Holding Her Hand (Reed Brothers Book 15) (13 page)

“
Yes
,” I say tentatively. “
Don’t I?
”

“How the hell should I know?”

“My date’s with you, you idiot.”
I shove his chest, just because I’m irked and he’s there, and he’s standing still as a statue.

I can see the dawning realization on his face. He got played by the best player
ever.
“Your dad just fucked with me, didn’t he?”
He shakes his head, and I can see the muscle tic in his jaw.

“I have no idea what he said to you, but if it looks like fucking and it smells like fucking and it tastes like fucking, it’s probably fucking.”

He grins. “
Tastes like fucking?”

“Ohhhh!” I growl, stomping my foot. Then I grab his shirt and ball my fists in it. He widens his stance to
support us both. “I like you,” I say, and I make him read my lips.

He smiles and brushes a lock of hair back behind my ear. “
I like you too
.”

Emilio jerks the curtain back and sticks his head in. “He turned green with envy when he thought you were going out with someone else. Just saying.” Then he disappears again.

“
What did he say?”
Ryan asks.

I free my hands from his shirt. “
He said you
were jealous
.”

Ryan nods. “
I was. Shockingly. Stupidly. Irrationally. Jealous. Like, stop my heart jealous. Like, someone just stole all the air from the room jealous
.
Like curl up in a ball on the floor and suck my thumb jealous
.”

“You were?”
My belly clenches in the best way possible.

“Yes.”

“So this thing we’re doing, it’s more than just playing with your cap?”

“I thought I made it clear
that this was going to get serious when I invited you to meet my parents. Sorry if I didn’t.”

“Be really clear, will you?”

“I want to date you, and only you. I want to kiss you, and only you. I want to make love to you, and only you. But even more than that, I want to be the one who makes you smile, and laugh, and be happy. When you’re sad, I want to wipe your tears, and when you need a break
from your responsibilities, I want to provide it. And I want you to meet my mother.”

“Wow.”
I can’t even speak.
“What if she hates me?”

“She won’t hate you, but she won’t approve of us either.”

“Do you care?”

“She’ll come around.”
He stares at me
. “I already told her all about you.”

Be still my galloping heart
. “You did?”

“Yes.”
He still doesn’t break eye contact
.

“
Are you getting a tattoo
today or what?” Emilio calls from the other side of the curtain. “Or are you just going to keep up the lovey-dovey bullshit?”

I growl and Ryan’s brow furrows.

“Emilio says we should get on with the tattoo.”

He looks down at his watch. “
Yes, we should. I have another client at six
.” He pulls out a piece of paper with a drawing on it. “
You want to see it?”

I look everywhere but at it. “
I trust
you. Just put it on.”

“You don’t want to see it?”

I shake my head.
“I know it’ll be perfect
.”

I’m giving him a daunting responsibility, I know, but I feel confident about this. About his ability and the way he understands me.

“Do you mind if I take some before pictures?”
he asks.

“Why?”

“Just for me. I promise not to share them with anybody. I like to compare the before and after shots when
I work on scars
.”

I shrug my shoulders.
“I don’t see why not.”

He pulls out his phone and snaps pictures of both my forearms. Then he grins at me.
“Ready?”

I nod and wiggle in the chair because I’m so excited.

Ryan applies the stencil to my forearm, and Emilio steps behind the curtain. He takes one look at it and then he starts to blink hard and clears his throat.

“Is it bad?” I ask.

“He
knows you already,” he says, his voice heavy.

“I think he does,” I say quietly.

“Trust me, Lark, he does. He knows you better than anyone ever has.”

“I haven’t known him very long, Melio,” I say. We talk out loud, which I know is rude, but I need some reassurance that what I’m feeling is okay, that it’s real.

“The heart has a tendency to get acquainted quickly,” he says.

“I thought that was
just a penis and a vagina,” I counter.

“That too,” he says with a chuckle. “But the heart, that’s the important part, and that boy might just fill up all the space in yours. The hole that was left by your parents, and the guilt that took its place… It’s time to fill that up with something new, Lark.” He sits down beside me and rests his elbows on his knees.

“I’m ready,” I tell Emilio.

“You
finally are,” he says softly.

Ryan starts his machine, and I wince as the needles begin their journey. Ryan smiles at me in reassurance, and I listen to Emilio as he tells me stories of when we were all younger. They’re things I can’t even remember, but Emilio has every event stored in his head like a filing system, and he can spit stories out any time. It’s what made him such a good songwriter,
once upon a time.

Any time Emilio tells you he can’t remember something, you know he’s lying. Through his teeth. But it’s hard to stay mad at him, because he does it for us. Because he loves us.

Next, he’ll threaten to maim and dismember Ryan if he does anything to hurt me. He’ll probably involve body parts no one wants to lose. I just wonder how Ryan will respond.

