch in his breath.
I draw another line, my fingers flexing on where I hold his arm steady. “Hmm?”
“I’m sorry.”
I don’t look up, distracted by the tiny petal I’m trying to get right. “Thank you. You should apologize for thinking I’d ever tattoo a clown on anyone,” I murmur.
“Not that. For…for the back room. Earlier. The way I acted.”
“You already apologized for that,” I tell him. I hate that he apologized before, and I hate that he’s apologizing now. He has nothing to be sorry for. Because he gave me something without taking anything for himself?
Knowing Charlie, he probably thinks he took something. What did he tell me the other night? He thinks just the act of wanting something turns him into a selfish man. But that’s not true. I followedhim down that hallway because I knew he was upset, and I knew what was upsetting him.
But Charlie thinks he has to earn everything. Even the right to touch me, I guess.
It breaks my heart.
“I didn’t like seeing you with him,” he confesses quietly.
He’s talking about Jake, a tattoo artist I worked with briefly at my old space. Jake has trouble with social interaction the same way Beckett does and tends to cling to people he knows when the room is crowded. He’s kind and quiet, soft-spoken in a way that most men in this industry are not. He came to ask if I needed any help with overflow clients.
“You were jealous,” I say, not a question.
“Yes,” he agrees.
I lift my pen from his arm and look up. He’s staring at me with a serious look on his handsome face, a furrow between his dark eyebrows. I drag my gloved thumb back and forth along the inside of his elbow where I’m gripping him to hold him steady.
“You have nothing to be jealous of,” I whisper.
“I do.”
“You don’t, Charlie. I promise.”
“I do,” he says again, an uncharacteristic hardness to his voice. “Because I know what it feels like to be on the other side of that smile, Nova. That laugh. I know what it feels like to have all of your attention. And I wanted to drag him away from you by the back of that ridiculous TJ Maxx T-shirt for getting even a shred of it.”
I blink at him, and his mouth settles into a firm line, a deep breath pushed out from his nose. His eyes trail along my face like he’s trying to figure something out.
“I want all of your attention,” he tells me. “Every last bit. And I feel like I should probably apologize for that too.”
“I don’t want you to,” I hear myself say. I tilt my face back down to his wrist and pick up my pen. “I don’t want you to apologize.”
I like him jealous. I like him greedy. I like the wild, unrestrained version of him I got in the back office. It feels like he’s finally possessed with the same sort of mindlessness I’ve been carrying around this entire time. I like him honest.
I think I just like him.
More than like him, actually.
I draw another line on his wrist and sit with that, waiting for the inevitable flare of panic. But there’s nothing. There’s only me and Charlie and the steady thrum of his pulse in the strong vein on the inside of his wrist, my heart skittering to match.
I finish with the design and toss my pen on the table between us, tilting my head to the side and taking a look. It’s lovely. Thin, delicate lines that I’ll have to be gentle with, but will be worth the extra care and attention.
