Skin Deep (2 page)

“Luke, I’m headed down the street to grab
some lunch. You got this?” Brandon asked.

“Yeah, I’m good, thanks. Bring me back a
sandwich or something, please.”

“Sure thing. See you ladies later!” Brandon
said as he walked out the door.

Allie sighed wistfully and poked me in the
shoulder. “Are you done hiding yet? I think Luke here is waiting
for you.”

I raised my head and saw that Luke was
watching me with a half-smile on his lips. He picked up the pad and
tossed it in front of me. Forgetting about my lip, I grinned.
(Ouch, that hurt!) On the pad was a little cluster of five stars,
all different sizes, but none more than a half inch in
diameter.

“That’s perfect, Luke! Thanks!” I looked up
at him as he grabbed the pad back and started the process to print
out the transfer sheet to put on my skin.

As he worked, I looked over at Allie and
gripped her hand. “You are not leaving me, right? You promise to
hold my hand the whole time?” I was desperately squeezing her
fingers together and she was trying frantically to pull them
away.

“Emma, let go! Of course I’m going to stay. I
gotta see hot stuff over there do his thing!”

I rolled my eyes at her and let go of her
fingers. Luke cleared his throat behind us and I turned around
sheepishly to meet his gaze.

“Ready?,” he asked.

“As I’ll ever be,” I mumbled.

Looking back, that tattoo wasn’t as bad as I
thought it would be. I managed not to mangle Allie’s hands too bad
(she only screamed once) and it turned out seriously cute and sexy
sitting there behind my ear. Not to mention, having Luke bent over
me as he worked, even though he was plying needles in my tender
flesh, was rather erotic. When everything was all finished, I
hopped up off the chair (table?) and thanked Luke profusely.

After giving us both our after care
instructions, we walked out to the front to pay and say goodbye.
Surprisingly, I found myself slightly saddened by the thought that
I wouldn’t be seeing Luke again any time soon. Turned out, I was
wrong.

Chapter 2

I rolled over in bed and reached blindly for
my ringing cell phone charging on the nightstand beside my bed. As
I grabbed it, I got a look at the clock and realized that its
almost midnight. At that point, two things strike me. One, who the
hell is calling me this late? And two, My God, I’m pathetic. I
think I’m the oldest 29 year old in America since it’s a Saturday
night and I’ve been in bed since 9:30. Shaking my head at myself, I
hit the answer key on the screen, wincing as I pressed it too hard
against my ear, and in turn, my tattoo. Ouchie.

“Emma?” The frantic voice of my sister
whispered harshly into my ear.

“Jenna? What the hell is going on? Is
everything okay?” I asked.

“Um, well, can you come over and sit here
with the kids? I need you to get here, like, yesterday. And don’t
park in the driveway! Can you park on the street and maybe, I don’t
know, sneak over the fence and through the back door?”

Oh, Lord. Why did I answer my phone? Knowing
better than to even ask for an explanation, I replied, “Yeah,
Jenna. I’ll be there in ten. And I will try to shimmy my big ass
over the fence and through your back door. But you owe me for
thi-”

Jenna cut me off with a breathy,
“Okay-thanks-get-here-bye,” and hung up on me.

Geez. You wouldn’t think that Jenna was the
oldest of us kids, but she is. She really is an intelligent, calm,
cool and collected woman, but sometimes…I worry about her. Jenna is
my oldest sibling at 33 years old. She’s married to Noah Michaels,
and has been since she was 22 and he was 23. Whirlwind romance,
picture book wedding, and three years later, out pops my bouncing
baby nephew, Jarrod Allen. Fast forward four more years and add a
pinch of surprise! and here we have my now four year old niece,
Hayden Michele.

Jenna looks like Barbie’s best friend. You
know, the brunette one that’s just as pretty as Barbie but has dark
hair? Sad thing is, no one can ever remember her name, so you know
she had to be extremely jealous of Barbie. (I mean, come on, who
wouldn’t be, though? That little bitch has everything!) Jenna is
shorter than me at five foot four, which is not a really big
difference, considering I’m only five foot six. Okay, so its
actually five foot five and a half, but that really doesn’t matter,
right? She’s also built like a brick shithouse (we’ve discussed
this term before), but seeing as how she looks like Barbie’s
friend, that would be obvious. Like me, she’s got the jade green
eyes of our mother, and the dark hair of our father. Currently,
hers hangs somewhere around her shoulders, whenever she takes it
out of the messy topknot that is usually sitting haphazardly on top
of her head. Mine is now reaching the middle of my back in long,
thick dark brown waves, which sounds gorgeous. Truth be told? Its
not really. Especially if its rainy or humid or you live in Ohio.
Which I do. Hello frizzies!

