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“Let’s say hedoesleave you alone,” I said. “Have you thought about what you want to do next?”
Emma sucked her lower lip and stared at the ceiling.
“Not really,” she said. “All I know is that I don’t want anything to change.” She frowned. “I’m not used to thinking about the future.”
I nodded as I moved the pen closer to her sternum, bringing out the brightness in the phoenix’s feathers.
“I know how you feel,” I admitted. “When I was fired, I felt like I had no future. Nothing to look forward to.” Even though I was sure nobody could hear us after Emma’s threesome comment generated no attention, I still dropped my voice. Xavier and Adrian knew my deepest secret, but I didn’t want their clients to overhear. “For a while, I just… existed. I drank too much, didn’t have a plan, and didn’t think about much beyond my next bottle of bourbon.”
It was hard to talk about, but I knew I had to. Emma was such a vivacious woman, and seeing her still so directionless when she talked about her future made my heart ache.
“I expected my girlfriend at the time to stick it out,” I said. “I assumed that if I just let things happen, they would — and at some point, we’d get married and have kids without any effort from me.”
“And she left?” Emma asked, and I smiled wanly.
“Do you think I’d live with these two guys if I had a wife at home?” I jerked my chin toward the curtain.
Emma didn’t answer. She stared off into space and licked her lips.
“Do you really think about that stuff?” she asked, eventually. “Marriage and kids?”
Shit, I thought.I’ve stepped on a landmine.
The truth was, yes, I did. Every time I saw Emma, I imagined the two of us together, but I didn’t know how that would work. I had no problem sharing her with Xavier and Adrian, but marriage was two people, right? In my entire life, I’d never seen anyone do it differently.
“I think about a lot of things,” I said, skirting around the truth. “I think about you a lot.”
Emma’s face broke into a smile, and all I wanted to do was kiss her.
“I think about you a lot, too,” she said. “I think about all three of you.” Her smile fell, and she looked thoughtful again.
I kept working, thinking I’d freaked her out until she traced her finger over my rose tattoo a second time.
“Would you ever let me tattoo you?” she asked. “If I knew how to, I mean.”
I chuckled.
“I’m not sure I should trust you.”
Emma shifted her ass in the chair and watched me add the final details, her breath warm on my hand.
“I mean, my sketches are getting better. I’ve been practicing most nights, and I’d like to try something more challenging.”
“Well, you’d need to practice first,” I pointed out. “On fake skin, or fruit, to get the hang of it. The tattoo gun feels very different from an ordinary pencil.”
“I can do that,” she said, her eyes glowing with excitement.
I’d almost finished her tattoo, so I kept working on it, glancing at her every now and then, enjoying the happiness I saw on her face.
If she wanted to commit time to learning how to do tattoos, was this a sign that she was starting to think about the future?
When I finished her tattoo, I wiped away the excess ink and stood back, looking at the details, touching up the image in one or two places, adding a few strokes of white to make the feathers stand out.
The image was just as powerful as I’d imagined it would be. The vivid colors complimented her skin, and the bird seemed to be bursting out of her ribcage — the phoenix was a blur of red, orange, and gold, bursting out of the darkness with sparks flying from its feathers.
I always took pride in my work, but this tattoo was something special.
Just like Emma.
