Work of Art (2 page)

“So you want to join a club together or something?”

Just because we had tattoos didn’t link us together in some way. I hated when guys tried that shit with me. It didn’t work – and they always tried it.

I decided to n
ot wait for his response and stuck my ear buds back in my ears. Maybe he’d get the hint that I wasn’t in the mood to make friends.

“
Attention ladies and gentlemen, we are preparing to take-off, so please ensure that all personal items are stowed, tray tables and seat backs are in their upright and locked position and all electronic items are turned off and stowed at this time. Thank you.”

The overly zealous flight attendant who’d made that announcement started to make her way back through the cabin.

Fu-uck.

“So, Harper, what brings you to
San Francisco?”

I sighed, wishing I hadn’t left my copy of
Hit!
magazine
in the terminal. I had nothing else to distract me.

“I live there.”

“Oh, that’s great. I love San Fran.”

And I hate it when people call it San Fran.

“Great,” I said, trying to pretend like I was actually enthralled with the flight attendant’s demonstration of what to do if the cabin lost pressure unexpectedly.

“No, really,” he continued. “I’ve been out there a few times, but my buddy’s getting married in
a month, so I’m going out there for his bachelor party. Do you have any recommendations of where to go for fun?”

I looked over at him, wondering why he was still talking to me when I obviously wasn’t interested in engaging him in conversation.

“Nope.”

“Well, what do you do
when you want to blow off steam?”

Drink tequila shots on my couch with my gay best friend/hair dresser.

I sighed again, louder this time. “What do you want from me?” I demanded.

“A blow job,” he said
seriously, and my eyebrows rose in surprise. I was used to crass, hell it was usually me being crass, but that threw me for a loop. Then his mouth curved into a grin. “You asked.”

And that was all it took to soften me. I decided to give the guy a chance.
Hell, now I sort of liked him, and maybe the five hour flight would be less mundane with someone interesting to talk to.

I turned in my seat and appraised him. “So,
uh, . . .”

“Brandon,” he supplied. “Brandon Cooper.”

“Brandon,” I repeated. “What’s your story?”

He cocked his head in amusement. “That’s a heavy question, but since you’re actually talking to me instead of pretending to listen to a safety message you’ve probably heard a thousand times, I’ll answer it. I’m divorced
– married my college girlfriend – big fucking mistake there. I don’t have any kids, I’ve worked in banking since I graduated from Harvard, and I absolutely hate my job. I often think of ways to poison my boss so I’ll no longer have to look at him every day, but then I think back to all those episodes of CSI I’ve watched over the years, and I just know I’ll get caught, and I’m way to pretty for jail, so I haven’t killed him yet.”

I laughed.
“You are way too pretty for jail. You’d become some guy’s bitch in about three seconds.”

“Don’t I know it,” he said pointedly. “But it might be worth it. He really is a dick.”

I laughed again. “Then why do you work for him if you hate him so much?”

“Because
my company pays me
a lot
of money to do it,” he said honestly.

I bit my lip.
“Interesting.”

“I’m thinking of quitting soon.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Really? You’re not going to kill your boss before you do, are you?”

He laughed.
“Tempting, but no. I think I’ll just give him two middle fingers as I walk backward out of his office.” Then he shrugged. “Basically, I’ve been doing this for ten years. I’m burned out, and see this,” he said, leaning toward me and pointing to his eyes. I squinted to see what he was referring to. “It’s giving me crow’s feet.” He shook his head. “I need to get out before I’m no longer desirable to the opposite sex.”

I laughed out loud. “That’s your reason for quitting your job?”

He gave me a look like I was crazy. “Dude, I do not want to end up like the unhappy fucker who’s made my life a living hell for the past decade. He’s been in the business for twenty-five years, and he’s fucking miserable – divorced, works ninety hours a week, looks like shit most of the time, and I guarantee he hasn’t gotten laid in five years.”

“Okay, so I guess those are valid reasons.”

“Fuck yeah, they are.”

“So what will you do if you quit?” I inquired.

He grinned. “I bought a winery.”

I almost choked on the sip of water I’d taken. “Excuse me.”

“I bought a winery. Well, I haven’t bought it yet, but I’m going to look at it this weekend, and I’m leaning toward purchasing.”

I nodded appreciatively. “Where is it?”

“Sonoma. It’s a smaller winery, about 28 acres, but it’s on a sweet piece of land, and the winemaker who’s been there for five years is staying on, so it would be a cool investment.”

This guy had some serious cash if he was flat out purchasing a winery. “I think that sounds pretty amazing. Would you move out to the west coast?”

“Yeah. I’m originally from Portland, so I’m a west coast boy at heart. I’ve always wanted to get back there. But that’s enough about me. What about you, Harper? What’s your story? What do you do for a living? Something you love?”

“Yes, actually I do,
” I said haughtily, aiming for vague. He’d asked a ton of loaded questions, and I wasn’t in the habit of openly sharing pieces of my life with strangers.

He eyed me speculatively as if he might not believe me
while he waited for me to elaborate.

“And that job is?”

“I’m an artist.”

He nodded his head in appreciation a few times. “And what is your medium?”

I glanced down at my colorful arm and back up at him. Truth was I had a few mediums, but he didn’t need to know all of that.

“No shit,” he said, looking the same way
most guys do whenever I tell them what I do for a living.

I shrugged. “No shit.”

“How many of yours did you design?”

“Most of them, but some I got before I started
tattooing.”

“
That is so cool. Do you do piercings too?”

