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“You’re not married?”
Kia scoffed. “Not even close.”
“That’s good.”
She raised her eyebrow and looked at him.
“Well, not good exactly. I just meant good that meeting me won’t change too much for him that way.”
“Oh, it’ll definitely change a lot.”
“No, of course.” He huffed out a loud breath. “I meant. Fuck, I don’t really know what I meant.”
Kia smiled. “I know what you meant.”
“Maybe you could tell me a little about Max and that would help.”
Talking about her son was something she could easily do. She pulled out her phone and swiped at her photos. She opened the Max folder where she kept her favorite pics of her son and slid it across the table to Jeff. “That’s him. As you can see, he’s a bit of a clown. He’s always being silly and trying to make people laugh.”
“Yeah, I noticed that about him at practice. He’s a funny kid.”
Kia smiled. “He is.”
Jeff swiped through a couple of photos, then laughed. “This is a great shot.”
Kia leaned over, looked at the screen, and giggled. “That was Halloween. He wanted to go as my coworker Viper.”
Jeff’s eyes widened. “You have a coworker named Viper?”
She waved her hand absently. “Stupid nickname. He’s very sweet.” She looked at the photo of Max, covered in temporary tattoos. “Viper made him his own little fake tattooing machine. Max wanted those fake sleeves you can buy, but they don’t come that small, so we had to improvise.”
Jeff zoomed in on the screen so he could see the various fake tattoos better. “Why does he have so many on his face and neck? Does your coworker really have that many?”
Kia shook her head. “No, not really. He definitely has some, but nothing like that.” She giggled again. “It was funny. You should have seen how horrified Viper was when he saw Max. Changes the perspective a little on how you see yourself when you can see it through a child’s eyes. No more scary face tats for Vipe.”
“He’s seriously not tattooing his face anymore because of this?”
“No, no, I’m sure he’ll still do more, but not scary ones. The scary ones are getting tucked away on other body parts.”
Jeff looked up from the phone and directed his full attention at her. “You’re a tattoo artist now?”
“I am, yeah.”
“You didn’t have any of those when we met.” He pointed to the tattoos on her arms.
“Nope, I sure didn’t.”
“What made you go into that? I thought you were going to college.” He winced. “Sorry, that sounded less judgmental in my head.”
“It’s fine.” She glanced at the flowers on her forearm. Her eyes instantly seeking Max’s baby footprint surrounded by various flowers for each of her nieces and nephew. The footprint had been the first tattoo she’d gotten after Max was born. “I was in college but had to drop out when I had Max. I couldn’t afford to go to school and be a single mom. Gotta pay the bills.”
“Shit, I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for. It all worked out the way it was supposed to. We’d had this tattoo artist come and guest lecture in one of my classes and they were willing to give me a job.” She smiled to herself as she remembered how excited she’d been to have the opportunity to work around art in any capacity. “It was amazing. They let me bring Max to work with me when I came in to clean before the shop opened. Then, as he got a little bit bigger, I worked my way into an apprentice role. They were cool. They let me work my own hours around what worked best for Max.”
“That’s awesome. I’m glad you had them.” He leaned forward and put his forearms on the table.
“They were amazing. And tattooing allowed me to continue my art. Over time, I fell in love with it. And I’m really good at it.” Before she’d left Tucson, she’d won several tattooing competitions and been featured in a couple of magazines. That was how she’d met Viper. She’d kicked his ass in a competition.
