I’m suddenly too confused to be upset.
Pearl mutters some wisecrack about baby mamas, which I ignore, and tip my chin up in question to the other guys.
“What’s going on? Who’s she?”
Pan ignores me. Of course. “C’mon in,” he’s saying to the kid, spreading a hand all around the shop. “Mi casa, tu casa.”
Okay, it’s not justhiscasa. But nothing I can do to stop him, and believe me, I’ve tried.
Tink, though, answers.
“That’s Wendy,” he says to me. “She’s…just going to hang out here for a while.”
Well, that doesn’t answer much, but okay, I suppose. I watch from my peripheral vision as the kid steps in, a little wide-eyed at all the instruments of torture that we hang around here. At the pin-up posters and vintage motorcycle ads, the mural I painted in the lounge area: an American Traditional heart-and-dagger with NEVERLAND on the banner and a pixie floating above, wand trailing sparkles. She’s no one I’ve ever seen, not that I hang around with children.
First Pearl, now this. I can’t believe I thought I was going to get any work done today.
“Where is everyone?” Pan turns to me, casual, leaning against the counter and flipping a pen through the air like a tiny baton. “Where’s your brother?”
“You asking me?” I train my gaze back to my sketchbook, lying open on my cart. The design, the drawing, the long hair and winding tail. The piece I wastryingto get done in betweenother appointments. “I’m not his goddamn babysitter. Garage, probably.”
I’m grouchy at having been interrupted at my work, I decide. That’s all. Because my work is everything. The only thing I have, really, besides Fox. And these guys. But the only thing I care aboutdoing.Even if it is in a second-rate ink shop in the Strip.
Yeah. That’s what’s setting me off so bad.
“Whoa, is that a mermaid?”
Somehow, the kid—thechild—that is now in our tattoo shop, a place that is by law not allowed to have anyone under the age of eighteen on the premises, has her tiny face and little turned-up nose barely inches away from the hip and stomach of the stripper whose tattoo I was just inking over her cokehead ex-boyfriend’s name.
“Yeah,” Pearl says, beaming. “Isn’t it amazing?” She pushes down the top of her skirt even farther so that the kid can get a good look. “Kit’ssogood,” she adds in a purr.
The girl’s eyes go wide. “Youdrewthat?”
“Stop,” I whisper, to Pearl, and then wince, looking at the kid looming so close over the fresh ink. “Um, can you not stand there?” I ask her. “It’s really not…sanitary.”
“Oh, sure,” she says, nodding and taking a step back. “Um, what’s sanitary mean?”
I exhale. “For fuck’s sake,” I mutter.
Except not quietly enough. The kid looks a little upset, like she might burst into tears. Christ. “Sorry, it’s just—” I look up and lock eyes with Tink.
Look at him.
Again.
It’s funny, when he first joined up with us, I just remember thinking that he had everything I wanted in a guy. In theory. I like blondes. I like them not too tall, since I’m not. I don’t likeanyone super-masc. And he has that kind of, I don’t know, look about him.
And yet. Something about him just never…
I don’t know.
I look away.
“Don’t worry about him.” Pan says it warm but casual, stepping right behind her. “You know how artists get about their work.” He gives the kid this kind ofoh, brotherlook. And, after a moment, she returns it.
“Oh. Yeah.” She nods, and steps back with Tink, but still looks at me. “Are you friends with my brothers too?” Her voice is light. High. “Because I didn’t know they knew anyartists.”
She says it the way you might sayunicornsorbillionaires.
