Draw Me In (21 page)

I busied myself putting my bag in its spot behind the door, my brain chewing over her words. “That’s a really good question.” Because I couldn’t think of a good excuse not to, I turned to face her again, taking both her hands as I spoke. “I haven’t told you a lot about me, not really. Little things here and there, yeah. But my life hasn’t been great. There’ve been a lot of times when the pile of bad shit was so tall that I couldn’t see anything else. When I got my first ink, I was in one of those times.” I dropped her hands and shoved the sleeve of my green ringer tee high on my shoulder, revealing the ink on my bicep. “See that little piece there?”

“The lightbulb?”

I nodded. “I got that to remind me that darkness can’t control me. I make my own light.” I stared straight forward, over the top of her head. Even now, years later, that tiny piece could make my throat close up like I was still a goddamn kid.

“It’s beautiful, Neill. Truly.” Hailey’s voice was choked. I couldn’t look at her, not right then. “It was a perfect choice.”

I moved my sleeve back down, using the motion to get myself under control. “So, yeah. You already know that people have lots of different reasons for the ink they get. Sometimes it’s deep, personal, intense, and sometimes it’s just because they love butterflies or think it’d be funny to give their finger a mustache. So it’s really up to you, whatever you want to get.”

My breath was steadier, my chest less tight. I looked down at her.

“I see. Thanks for sharing that with me.” Her voice was barely a whisper. She put her hand on my chest, right above the thumping of my heart.
 

I closed my eyes. “Hailey, we shouldn’t.”

“I know,” she whispered.

I bent down to kiss her anyway. It was sweet, tender, my remembered pain and her acceptance of it. Smooth and soft, advance and retreat, our arms winding tight around each other. But I didn’t let it last long. Much too soon, I lifted my head and smiled down at her. “So, yeah, we’ve got to get to work. Shop needs to open in two minutes.”

“Right,” Hailey said, returning my smile. “Oh, I need to check on my magnolia, too. It might need more water.”

As she turned and walked away from me, a bittersweet peace swept through me. We had passed that easy friendship phase, and there wouldn’t be any going back. I couldn’t switch myself off anymore where she was concerned. There was too much between us, something growing.

I slammed the lid on that thought and turned to preparing for the day. I had to get that piece done by four o’clock. A client was counting on me, and I couldn’t waste any more time.

Although being with Hailey, thinking of Hailey, kissing Hailey, was completely the opposite of a waste of time. It could be best thing I’d ever done.

Chapter Eighteen

Hailey

“Thanks again,” I said as I handed the customer her copy of the receipt.
 

The girl beamed as she tucked it into her purse, glancing down at her plastic-covered forearm. “Neill did such a great job. I’m glad I stopped here.”

I smiled, pride swelling inside my chest. “He always does.”

As the customer walked out the front door, I followed, twisting the key in the lock and pulling the chain for the neon “open” sign, cutting the light for the night. Somewhere in the back of the shop, Roger was yodeling, Frankie was cursing at him, and Neill was laughing at them both. I smiled to myself as I moved back to the front desk. Those guys were really something.

With a regretful sigh, I picked up the blue plastic cup that housed my now brown and wilted magnolia blossom. I had hoped it would last longer. But I really wasn’t good with flowers, especially cut ones.

Taking the cup toward the break room, I looked over when Roger called my name from his open studio door.

“Hailey, I need to scoot home. Do you mind taking care of the floors tonight?”

“No problem,” I said. “Just leave me the stuff.”

“You got it.” He disappeared back into his studio.

In the break room’s stainless steel sink, I poured off the water that had cradled the cut end of the blossom. With a last longing look, I turned to toss the dead flower into the trash. The blue cup clattered against the side of the can, but I couldn’t make my fingers let go of the flower. I just couldn’t. Neill had given it to me, and I couldn’t toss it out like a candy bar wrapper.

Grabbing a wad of paper towels, I dried off the stem as much as I could. My steps were silent as I moved to the break room door. I glanced back and forth in the lobby, glad that the guys seemed to be tied up in their last-minute tasks for the night.

Hustling to my desk, I breathed a relieved sigh when I’d confirmed that no one had seen me, especially Neill. I wasn’t sure what he’d say about what I was going to do, and I didn’t really want to find out.