The big difference? She’s tiny and I’m a size
twelve. On a good day, that is. On bad days, like bloated period
days, or days when I’ve decided that chocolate is calling my name
nonstop, which, let’s face it, is most days, then I’m more of a
fourteen. Not that I’m fat, but since the images that society
forces down our throats these days tell us that if you aren’t built
like a stick with boobs (bee sting size), then you are not skinny,
but I am a healthy kind of curvy. I’ve always said that I was just
born in the wrong century, cause back then? I would have been the
shit!

Sighing in exasperation at what I was about
to walk into, I pulled up to the street outside my sister’s house.
I parked and got out, heading into the darkness of the trees lining
the fence, knowing I’m about to have to make an ass out of myself.
I grabbed the top of the chain link fence and started jamming my
toes into the holes and climbing. I got to the top and started to
throw my leg over when all of a sudden a hand grabbed my ankle and
I let out a terrified squeak.

“Holy jeebus, shut the hell up, would you?”
Jenna smacked at my leg until I had to growl at her to stop.

“Jenna, you idiot, what are you doing? And
why the hell do I need to climb your stupid fence anyway? Where’s
Noah?”

“Just hurry up and get down here. I don’t
have much time to get into place, since you took your sweet ass
time getting here.” Jenna moved back from the fence to allow me
room to flip my other leg up and over the top.

Just as I got my leg over and started
scrambling for a toe hold, my hands slipped and I fell backwards
into the grass. Not giving me time to catch my breath, Jenna
reached down and started pulling on my arms trying to get me to my
feet. Once I got up, she grabbed me and we made a mad dash to the
back door. Once we got to the door, she shoved me to the side and
looked frantically both ways before sliding the glass door open.
She reached back out and pulled me through the door.

“Okay,” she began breathlessly, “I think Noah
is cheating on me. He just told me that he has to leave shortly
because he got called in to work. I’m going to hide in the back of
the car so I can see where he goes, so I need you to stay here with
the kids. Got it? Good.” Jenna started to turn away from me, but I
grabbed her arm and turned her around to face me.

Putting my hand on her forehead to check for
a fever, I asked, “Jenna, are you sick? Or maybe drunk? What the
fuck have you been smoking? You’re high, right? Cause there is no
way in hell Noah is cheating on you. He’s a detective for cripes
sake, so he probably does have to go into work.” I rolled my eyes
at her as she ripped her arm out of my grasp and started to stomp
away.

“I’ll be back sometime, I’m not sure when.
You know where the blankets and pillows are, kids are asleep, duh,
so…” and then she walked out to the garage without a backwards
glance.

A split second later I heard footsteps
thudding down the stairs and scrambled to cram myself into the
pantry to avoid Noah as he walked towards the garage. God only
knows what was going on with my sister, but far be it for me to
ruin her carefully laid plans. Not that they really could be called
carefully laid…but you get the idea.

I hear Noah call out, “Jenna? Honey? I gotta
go, okay? Call me before you go to bed, baby, I love you. Jenna?”
Footsteps start to walk back towards the stairs, hesitate for a
second, then I hear Noah sigh and walk out the door to the garage.
I stay crammed into the pantry until I hear the garage door go up,
the car back out, and the door shut again.

Shaking my head, I headed for the linen
closet to make up the spare bedroom and get back to sleep, knowing
that Jenna hasn’t thought about when Noah comes home and finds me
there and Jenna hiding somewhere in his car. That should prove to
be an interesting conversation!

Not twenty minutes later, when I finally get
settled and start to drift off to sleep, my cell phone rings. I
groaned. Not again!

“Hello, Jenna,” I sighed as I answered, not
bothering to even look at the caller ID.

