Page 9 of Alonzo

The shop is Sick Boyz tattoos in downtown Fort Collins. Belinda is the receptionist-slash-apprentice and we’re in their bathroom.

Yes. I know. I set him up. Does he really think that all these things we do are… real?

Come on. I plan our dates down to the very last detail. Granted, I did not see this cam sex coming. But I’ve had this scenario in the back of my mind for months now. And when Lonnie said he wanted to FaceTime I really was on my lunch break. I was just having it with Belinda in her breakroom, and not in the library. I always come here for lunch because it’s just a few blocks away from my work.

As far as his photo demands go? I come prepared. I know what he likes and I know what he asks for. So I make them up ahead of time and keep a supply on hand. They are all organized into folders on my phone. Indexed and cross-referenced.

Hey, if Lonnie wants a fantasy, I can provide. Besides, it’s fun. I like making the selfies. It’s a challenge for me. Everything about my life, except for Lonnie, is predictably boring. And that’s a good thing in lots of ways.

“I don’t want to date tattoo artists, Belinda. I like the safe ones. Like Lonnie.”

“Not the boys, you idiot. The customers.”

“Pretty much same thing. I’ve had my fill of bad boys. A nice accountant in Florida with a tree-trunk-sized cock is just up my alley.”

She laughs and pulls the bathroom door open. “You’re a sick, sick woman, Tara Tanner. And sometimes I wonder about the life you led before you ended up here with me.”

She can wonder all she wants about my past life. She’s never gonna find out who I used to be. Ever. This was the whole point of starting over in a new town. The whole point of giving up what I used to do and taking a boring job at the freaking library. The entire reason why I prefer this weird, online relationship with long-distance Lonnie Derringer and not some one-nighter local hottie who could actually bang my brains out in real life.

I had that life. And sure, some of it was fun. But you don’t upend your whole world, run a thousand miles away under the protection of the FBI, and then go right back to your old habits that got you in trouble in the first place.

That’s the definition of insanity.

“You need to put yourself out there, Tare.” Belinda slides behind the cash counter in the front room of the tattoo shop and props herself up on a stool. She opens the store Tuesday through Sunday at noon, but trust me. Not a single Sick Boy is up by noon on any day of the week. Not even the old fart of a father. So she sits here for two or three hours as walk-ins collect in the little waiting area, and the boys show up around four-ish and this show gets on the road. “I mean…” She shrugs her shoulders up to her ears like she’s about to feed me some truth I’d rather not hear. “It’s been two years, Tara. Two. Fucking. Years. How do you even function?”

“I’m not like you.”

“What’s that mean?”

“I’m just saying. I don’t really mind. I have Lonnie.”

“Lonnie is fake.”

“He’s real enough.” I pan my hand towards the bathroom door to illustrate exhibit A. “I’m not saying I’m going celibate or anything, but he fills my needs at the moment.”

“Hmm.”

“What?”

“I’m just trying to figure out the puzzle called Tara Tanner standing in front of me.”

“I’m not a puzzle.” I shrug with my hands.

“You are a puzzle. You moved here two years ago with nothing but some old dead aunt’s lottery ticket to sustain you. And you were dressed up like a librarian.”

“I wasn’t dressed up. You act like my clothes are a costume! This is just… my thing!” I pan my hands down my sexy librarian costume as exhibit B.

She smirks at me. “I was there, remember?”

Belinda was there. It wasn’t my first day in Fort Collins and I didn’t show up with my dead aunt’s lottery ticket. I do have a dead aunt—well, in this life I’m living now, I do—but I came to town with the leftover money from her structured settlement plant from some life insurance company back in blah, blah, blah.

I do know the actual details. I have to know the details. But blah, blah, blah usually works just as well.

Anyway. Belinda Baker, who has never, ever, ever—I’m willing to bet next month’s fake structured settlement money—ever set foot in the fucking Fort Collins Old Town Library, was in the fucking Fort Collins Old Town Library that day I wandered in for my first day of real, honest-to-God legitimate employment that came with an actual boss.

She was at one of the computers looking at something that triggered the adult content filter on the library system. And I was tasked with going over there and discreetly making sure she wasn’t getting herself off under the desk. She wasn’t. She was only looking at some x-rated tattoos and piercings. But she knew I was looking and she started putting on a little show for me, the other librarians—hell, pretty much everyone who was within hearing distance.

Long story short, she was kicked out of the library for indecent behavior. She’s still not allowed inside, even though all the old bitties over there know we’re friends now.