The large black sketchbook in my bag would be the perfect size. Clearing off a space on my desk, I laid it open to one of the blank pages near the middle back of the book. I hadn’t done this before, but people were always doing it in stories. It couldn’t be hard, right?

I spread two paper towels over the sketchbook pages and lay the dying magnolia blossom atop them. Biting my lip in concentration, I carefully arranged the petals back to the way they’d been yesterday, when he’d brought it to me. Then, carefully, so slowly, I shut the book and pressed down.

It wouldn’t close all the way. The thick, woody stem wouldn’t squish down far enough.

“Dammit.” I scowled at the book, pressing harder. “What am I doing wrong?”

Neill’s music cut, and I was out of time. My heart thumping erratically, I grabbed the sketchbook and shoved it on the bottom shelf of the bookcase behind my desk, grabbing a thick stack of books from the shelf above and placing them atop it. There. Nobody should notice it.

“God, I’m wiped,” Neill said as he left his studio, clicking off the light. “Good day, though.”

“Yeah, it was,” I said nervously.
Relax, girl, come on. You didn’t do anything wrong. Just a little sentimental reminder that he doesn’t need to know about, that’s all.
“You guys were slammed.”

“I know.” Neill set his helmet atop the counter. “Sorry we didn’t get much of a chance to go over anything today.”

“It’s no problem.” I pushed to my feet. “I’d better start on the floors.”

Neill crooked a brow at her. “Where’s Rog? It’s his night for the floors.”

“He had to go. I don’t mind.”

“I can help,” Neill said, moving for the maintenance closet at the back of the shop, where a bucket, mop, and cleaner stood waiting. “He shouldn’t dump stuff on you. You’re my apprentice, not his.”

“But I’m everyone’s receptionist, and more than that, he asked and I said yes.” I scooted over and grabbed the mop before Neill could. “It won’t take long just to do the studios. So go ahead, I’m sure you’ve got plans.”

I bent and grabbed the bucket, waiting, hoping he’d say . . .
 

“I don’t have plans.”

I schooled my expression into polite surprise. “Really? That’s too bad.”

“I could have plans, though.” He took the bucket from me and stepped into the break room to fill it. “If,” he called, “you wanted to grab some dinner?”

I grinned. “I’d love that.”

It took the two of us under a half hour to scrub the floors in the work areas. Frankie waved at us from his car as we exited the shop, his muscle car purring loudly in the alleyway. As our feet crunched the gravel, Neill looked over at me. “Where do you want to go?”

“Whatever’s open and not far. I’ve got to walk, remember?” I lifted a flip-flopped foot with a smile. “No wheels.”

Neill shook his head. “Nothing downtown stays open this late. Here.” He handed me his helmet.

“What’s this for?”

“So you can ride behind me. Come on.” Neill slung a leg over his bike. “It’s safe. I promise.”

I gulped. “Are you sure?” I’d never been on a motorcycle, and as fun as it looked, they seemed to go really fast without much between the riders and the concrete.

“Positive.”

After making sure my bag was around me as securely as possible, I pulled the helmet on. It felt big, like I’d turned into some kind of alien. Neill adjusted the strap when my fingers couldn’t make sense of it, and then somehow I was sitting on the bike behind him, my arms around his waist, my giant head stuck against his back.

“You’ve got to let me breathe, sweetie.” Neill laughed as he adjusted my hands. “Cutting off oxygen there.”

I tried to smile at the endearment, but my ragged heartbeat was taking too much of my attention at the moment. I wasn’t sure if it was anticipation of the motorcycle ride or having my arms wrapped so tightly around Neill. “Sorry.”

And then we were off. Slowly at first, as we exited the lot behind Sinful Skin and turned onto the sleepy street in front of the shop. I was glad he didn’t accelerate too quickly. I could count almost three seconds in between streetlight posts at first. As the machine growled underneath us, the smooth movement of the bike reassured me, and before long, I was watching the world move past us. It was fun, actually, and I caught myself laughing when we took a tight curve at a bit of speed. There weren’t a whole lot of cars downtown at this time of night. The lack of traffic meant Neill could set his own speed. When I laughed aloud, he accelerated, braking a bit when I tightened my arms around him. And when he pulled the bike into the lot of the twenty-four-hour pancake house, I was almost bouncing with excitement.

