Page 36 of Business Casual
“Like what?”
Like he’s just won some argument I wasn’t aware we were having. He steps forward and wraps his hand around my forearm, lifting my sleeve and untwisting it with careful fingers. My hand pokes through, and he grabs it.
His hand is so much bigger than mine, my inked fingers a sharp contrast to his unmarked skin. He presses our palms together, comparing their size, his thumb tap-tapping at the side of my palm.
“I’m just looking at you.” He lets my hand go with a squeeze. “Don’t get a big head over it.” He smiles, those damn lines by his eyes crinkling, and nods his head toward the door. “Let’s go.”
?It’s cold whenwe step out the front door, a gust of wind spiraling its way down Main Street and straight into my too-thin jacket. Clouds roll overhead, thick and luminous in the dark night sky. Everything glows gray and I hunch my shoulders, trying to curl against it.
Charlie peers down at me, face half hidden from behind his collar. Cheekbones and dark eyebrows. Windswept hair. “Want my coat?” he asks.
I give him a look and he laughs. “All right, no coat.” He swings his arm over my shoulder and tugs me close instead. He’s like a space heater beneath all that thick wool, and I give in to temptation andburrow myself closer. His body tightens in surprise as he gently urges us in the direction of my house, but I wrap my arm around his waist to turn us the opposite way.
He stumbles over the change in direction but quickly corrects. His eyes dart toward the pizza shop at the end of the street. “Didn’t we just have pizza at the bookshop?”
“No pizza.” I pull my arm back from around him and clutch the business binder to my chest. “I need to stop by the tattoo studio and drop this off.”
And reassure myself that it’s still real, still standing, and everything is in the proper place. I have trouble sleeping if I don’t check in on it at least once a day, the culmination of years of hard work and the foundation for all my hopes and dreams.
Charlie has been by the studio plenty of times to drop off paperwork or to flirt with me, so I don’t think too much about it as I fit my key in the lock. He stands at my back, doing his best to block the wind while I fumble with the keys. I can feel the warm puff of every exhale against the back of my neck. The brush of his heavy wool coat. It isn’t until I elbow my way inside and flick on the lights that I realize he’s the first person to see the finished product. The tattoo studio of my dreams. The first one that is wholly mine and mine alone.
Beckett has been nagging me for ages, but it hasn’t felt ready yet. Too much of my head and heart poured into this tiny space for him to wander around before everything is perfect. I want so badly for Beckett to like it. Him more than anyone else. He invested in me first, and I couldn’t bear it if he didn’t like it.
“You put the lights up,” Charlie points out, a smile in his voice. “And the flowers too.”
My heart trips over itself and my palms turn clammy as Charlie strolls past me into the open space, head tilted to the side as he takes it all in. I want to grab him by the back of the coat and drag him into the alley. Clap my hands over his eyes and scream at the top of my lungs.
Charlie tips his head back to look at the ceiling and the oversized baskets of greenery that hang from the exposed beams. Eucalyptus and pothos and ivy overflowing in a canopy of green. An entire floor-to-ceiling wall of plants at the back of the studio, succulents peeking through a veil of cascading ferns. Living walls between each tattoo station, bursting with greenery. It turned out exactly as I planned it. Plants everywhere. The wild part of Ink & Wild.
“It’s not what I expected,” he says quietly.
My stomach drops as I walk over the reception desk, dropping off my binder and paperwork. I slap a sticky note on top and ignore my shaking hands, scribbling out a note to call the top three candidates tomorrow. “What were you expecting?”
Oblivious to my nerves, Charlie wanders around the space, hands behind his back. He stops in front of the display wall where I’ve re-created all my favorite tattoo designs in delicate white paint on giant gilded mirrors. I had to borrow Beckett’s flatbed to get them. Drive three towns over and pull them out from beneath a stack of crab pots at a flea market.
Charlie gently traces the edge of a leaf with his finger and glances over his shoulder with a grin.
“I don’t know. Something cool, obviously. But this is…I can’t believe you keep saying this place isn’t ready. It looks ready. It looks incredible,” he says. He turns back to the largest of the three mirrors and points at a snake twisting around the thorns of a rose. “I want this one.”
Relieved, I meet him at the mirror. In the reflection, our differences are almost comical. The top of my head just barely reaches his chin. His knee-length wool jacket is probably designer, and I got my oversized bomber from the back rack of a Goodwill. He catches my eye and grins.
“What do you think?” He holds up his arm, flexes, and smacks the inside of his bicep with his palm. “Right here.”
“You’re not getting that.”
His bottom lip juts out in a pout. “Why not?”
“I thought you wanted a Taz. That character from Looney Tunes.” I make a whirling motion with my finger and poke him once in the center of his chest. “Right there.”
“Can I not have multiple tattoos?”
I step into his space and let my finger drag down the buttons of his shirt. Flirting with Charlie is fun, and a solid distraction from the anxieties bubbling up in my chest. “Maybe if you’re a good boy, I’ll pick out something special for you.”
He makes a low sound of interest and wraps his hand around my wandering finger. “Is that what you like? Good boys?”
A laugh slips out of me, even as heat curls low in my belly. Temptation, anticipation. I don’t know which one it is, and I don’t really care. “I like lots of things. Is that what you want to talk about?”
He eyes me. “If it’s what you want to talk about.”
