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“I’m not.”’ I shook my head with an exhale. “I’m not.”
“Damn, that’s a shame,” the woman whose left breast I was almost touching said with a throaty purr. “I have four kids.”
“What happened with the mom?” Lance asked, amused by the entire situation. But his words were welcome. He saved me from having to respond to whatever my client implied.
“They live at the apartments next to my house,” I began as I wiped the woman’s skin, went for more ink at my bench, and resumed the design. “But before that, I saw them at the grocery store. Her kid came up and beat me to the last bag of Funyuns. Then she mentioned something about her grandpa saying that tattoos were bad or some shit so I hissed. I smiled since I thought it was funny. She dropped the chips and ran off, so I picked them up.
“Then, at the checkout, I saw the kid again with her mother. She was just being a kid and getting on my damn nerve, so I might have said something to the mom. On Monday night, the kid said something else, and I said something back.”
I heard nothing for the longest time except for the tattoo guns. I thought one of them might have shut off after I’d told my story. Giving up, I paused my work and looked up to find the woman I was inking giving me a semi-hostile scowl.
“You look like an asshole,” she began with a vehement shake to her head. “But now I see that you actually are an asshole.”
Wendy burst out laughing. “I tell everyone that comes in here that he is! But damn, Elijah, picking on a kid? That’s possibly worse than what I could have thought of you.”
I swiveled around in my chair and glared. “How much of an asshole do you think I am?”
She paused and glimpsed up from the leg she was tattooing. Wendy tapped her black nails against her chin before she pinned me with her smile. “Pretty bad, but I gotta say I’m disappointed. You’re much worse than what I pictured over the five years I’ve known you.”
Dropping my shoulders, I turned back to my client. I had ten minutes before my next appointment, and I was running behind. “I know,” I finally said a minute or two later when everyone was quiet—no doubt silently judging their boss. “I can’t stop thinking about it… I feel shitty.”
“I’d say so,” Wendy mumbled, slightly distracted as she concentrated on the design. “It would be a different situation entirely if the kid hadn’t been a stranger. I goof off and poke fun at Cheryl’s niece all the time, but that’s because the kid adores it when I cut up with her. There’s a major difference in a fucking stranger doing that to a child. What the hell, Elijah? Some kids get scared super easy. They’re all so different. Instead of running, she could have balled her eyes out, and the mom might have kicked your ass. Stranger danger is real.”
“Fuck,” I muttered, stopped working again, and rubbed at my temple.
“How about I give you some motherly advice since I can tell from all that god-awful sighing you’re really torn up about this?”
I glanced up at the woman with renewed interest as she studied me curiously. She was an older woman, a lot older than I was.
“Apologize. Not only that, maybe think about buying the kid a bag of chips. It won’t make them like you, but that’s not what this is about. It’s about making you feel better.” She nodded, giving my shoulder a good pat while holding her shirt up with the other. “Now, how about you finish up my tattoo and not fuck it up with all your worrying? Otherwise, I’m not paying.”
Damn. I pissed this mother off, too. But she had a point. To stop this giant ass storm cloud from hovering, maybe I should make peace so I could go about my life and get from under this shit.
After work that night, I grabbed an extra bag of Funyuns at the gas station while I filled up the truck. Only I didn’t see them that night. Her car was parked, so I assumed that maybe she was off tonight. It disturbed me that I was figuring out her schedule. I really was some creepy—not that old—man.