“Oh my God, no wonder you ride this thing all the time,” I said breathlessly as he helped me off the bike. Which was good, because for some strange reason, my knees were wobbling when my feet hit the pavement. “That was amazing.”

He unfastened the helmet and I shook my hair out to counteract the flattening effects of the headgear, and we walked hand in hand to the small restaurant. There were six or seven cars in the lot, and we passed a laughing group of friends as they stumbled from the door.
Probably heading out to the clubs,
I thought as Neill held the door open for me.

The decor was burnt orange and yellow, a little bit seventies, but not in a cool, retro way. More in a tired, run-down, but clean sort of way. The hostess, in the restaurant uniform of black pants and white oxford shirt, led us to a small booth at the back of the restaurant. The scents of frying bacon and sweet syrup fired my appetite, and I thanked the hostess as she handed us a couple of plastic-coated menus.

Once Neill and I were alone, I cleared my throat. I needed to say what had been bubbling in my head for a while, and this was as good a time as any. “Thanks for this.”

“It’s not that far of a ride, but you’re welcome,” he said, spinning the saltshaker between his hands.

“No, I didn’t mean bringing me here. I meant, well, everything.” I looked down into my lap. “I’m not sure what I would have done without a job. I really, really needed the money. And more than that, with the apprenticeship, you kind of . . .” I trailed off, trying to keep a tight rein on my emotions.

Fortunately, a waitress interrupted us for our drink orders. But with the way Neill was keeping a tight, serious gaze on me, I was pretty sure I would have to finish that thought for him.

And that was pretty damn scary.

Neill

Hailey seemed to regain her composure while the waitress wrote down our drink order, but I wasn’t about to let her lose that train of thought. Whatever she’d been about to say looked important to her, and I wanted to hear it.

As the waitress left our table, I pegged Hailey with a direct stare. “I kind of what?”

Hailey shook her head, confused, or at least pretending to be. “What?”

“You said that by my offering you this apprenticeship, I kind of . . .” I trailed off, gesturing for her to continue.

She shifted in her seat, clearly uncomfortable. “You kind of gave me hope. You know, for the future, for my life.” She drew circles on the dark brown laminate tabletop with a nail coated in chipped blue polish.

I sat forward in my seat, not exactly loving the direction of the conversation but determined to see it through. “But you’re in college. You’ll have your degree in a couple of years, you can do anything you want. Why isn’t that giving you hope?”

Hailey smiled grimly. “I haven’t exactly told you why I needed a job in the first place, have I?”

“You’re a college student with no car. I thought all you kids were broke.”

Hailey snorted. “Don’t talk like you’re some ancient being. You’re only a few years older than me.” She sighed, glancing out the window into the dimly lit parking lot. The girls we had passed in the entryway were hanging out by the back of an Explorer, passing around a bottle in a brown paper bag. “It’s a little more than saving up for a car or textbooks. My parents are splitting up.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. I wasn’t sure how it felt to have parents together. But to judge from the way her beautiful lips were drawn, the situation was clearly painful for her. So I said the only thing I could. “I’m sorry.”

Tears sprang to Hailey’s eyes, but she kept talking matter-of-factly, as if she didn’t notice them. “I kind of expected it. I mean, they always fought. Like, more than most people fight, I think. But it’s more than them getting a divorce.”

A teardrop slid down her cheek, splashing to the tabletop. I reached over and took her hand, not knowing what else to do.

“They kind of used all my college money. So I’m stuck.” She dashed away her tears with the hand that wasn’t holding mine, almost as if she was afraid to let me go. “I can’t go home, because my dad is there, and a lot of this is his fault. My mom has disappeared, cut off her cell, won’t return my emails. I want to finish school, get my degree. They can’t take that away from me, too. But I have to earn the money myself now, and it’s going to be really hard.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but she kept going.

“And when you offered me that apprenticeship, it was like this giant opportunity opening wide right in front of me. Even if I fail, even if I can’t make enough money to get my degree, there’s something else I can do for a career. And knowing that?” Her voice fell into a whisper. “It makes me feel like maybe my life isn’t over after all.”