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I also wasn’t about to argue while my food got cold.
“How is the tat?” he asked, breaking the silence between us. “You still happy with it? Feeling good about it?”
I haven’t wanted to carve off a chunk of my skin even once since I got itwas the real answer, but since I didn’t think that would go over well, I nodded.
“I’m happy. Thank you again.”
“You ain’t gotta thank me, sweetheart. It was a nice challenge,” he explained, stopping to wait for the crosswalk signal before we crossed the next street. “Felt a little bad covering up your other work. Must’ve been an ugly breakup.”
“Very.” As soon as thewalksignal popped up, I moved, with Tristan falling into step right beside me. “Nightmare inducing.”
“Damn. Was there like… abuse or something?”
“You’re nosy,” I said, stopping in my tracks to face him directly.
“My bad. I prefer to think of it as simple curiosity. Power of deduction.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means… shit, if I’d left an abusive relationship I’d be getting new tats and being a mystery person too,” he shrugged.
I met his gaze, considering his words – the accuracy in his framing of a past he knew nothing about. “Yeah. It’s cool.”
“It is?”
“It is,” I nodded, turning to start walking again. “Because I will never,everbe controlled again. By anybody. So I’m good.”
I had a hard time meeting his gaze after that, knowing he was probably wondering what the hell was wrong with me, and what was happening in my head. So I didn’t even try, opting instead to focus on getting back to the candle shop.
A mistake I didn’t realize until I was standing in front of it, with my keys out.
A mistake Ineverwould have made before my abrupt departure from service to theGarden.
“This is your spot?” Tristan asked, incredulous, as he peered through the dust-coated glass, trying to get a peek inside. The awnings were cared for by the neighborhood as a whole, so they were still intact, giving us the protection needed for him to let down the umbrella.
I had my keys out like a dummy, so there was no point in lying.
“Yeah,” I told him. “That some kinda problem?”
He shook his head. “Nah, not at all. Just… unexpected. Which I… should’ve expected, honestly,” he chuckled. “You gonna revamp it or something? You really like candles?”
“I don’t give a shit about candles,” I blurted. “But… yeah. I might revamp it.”
“Why spend the time on something you don’t give a shit about?”
I shrugged. “Why not?”
“Because you could spend it on something youdogive a shit about it.”
“But I don’t have anything I give a shit about,” I argued, immediately regretting my candor when I saw the way his expression changed. “I mean… I don’tknowwhat I give a shit about,” I corrected. “I didn’t… I didn’t have a lot of leisure time, before I left my job.”
“Ohhh.” His face relaxed, and he nodded. “That’s right, you did say you were on sabbatical. That’s a lot of change at once,” he added. “Breakup, leaving your job, starting a new thing, getting tattoos, threatening to stab niggas… I’m no expert, but it seems like you’re beasting this wholewoman of mysterything.”
I laughed, shaking my head at his assessment of it all. Of course I couldn’t correct him about the breakup and the job being related to the same thing, but I couldn’t front… it felt good to have someone thinking I was getting something right.
Especially since it didn’t feel that way to me.
“I’m glad you think so,” I told him. “But… I think our food is getting cold.”