“Hey. I’m hiding in the backseat of the car
under his old raincoat. He so doesn’t know I’m in here! Anyway,
he’s stopped at a Snack ‘N Shack to grab a couple things, but I
heard him on the phone talking to someone. He said something about
getting ready cause it could take all night, and then something
about saving him a cigar.“ Her voice turned whiney. “Emma! He
doesn’t smoke! And what could take all night? See? He’s cheating, I
know…gotta go.” The phone clicked off in my ear without another
word.

I pulled the phone away from my ear and tried
not to rattle my brain shaking my head too much at my sister’s
crazy antics. And she’s supposed to be the responsible mother one?
Sheesh.

I woke up what felt like mere minutes later
to see Noah standing in the door, looking at me in that
disappointed, I’m a cop, you’re the bad guy, I want to put you in
jail and throw away the key kind of way. Judging by the light
creeping around the edges of the curtains, it must be morning. I
sheepishly shrugged my shoulders and crawled out of the bed.

“Morning, Noah.” I lightly kissed his cheek
as I passed him, intent on escaping to the bathroom.

“Emma, is there any way you want to tell me
why your sister ended up crouched on the back floor board of the
car under my rain coat last night? And maybe why your car is parked
down the street by the fence?” Noah didn’t sound happy, but then
again, I probably wouldn’t be happy having a lunatic for a wife,
either.

I sighed. “Give me a minute and then I need
coffee for this. Lots of it.” I heard him walk away from me as I
shut the bathroom door behind me.

After washing my face and trying to tame my
hair with my hands a bit, I left the bathroom and followed the
heavenly scent of coffee to the kitchen. I needed to get my Tattoo
Goo out of my car and take care of my tattoo, but I figured that
could wait until I got home. When I walked into the room, I had to
stop and stare for a minute at the chaos spread before me. Jenna
was sprawled face down at the table asleep while Jarrod sat staring
at her from across the table. He was eating the biggest bowl of
cereal I think I’ve ever seen in my natural life. Hayden was
standing beside Jenna’s chair steadily poking her lolling head with
a noodle (not the pasta kind, the long Styrofoam tubey kind that
you play with in a pool). God only knows where she managed to get
her hands on one of those, and at her feet was a gallon of milk
that was looking suspiciously blue.

Shaking my head, I grabbed the noodle out of
Hayden’s hand and swiped the milk jug off the floor. Gazing into
it’s depths, I decided that it wasn’t safe to keep, so I poured it
down the sink.

“Hayden, its not nice to poke mommy in the
head while she’s sleeping. Go wash your hands, sweetie and we’ll
get you something for breakfast. How did the milk get blue anyway?”
I asked.

Hayden shrugged her tiny little shoulders at
me and said, “I don’ know, Aun’ Emmy.”

I watched as she clasped her hands behind her
back, fingers looking a little blueberryish. Then I noticed the two
empty packets of Blue Raspberry Koolaid crumpled between Jenna’s
slippered feet under the table. Mystery solved. Well, at least I
knew the what. The why? Hmm. Probably will never know.

Turning to Jarrod I asked, “Could you have
found a bigger bowl, dude? You’re gonna make yourself sick trying
to eat that much. Where’d your dad go?”

“He’s on the back porch drinking coffee and
waiting on you,” he said. Turning back to his bowl of cereal and
steady watch of his passed out mother, he effectively let me know
that the conversation was over.

“Keep an eye on your sister for a minute,
would you? And share some of that cereal with her. Oh, and don’t
let her poke your mom anymore, either, okay?” I asked.

Jarrod nodded. “Okay.”

I turned and made my way out the door to talk
to Noah. Not that I was looking forward to this conversation,
because, honestly, I had no clue what had happened last night with
the exception of my falling on my ass after climbing the fence,
hiding in the pantry, and listening to Jenna justify playing hide
and seek with her husband without cluing him into the game.

“So,” Noah began, as he slid a cup of coffee
over to me.

I held up my hand. “It would be easier and
quicker if you just filled me in on the hours between when I fell
off your fence, got manhandled by your wife, crammed myself into
the pantry, fielded strange ass phone calls in the middle of the
night, and now, when I woke up feeling like you were about to
arrest me.”

Noah quirked his eyebrow at me. “You climbed
the fence and hid in the…never mind. Your sister,” he sighed in
exasperation, “hid on the floorboard in the back of my car last
night. Under my raincoat. Like I wouldn’t notice a wiggling lump in
the back of the car. I mean, she does realize that I’m a detective,
right, Emma?”