Page 69 of Business Casual
“I wanted him to have the things he loves most with him wherever he goes.” She blinks quickly and glances down at the pizza box in her lap. She picks idly at the edge of it. “Beckett gave up a lot to make sure the rest of us got what we wanted. He’s always put himself last. It seemed like the least I could do.”
I watch her face carefully, shadowed in the flickering from the television.
“Why don’t you want him to see your studio yet?”
She traces theYin MATTY. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
Nova huffs and gives me a look. I raise both eyebrows back.
“I just…I want it to be perfect.” Quieter, she says, “I want him to be proud of me.”
“You don’t think he will be?”
“It’s not that I don’t think he’ll be proud.” She curls her fingers in the sleeve of her shirt and rubs it against her cheek. “I know he willbe. I know he is. But I’ve never done anything to deserve that from him, have I? He’s always just…given it. He let me do all of that work on his arms when I really shouldn’t have been tattooing anyone. He dropped out of school and gave up on his dreams so I could have mine. I want him to walk in and feel like all of that was worth it. And I don’t feel ready yet. There’s some stuff I still want to do before he sees it.” She peeks up at me and tucks her knees tight to her chest. “Is that dumb?”
“It’s not dumb.” I rest my hand against her ankle and trace the jut of the delicate bone there with my thumb. “But, Nova, you don’t need to be perfect.”
“Yes,” she whispers, voice cracking. “Yes, I do.”
I roll my lips against the desire to tell her that she’s wrong. That doing her very best is good enough. That she deserves all the things she has. “Do you come to the farm because you have to?”
She cocks her head. “What?”
“Why do you visit Layla’s?”
“Because that chocolate hazelnut cupcake changed my life.”
I squeeze her ankle. “And why do you get your Christmas tree here? Every year.”
“Because they’re pretty trees,” she answers, still bewildered. “And Beckett would murder me if I bought a fake one.”
“Do you feel like you have to support this place just because your brother owns a piece of it?”
Realization softens her face. “No. I just like to.”
I let myself trace her soft skin one last time before I let go, letting my hands rest in my lap. I widen my eyes in exaggeration. “Isn’t that interesting?”
“Subtle, Charlie.” She nudges me with her foot again and then withdraws, curling both beneath her. “I’m going to talk to him.”
I nod. I’m certainly not an expert on positive family interactions, but I like the idea of Nova and Beckett getting along. “I think he’d like that.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
She leans forward and plucks her mug from the coffee table, keeping her eyes on me as she takes a careful sip. “You’re here an awful lot, Charlie, for a man who lives and works in another state.”
I’m grateful for the low light and the flickering light of the television. “Too much?” I ask carefully.
She’s quiet until I turn back to her. “No. Not too much. Not if being here makes you happy.”
Being here makes me feel like…like the edges of myself that are too sharp everywhere else can be sanded down into something tolerable. Like I don’t have to put on a show. All the things that hold me in place in New York don’t feel as tight around my neck when I’m here. It’s easier to breathe in air that smells like pine with a cup of coffee from Ms. Beatrice’s and a croissant from Layla’s.
“Yeah, being here makes me happy” is what I manage.
She nods to herself and turns back to the TV. She watches it and I watch her. Her ink looks darker against her skin in the muted light, like broad strokes of a paintbrush. A thumb smudged through wet paint. She smiles gently at something on the screen, and the questions sitting idle in the back of my mind bubble up. She’s given me one of her secrets and I want the rest of them now. I want to know everything.
