She rolls her eyes. “So what brings you out today?”
“Sam’s considering adding some more ink.” I gesture toward the front of the shop. He’s paging through a photo book with Mandy.
“Custom?” Allie asks.
“Yeah, that’s the direction he’s thinking.” Sam isn’t thinking shit.
She glances their way again. “Well, since you’re here, can I take a picture of your back?”
My lips form a slow and deliberate smirk. “Trying to get my clothes off?”
Her balled-fist settles on a jean-clad hip. “Just your shirt.”
“Whatever you want,” I say, lifting the bottom of my shirt.
One of her hands covers mine. “Not here. Follow me out back. The light’s always best outside.”
I grab her hand and hold it tight. “Not until we’re alone, huh?”
“Yeah,” she says in a sarcastic tone, pulling her hand from my grasp. “Alone in the romantic parking lot.”
“I like your sense of adventure.”
Shaking her head, she moves toward the hallway that leads to the tattooing rooms. “Let me just grab the camera,” she says.
I wait while she ducks into a small room with a desk. She comes out holding an expensive digital camera. I hold the door open to the parking lot and we walk outside together into the bright afternoon.
“Okay,” she says, pointing to the brick wall. “Take off your shirt here and—”
“Here? It’s kind of cold and exposed. I can’t believe you want to get busy here.”
She points at the wall. “Get busy? Dream on. As for the cold, it’s over fifty degrees out. Models work half-naked in the Arctic Circle. So, tough guy, get rid of the shirt.”
Grinning, I yank my shirt off.
She lifts the camera. “Now face the wall.”
I turn around and stare at the brick. “I like it when you’re bossy. So many possibilities.”
“You are impossible,” she mutters. I hear the click of the camera several times along with a car driving past the parking lot.
“Okay, you can put your shirt back on,” she says, her voice silky smooth.
With my shirt still hanging in my hand, I turn around. “That’s it?”
Eyes sparkling, she nods. “That’s it.”
Suddenly, Mandy whips open the back door. “School just called. Your son is sick. Vomiting and the works apparently.”
Nearly dropping the camera, Allie races back into the shop while Mandy’s phrase “your son” sends shock waves through my head.
Mandy ogles my naked torso. “Did she get a picture of the front too?”
I drag my shirt over my head and stagger past her into the shop’s hallway. Allie is in the office throwing stuff into her bag.
“Cancel the rest of my appointments for the day,” she says to Mandy. “Try to reschedule them.”
I stare at her. This woman I’ve been trying to figure out for weeks now. Business owner. Tattoo artist. Student. Ex-wife. Mother? She’s like a favorite song you’re sure means one thing—until you find out the meaning is entirely different.
“You have a son?” I ask numbly, recalling how hard I’ve tried to be open and honest with her. How much I’ve dug into myself to make what’s between us real, while she’s been so obviously indifferent that she didn’t even bother telling me she had a kid. A son. How did she not share that?
Passing me in the hall, Allie nods a curt good-bye, but I grab her arm.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She shrugs. “I have to go.”
Her shrug pisses me off. It’s like she’s dismissing me. “Why wouldn’t you tell me about your son?”
“Why does it matter?”
“Because it does,” I say, and anger slips into my tone.
“I don’t owe you any explanations, Justin.”
“Explanations? Don’t use that bullshit line on me. After all the things I’ve told you, your telling me about your kid isn’t a fucking explanation, Allie.”
“Does it matter?”
“What the hell does that mean? I’m asking why you never said anything. Why wouldn’t you say something about him?” With each word my voice rises.
Though her expression is furious, she asks in a calm voice, “Who do you think you are to yell at me?”
One of the hallway doors open and Mac’s gray head appears. “What the hell is going on out here? I’m trying to work.”
“Sorry, Mac.” Her slate eyes shift to mine. “We’re leaving.” Allie tears her arm out of my grasp. “I don’t have time for this. I have to go,” she says, and bolts out the back door.
Mac glares at me over his bifocals, then shuts the door to his workspace.
I want to punch the wall. Confusion and anger flow through me. I want to race after her. I want to shake the truth out of her.
“Don’t feel too bad,” Mandy says. I look up in annoyance as I realize that she has been standing there the whole time. “She doesn’t really tell anyone about Ben. I only know because of the possibility of school calling.”
My jaw unclenches so I can say, “Didn’t know I was ‘anyone.’”
Chapter 16
Allie
I’m hungry,” Ben says, rolling over and staring at me. His blue eyes are big under the thick lenses of his glasses. With his head in my lap and his body encased in a Cars sleeping bag, he appears small and vulnerable. At least his fever has come down since I gave him some kid Tylenol after picking him up from school.
I straighten his glasses. “Toast? Soup?”
He glances at the TV for a moment. Ben is a careful decision maker. Not sure where he got the skill, because between Trevor and me, he should be tremendously impulsive. I’ve worked hard at growing out of my impulsivity, but my actions lately prove I still need to work at it.
His lips unscrew from a tight knot of thought. “Both?”
“All right.” I give his forehead a quick kiss and then scoot out from under him, using a pillow to replace my lap. As I head into the kitchen, I can’t decide if I feel happy or pissed that Trevor blew us off. After he called to invite us to dinner, I suggested that he come over and watch a movie with us instead, since Ben is still sick. He declined, of course.
The idea of sitting with a sick kid doesn’t appeal to him, even if the sick kid is his own son and it would mean time with me. I’m not stupid. I’m guessing a hookup is part of his motivation right now. But then again, if he really wanted that, he’d be trying to see Ben more. He’s been home over two weeks and has only taken Ben four times. Apparently, he has more important things to do than visiting with his son. My guess is those things have to do with Jazz.
Regardless that I’ll always wish for Ben’s sake that one day we could be a family, Trevor will never grow up. He’s good at inking. He’s good at partying. He’s good at making a girl feel like she’s the center of his world, even if it’s not true. Being a father? Not so much. And he definitely sucked at being a husband.
If it weren’t for Ben, I’d view the years between fifteen and twenty as a total waste. But not all the memories are bad. There are good ones, like Trevor’s look of awe holding Ben in the hospital for the first time, Ben smashing his first birthday cake in Trevor’s face, and Trevor playing with a newly walking Ben on the beach. But Trevor never cared for the small things, the day-to-day stuff of Ben’s life. Teething, diapers, reading books before bed, even following Ben on a tricycle up and down the block—things that would have taken up too much of his valuable time. Time that he could spend inking or partying or screwing Jazz.
I sigh and pull out a can of soup for Ben. As I reach for the bread, my phone vibrates on the counter. Justin’s been texting me all day. Other than glancing at the first one, I haven’t read any of the messages or even picked up the phone. When I find the heart, I’ll erase them without reading. Then I’ll have to find the courage to call him and break it off.