Ryan

I am doubting myself a little bit. I drew up the tattoo and now I’m just hoping like hell she’ll like it. If she doesn’t, she’s stuck with it. Until this moment, I was feeling very confident. But as I lift my machine, lay it down, and swipe the extra ink off her forearm, I would be lying if I said I’m not a little bit nervous. I clean the area and get it ready for her to see.

Lark has
been sitting here talking with her dad while I work. He’s been telling her stories and they laugh and joke around. Every now and then, her shoulders shake with laughter, and it makes me smile to see that he makes her so happy. The feeling is apparently mutual, and he’s just as happy to hang out with her as she is with him. Every now and then, he reaches over and brushes a lock of hair from her face
or she lifts her arm to touch his, and it makes me realize that the love of a parent is incomparable to anything else. It doesn’t matter if the parent is one made by blood or by circumstance; the feeling is still just as strong and that’s all that matters.

“
You ready to see it
?” I sign to Lark.

She nods and stares into my eyes.

“
It
’
s done
.” I look down at her forearm. Even I have to admit that
it’s good, and I’m a little biased.

“
I
’
m nervous
,” she says.

“
It
’
s too late to be nervous now. It
’
s not like you can do anything about it
.” Well, I could cover it up at a later date if she hates it. But it’s not going away. “
Take a look
.”

She looks down and I can feel the wind from her gasp. She covers her mouth and stares at her arm. Her eyes flood with tears, but she blinks them back furiously.

“
You hate it
,” I say.

But she stops me, waving her hand in the air. “
It
’
s perfect
.”

“
I told you he knows you
,” her dad says.

“
He does
,” she replies, her hands soft with emotion.

I knew a few things about her, going into the tattoo.
Her favorite place to visit was the beach, back before her parents died. I had already done the male and female seagulls tattoo, which represents her parents, and it covers up the largest of the splash burns she has on her arm. The male bird looks really masculine, and the female bird looks really girly. They’re both wearing wedding rings on their legs, the same rings that hang on a chain around
Lark’s neck all the time.

The challenge in this case was hiding the scars from her suicide attempt. They slice across her forearm. I also had to cover up a bunch of small splatter discoloration spots from where the hot oil hit her skin and burned her.

Her suicide scars were something I refused to hide completely. They’re part of her and she got through it, so I felt like it was important for
them to stay there. I turned her suicide scars into clouds in a sunset sky. The jagged edges form the edges of the clouds. To an outsider who doesn’t know her story, one might think it is a perfect sunset. But it’s not. It’s a sunset fraught with challenges. But the thing to remember is at the end of the day, the sunset will always happen and it will always be beautiful. It’s one’s perception of
it that matters. Do you see the scars or do you see the sunset? Some days, you need to see the scars. Some days, all you’ll see is the sunset, the perfect end to the perfect day. But to get to the perfect end, you had to face your challenges all along. We all do, and I wanted her tattoo to depict that.

I turned her small spatter scars into tiny seashells that litter the beach. They’re colorful
and playful and she grins as she counts them. There are twenty-four in all.

When you look at the tattoo as a whole, it’s like a painting. But there are so many parts to it that I can’t even imagine anyone who looks at it would understand. But Lark understands all of them.

I watch her face as she takes in the tattoo. “
Do you like it
?” I ask.

“
No
.”

My heart stops. “
I can cover it up with something
else. Maybe in a few weeks
,” I rush to say.

She catches my hands and stops them from moving, then lets them go.

“
I don
’
t just like it
,” she says. “
I love it. It
’
s perfect. You put everything that
’
s important to me in it, and I
’
ll never stop looking at it. It
’
s wonderful
.”

“
Really
?” I stare at her face.

She takes a step closer to me. “
Really
.”

Then she surprises the hell out of me when she
grabs my shirt and jerks me to her, steps up onto her tiptoes, and presses her mouth against mine. I vaguely recognize that her dad leaves the curtained area where we’ve been working, but I’m not sure I care. She kisses me, and heat shoots straight to the center of me. I’ve kissed quite a few girls, and done a whole lot more than that with some, but I’ve never had someone kiss me the way she does.

Her lips crash against mine, and she opens her mouth, inviting my tongue to tangle with hers. Her arms lift and wrap around my shoulders, and she presses her chest against mine, her nipples hard and tight against her shirt. I can feel every curve of her, and I can taste the raw emotion in her right now fighting to get out. I wrap my arms around her waist and hold her tighter, drawing her so close
to me that we’re like one person. She moans against my lips; I can feel it in the vibration of her chest.

The curtain shakes and catches my attention, and I lift my head to look up. Friday sticks her head around the curtain and looks at us. We must look a sight. Lark’s cheeks are pink and my breaths are heaving from my chest.

“
You know her dad is right outside the curtain, right
?” Friday asks,
sending furtive glances to the other side of the partition.