Page 100 of Business Casual
She nods and looks around again. “The power of a taco truck.”
“Nah.” I rock back on my heels. “This is all you.”
Her eyes snap back to mine. I’ve said too much or I haven’t said enough. I don’t know. I never really know with Nova. I clear my throat and nod toward her studio. “You managed to hang the light.”
She glances over her shoulder at the neon light against the garden wall in the back.Ink & Wildglowing white. “Beckett figured it out,” she says, turning back to me. “While providing a very colorful commentary on my soil quality.”
“You worked it out, then?” I didn’t want to ask when I was at her house the other day. I was more interested in feeding her fruit cut into various ridiculous shapes.
She nods. “Yeah, we figured it out. He saw the studio. He and Evelyn are going to swing by at some point tonight.”
I’m glad. Maybe she’ll start to realize she doesn’t have to do everything by herself all the time. “I’ll make sure I have my exit strategy planned.”
She tips her head to the side. “Planning on being inappropriate? You need to hide from my big brother?”
No. I’m just afraid everything I’m starting to feel for her is painted across my face. For the first time, I wish we were in the sort of relationship where I could kiss her in front of all these people and not think twice about it. I’m so fucking proud of her and the only way I can show it is by standing a perfectly polite two feet away from her, smiling like an idiot. The constraints we’ve wrapped around this relationship are starting to chafe. I clear my throat. “When do you start tattooing?”
“In a little bit,” she answers. “I wanted to mingle first. Say hi to some people.”
Her fingers curl behind her ear again, tucking back another silky blond strand. My watch slips up her wrist. I grin and her eyes narrow. “What?”
“Nice watch.”
“Oh, this old thing?” She twists it around. “I won it in a bet.”
“Must have been some bet.”
“The best kind,” she says back, smile growing.
We stand there beneath the colored lights and stare at each other. It’s hard to remember what we’re talking about when she looks at me like that.
“Will you save a spot for me?” I ask. She arches an eyebrow and I clarify. “In the tattoo line. I want to get Oscar the Grouch above my belly button.”
“Oh?” She sways closer. I feel the space left between us like a physical thing. I’ve gotten too used to tugging her closer when I want to. I’m having trouble holding myself in check now. “Have we moved on from the scorpion on your ass?”
“Maybe you can fit me in twice tonight.”
“One per customer. You’ll have to make a decision, Charlie.”
I give in to temptation and tug my hand from my pocket. I let my knuckles graze the bottom edge of her top. It’s silky smooth. Black and shiny. Her eyelashes flutter and I pull my hand away. “It’s hard to decide,” I manage.
She stares at me, everything and everyone moving around us in a vague impression of voices and colors. Someone laughs. Another person calls her name. She doesn’t turn to look. She just keeps looking right at me.
Maybe I made a mistake when I told Nova I could keep it casual. Because not a single thing I’m feeling right now is casual.
“I’m glad you could make it tonight,” she finally says.
A simple sentence, but it means more to me than I could ever possibly articulate. Most of the time I feel like I’m not wanted anywhere; I’m just the guy that keeps showing up with a bottle of tequila. I have to swallow three times around the thick feeling in my throat before I can manage a rough “Me too” in response.
She takes two steps backward toward the steps of the studio. I can’t stop looking at how the colors from the lights dance along her skin. As per usual, I think I vastly underestimated my ability to play it cool with Nova Porter.
“I’ll see you inside?”
I nod because she seems to be waiting for it. She could tell me to get in the taco truck with Jeremy and work on the carnitas and I’d probably do it.
“Yeah. Me and Oscar the Grouch.”
?“You’re being weird,”Caleb mutters at my side, a tiny cookie in the shape of a succulent in the palm of his hand. He’s eaten six of them in the span of ten minutes, and I’m really starting to think Nova should have handed out cookie tickets. For him specifically.
