Page 39 of Tony

“What, I’m not good enough for you, Cher?” Vann jokes.

Cherry turns to Vann and pats his cheek. “Oh, no. It’s not that at all, sweet Vann.”

Sweet Vann? Double gag.

“But this design tonight is… in a… how should I put it?” Cherry pokes her cheek, making a fake dimple, and pretends to think. “A delicate place.”

I snort. Everyone looks at me. Even Trev lifts his head up from the face pillow. “What?”

“Yes, delicate,” Cherry continues. “But you won’t mind, right, Vann?”

Vann looks down at her… uh… yeah. Not subtle, asshole. And then his eyes shoot back up and over to me. “Wait. What?” he says. “You want a tattoo… there?”

Vic and Cherry laugh loudly. “You’ll see, sweetie,” Cherry says. She shoots Vic a look that says, Your loss, buddy, grabs Vann by the collar, and tugs him to the back, towards his studio.

“What the hell was that?” I ask.

“That was Cherry,” Trev says. He and Vic both chuckle like I’m missing the inside joke.

“OK.”

“She wants a cherry tattoo down on her—”

“Right,” I say, putting up a hand. “I get it.”

Vic and Trev chuckle some more.

“Belinda and Vann have a budding thing going,” Vic says.

Trev lifts his head up again to look at me. “That right?”

“No,” I spit. “No. Absolutely not.”

“She caught him fucking Soshee just before I dragged her in here with me.”

Trev laughs and puts his head back down. “Ah, this all makes sense now.”

“What makes sense? And no one cares who Vann is fucking, Vic. Least of all me!”

Trev lifts his head again. “That was you throwing that tantrum earlier?”

“She was gonna quit over it.”

“No one cares, Vic. Can we just get back to work? And you!” I point to Trev. “Stop moving around. Some of us are trying to work here.”

Trev and Vic look at each other and guffaw.

I huff through my mask.

“OK, OK, OK,” Vic says. “We’ll get serious.”

“Yeah,” Trev mumbles. “Let’s get back to the topic of Cherry’s pussy tattoo!”

Which they do. They chat about Cherry’s pussy—not her tattoo—since it seems that Vic and the girl who right now has her legs open for my Vann used to date once upon a time.

Wait.

Did I just call him mine?