I nod.
“You got work, or?—”
I shake my head. “Nah,” I say. “I push my bookings since Pan’s hosting tonight. I don’t wanna deal with running late or cleanup or anything. Besides,” I joke, rolling my shoulders side to side, “my arms are all sore.”
A beat of silence passes between us. I feel like I should say something. About last night.
“Uh, look,” I say, pushing my glasses up my nose. “Just so we’re clear, you one hundred percent do not have to go through with this. Like, it makes no difference to me. I have no dog in this race.” I glance down at Nana on the floor. “Uh, so to speak. It was just a dumb push-up contest, and?—”
Tink doesn’t meet my eyes. “Yeah, no, I know,” he says. “Still pretty fucking embarrassing to lose, though.”
I lift a shoulder. “I guess. You are not talking to someone who ever crushed the Presidential Fitness Test or anything.”
Tink gives a short laugh.
There’s a beat of silence between us. And in it, I do glance at him. Fingertips, palms, wrist. Forearm. Biceps, to where it disappears into his T-shirt sleeve.
I touch people all day. I don’t think of it that way, but that really is a core part of what the job is: my hands on their skin. Professional, obviously, but still intimate. It kind of can’tnotbe. And to be somebody’s first…
I swallow.
Fuck, I didn’t mean for this train of thought to get all perverted, but?—
But at the same time, it does mean something, doesn’t it?
“You really don’t have any?” I ask, nodding at him. I’m not sure if he could tell I was staring or not, but it seems like the right move to break the silence. “Tattoos, I mean.”
“What?” Tink says. “Oh, uh…” He scratches the back of his neck and now really avoids my gaze. For what feels like ten full seconds.
“Nothing I really want to talk about,” he mumbles at last. The words come out stuttering and odd, like he wasn’t expecting to answer the question.
I do a palms-up smile, way too broadly. “Hey, no, like I said, none of my business. And again, I am not going to put a single mark on you unless you?—”
“Tink!” There’s a stampede of footsteps as Wendy barrels into the loft. “I finished! Do you want to see?”
“Uh…” Tink’s eyebrows go up, his mouth slightly open. Full lips, I notice. And he looks down at Wendy. “See what?”
“Well, actually…” Wendy slams the sketchbook—the one I gave her—to her chest and bites her lip. She glances at me. “I’m gonna show it to Kit first, if that’s okay?” She says it like it’s a question.
Tink blinks and then nods. “Sure, be my guest.” He gestures for her.
“Okay.” Wendy lets out a breath and flips open the sketchbook, presenting me with her drawing. “You can redo it,” she says quickly. “I mean, you should, obviously. I don’t think mine’s that good, but like, maybe you can kind of see the idea.” And her words are tumbling out a mile a minute.
And I run my fingers through my hair and adjust my glasses again to get a good look. “Oh,” I say, feeling my brow furrow as I take it in. “Wow, Wendy, this is… it’s…”
Well, I wouldn’t know how to categorize the inspiration. Probably Kit-inspired, if anything. But it’s a kind of fairy girl, a lot like the ones I draw. But instead of flowers and vines, she’strailing stars gleaming out from her hands. And one right in the center of her forehead, like a crown. Her feet are bare, pointed like the ends of a Barbie doll, and her hair is flowing but short, a bit of a bob flowing behind her as she lifts her arms to catch or throw or just point to, maybe, the brilliant, pointed star that dominates the image like cut glass. Like a diamond.
“That’s really good, Wendy,” I say, and I mean it. Sure, there is a lot of technical skill for her to brush up on. Her anatomy is pretty wonky. I can tell she probably either traced it or drew it right from a reference. But the idea is good, the concept is good, the vision—if you can say ten-year-olds have a vision—is there.
And what am I saying? Of course they can. I did, and now, maybe this kid does too.
“You really think so?” Wendy says, her voice a little husky.
“Yeah,” I say, and I mean it, “absolutely. I might have to…” I squint, tip my head to the side, “…a little, make some adjustments just to make sure the lines don’t fade. Like here,” I indicate the trail of sparkle stars after the fairy. “We might have to make those lines a little thicker, unless you wanted to do a kind of watercolor there. But, I feel like with this,” I trace my finger over to the star, “you’re going for something bolder overall. So…”
“Oh, yeah,” Wendy says, nodding definitively. “That’s a good idea.”
“Cool,” I smile. It’s fun to talk to her about craft like this, even if she’s, well, whatever’s below even an apprenticeship. So far below she’s not even legally allowed in the shop. Not that I’m going to narc. “Were you thinking full color or…?”