“Yes.”

“Ever pierce anyone’s dick?”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Why, are you looking to have yours done?”

He raised his eyebrow right back. “How do you know I don’t already have it done?”

I shook my head.
His twinkling brown eyes actually gave him away pretty easily. “Because, if you did you wouldn’t have gotten that gleam in your eye when you asked me if I’d ever done one, you pervert.”

He gri
nned, a full-watt, bright, white-toothed grin. “Ahh, you got me there. I thought about it, but I actually stopped after getting these bad boys done,” he said, pointing to his nipples with this thumbs. “I cried like a bitch and decided I was just sticking to ink after that.”

I laughed. “It is pretty painful,” I agreed.

His eyes got wide. “Are yours done?!”

He looked like a kid at Christmas.

I
smiled and shook my head. “Just my nose and my ears. I like ink better too, but I’ve pierced enough people to know that nipples are a really sensitive part of the body.”

“
That is so fucking hot,” he said, shaking his head in awe.

I rolled my eyes at him, and he elbowed me playfully.

* * *

Three hours and three Bloody
Mary’s later, I was laughing my ass off as Brandon regaled me with stories of every variety. He was highly entertaining.

“Okay, so get this shit,” he said, pointing at me with his drink. He was yelling, and I was afraid the flight atte
ndant was going to cut us off at any moment.

“
Shh,” I urged him, giggling as I said it.

“Okay, I’ll be quiet,” he said in a stage whisper. “So get this shit – and I’m only telling you this because I’ve been
drinking, and I kind of turn into a dick when I drink.”

“Only when you drink?”
I asked in mock-teasing.

“Only when I drink.
And this story is so fucked up, I can’t not share it. So, like a year ago, my buddy who I’m going to see this weekend, he’s all in love and shit, and he asks his girl to marry him, and she says yes, right?”

I nodded
, leaning my elbow on the armrest between us and angling toward him to better listen.

“Yeah, so they’re all engaged and happy and
shit, and this is when I was going through my fucking messy-ass divorce with fucking Heather, so I kind of hated his ass for being all in love and shit.”

“Fuck Heather!” I cheered, and he
clinked his glass to mine.

Brandon had
told me countless stories about his gold digging ex-wife, and I was now riding aboard the Heather Sucks Train and proudly waving a Team Brandon flag.

“Fuck Heather,” he echoed
loudly, raising his glass in the air and promptly earning a glare from the passing flight attendant. He ignored her and turned back to me. “That’s what I always say. So anyway, my buddy’s all happy and shit, and every day at work he’s practically throwing it in my face. And then he gets assigned to this project team out in San Fran, and he has to leave for the summer. He thinks, hey, no big deal, I’ll be back at the end of the summer, and everything will be cool, but then he finds out his fiancé spent the summer
sleeping
with her ex-boyfriend, and all hell breaks loose, right?”

I nodded again, narro
wing my eyes to focus and try to follow his train of thought. “What happened?” I hiss-whispered when he didn’t start talking again. I was sort of riveted, and he’d stopped telling the story.

“Oh, right, well they break up, and she gets together with
the other dude, and my buddy’s a fucking mess. So he up and decides to date this girl his mom’s been trying to get him to date for years, because she didn’t like his fiancé. So he dates this girl, and she’s all prim and proper, and looks really good on his arm, but that’s about it. The sex is bo-ring, she doesn’t really drink, and she doesn’t like it when he goes out unless it’s to their stupid, fucking country club. I tell you, I hate rich people.”

Amen to that.

“I mean, I’m rich, but I’m not like those fuckers who have money growing out of their asses and shit. I’m real. But my buddy comes of old money and was born with a silver spoon up his white ass. But he’s a cool guy, so we’re friends. It’s good. Anyway–”

“You just insulted me, Brandon. I’m hurt.”

He cocked his head to the side. “I did?”

I smirked at him.
“Came out with a silver spoon myself.”

“No fucking way! You’re cool as shit.”

I shrugged. “I got out early – couldn’t handle the bullshit that came with it all, so I bolted.”

Actually, my mother had kicked me out, but he didn’t need to know that. We’d just met after all.

“Good woman.”

I winked at him. “Continue with your story.”

“Right, so my boy tells me at Christmas that he’s getting married – again! He asked this stuffy, rail thin chick of his to marry him and gave her a big ass diamond, moved her out to San Fran with him, and now they’re getting married in a month! Can you believe it?!”

I shook my head, but i
t wasn’t that big of a deal. People got married all the time. I was humoring him. And had no idea who this friend of his was. I mean, shit, the guy could be happy and in love. Why slight him for it.

“I know, right, so I’m going out there for his bachelor party, because his girl’s
away at a spa this weekend, and I think I’m going to get my boy laid.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “That’s not very friendly of you.”

He rolled his eyes. “My boy hasn’t had anything but vanilla sex in almost a year. He needs to get some before he chains himself to this girl for the rest of his life! She’s so bo-ring!”

Brandon
definitely seemed like bad news, but I was starting to like his style. Of course I might not be inclined to say the same thing if he was friends with my fiancé and was planning to talk him into having sex with another woman a month before our wedding. That wasn’t cool at all.

“But didn’t you say that his ex-fiancé cheated on him?”

“Yeah.”

“So, wouldn’t it stand to reason that he’s probably not a big fan of cheating on someone he’s with?”

“Oh,” Brandon said, his face falling when he realized his big plans were dashed. “Shit, that sucks. Oh well, maybe I’ll get laid instead.”