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I allowed it to happen.
One, because she smelled good.
Two, because I knew if I allowed myself to think too hard, I might very well pull her down into my lap and kiss the living shit out of her instead of letting her move to the other side of me.
Three, because I’d get her back later where there were no witnesses to play referee.
By the time she made her way to her seat at my side, Rome was laughing.
Our fathers were not.
I reached forward to snag my chocolate milk only to find it gone.
Turning my head accusingly in Jubilee’s direction, I was unsurprised to find her sucking my drink down with little to no care in the world.
“What the absolute fuck, Jubilee?” I growled. “Boundaries.”
She finished the delicacy off with a loud, mostly empty air burp, and then placed the glass back onto the tabletop in front of me.
“Shit happens,” she told me.
Shit did, indeed, happen.
More so for me when it came to her.
“Show me what you have,” Rome ordered. “I have to be at work in an hour, and I have to go by the laundromat and pick up my uniforms before I go.”
That explained the lack of uniform when I knew he needed to go to work.
“Where do you work?” my father asked.
“Rome works at the prison like a real man,” Jubilee said, her nose stuck in the menu. “He doesn’t play at being eight different things.”
I rolled my eyes, then playfully reached up and flicked her nose.
She swatted my hand away but didn’t stop reading her menu to retaliate.
I turned back to my drawing, grinning like a loon at the smudge of dark that I left on the tip of her nose.
She looked cute.
“I work at the prison,” Rome confirmed, grinning at Jubilee.
She didn’t pay him any attention as she carefully made her selection, studiously ignoring everyone else at the table as she did.
She wasn’t a happy camper, that I could tell right off the bat.
But she wouldn’t argue with Rome here, which was a relief.
My head had been pounding since the skunk debacle, and for some reason Jubilee’s particular octave that she hit when she argued made it throb.
“Nice,” my father said. “I’m Gordon, that one’s father.” He pointed to me. “And this is Pete. He’s responsible for that one.” He pointed at Jubilee, who flipped my father off without looking away from her menu.
Rome’s smile widened even further.
I loathed showing him what I was working on and see that smile wiped off his face, but I didn’t have a choice. It needed to be done, and I, unfortunately, had to drive Wednesday Addams hours away on the back of my bike shortly.
“All right.” I set the charcoal down and pushed the paper in Rome’s direction. “What do you think?”
I felt Jubilee’s breasts press up against my arm as she leaned over and studied my work, but the words that I thought might leave her mouth didn’t.
I was glad.
This wasn’t a joking moment, and she seemed to sense that.
Rome’s smile did, indeed, wipe off his face as he stared at what I had for him.
“This’ll take up my whole arm?” he asked.
“Yes,” I confirmed. “And some of your back. It would normally take seven or eight hour-long sessions since I would split it up for the client’s comfort. I can do the black outlining in about two to three sessions. Then the color. Followed up by the shading.” I paused. “We can do it all in one day, it’s just gonna hurt like a bitch, and it’ll take eight to twelve hours.”
He studied the picture silently.
“I like what you did there with the baby dragon,” Jubilee said softly from beside me. “Is that Astrid?”
Astrid was Rome’s new daughter. Her pitch-black hair and muddy brown/gold eyes would be the same shade on Rome’s back as they were in real life.
I nodded once and saw Rome swallow hard out of the corner of my eye.
I decided to look in Jubilee’s direction to give the man a few moments to compose himself.
“I stole a scene from the movie, kind of, where they’re all riding back from the dragon killer,” I said. “The lighting in that particular scene was intense, and I thought it’d look great on his back. I added the white dragon and the baby dragon, though, despite them not being in that particular movie.”
“He would’ve adored that third movie,” Rome croaked. “I love it, man. When do we start?”
I sat back in my chair and pulled the drawing back toward me.
“I have to take Wednesday Addams to Benton, Louisiana for a few days. When I get back, I’ll have a day or two before I have to be back at work. Or, if you’re up for a road trip, you can follow me down there. I have a guy down there that lets me use his shop when I come that way for business with the big boss. I’d be more than happy to do it there.”
