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“I’m giving you my number,” he says smoothly. “Just in case you think of anything later that you might have forgotten to tell me about caring for the tattoo.”
“You have plenty of them already,” I tell him crossly, trying to grab my phone again. I’m as irritated by the fact that he’s making me grab childishly for my own phone as I am that he took it.
“Then give me your number, so I can call you if I have any questions.” That smirk is still playing on his lips as he takes a step back.
“I’m not your artist,” I repeat, exasperated. “If you can’t get ahold of Rico and ask him, then you can call the shop. You don’t need my personal number.”
“Well, now you have mine.” He smiles, handing me the phone back. “Just in case.”
I let out a sharp breath, shoving my phone in my pocket as I reach for my bag. “I won’t need it,” I tell him flatly. “If you have any questions, text Rico.” I pause, holding out a hand. “It was nice to meet you.”
I already said that.My cheeks flush a little, but if he remembers or notices, Dante says nothing. He just takes my hand, shaking it, and I try to ignore the tingle that runs up my arm at the touch of his hand against mine.
“Here.” He slips something into my palm with his other hand, as he’s still holding mine, and I feel the smooth texture of folded bills. “A tip, since Rico isn’t paying you.”
I feel like I’m supposed to sayyou don’t have to, but the truth is, I need it. “Thanks,” I manage. “Always nice when a client tips their artist.”
“I thought you said I wasn’t your client?” The smirk looks far too good on his mouth. I tear my gaze away from his lips and up to his eyes, frowning.
“Well, Iwasyour artist for the night. We’ll leave it at that.”
“Of course.” Dante is still smiling, but I think I hear a hint of regret in his tone. I don’t dare linger on the thought for too long.
I can still feel the brush of his fingers against my hand when I reach my car. My heart is pounding in a way that I haven’t felt in a long time—maybe not ever. I can’t really remember any man having affected me like this. And there’s something else, too—a surge of adrenaline from a job well done. I’ve never tattooed a private client before. It felt like a challenge—and knowing I did well feels like the kind of win that I’ve needed for a while now. Something to remind me that things could begin looking up, even when so much is difficult right now.
Even so, as I put my phone in my pocket and my bag in the back of the trunk, I make a mental note to delete Dante’s number from my phone as soon as I get home.
. Nothing good can come of having it. I don’t think I imagined the attraction on both sides—his wasveryvisible—and the last thing I need is to text him in a moment of drunken weakness. Not only would it look bad professionally, but Dante Campano is the last thing I need in my life.
This evening needs to be both the first and last time I ever encounter him. I remind myself of that again as I toss my phone onto the passenger’s seat and start the Chevelle—the temptation is one that I don’t need.
I can’t help feeling a twinge of regret that I won’t be going back to continue working on the tattoo. The design that Dante collaborated on with Rico was beautiful—the River Styx with marble pillars at the sides, skulls rising from the churning water and evaporating into flowers…including the ones that I added. I have no doubt that it will all look seamless with Rico’s skill, but I’ve never started a tattoo before that someone else would be finishing. I can’t say I like the idea of it.
Or do you just want an excuse to go back and see him again? There’s a pointed voice at the back of my head that doesn’t want to let that go, and I frown, focusing on the road as I drive back to my condo. Maybe I’m just deprived—it’s been a while since I’ve had someone in my bed—but I can’t shake the picture of Dante sitting on the barstool, undoing the buttons of his shirt as he revealed his muscled chest an inch at a time. I feel heat unfurl in my belly at the memory, a faint ache spreading through me. It makes me feel restless, and I speed up a little, the roads clearer now than they were earlier this evening.
Still, it’s later than I’d like when I get home. I park my car, making sure to take everything out of it—robberies aren’t unusual, and I’ve had more than one broken car window. Once, someone even tried to hotwire it, but I don’t think they could drive a stick shift, because they eventually gave up and left the car alone—albeit in need of enough repairs that I was taking the bus to work for a few months.
The lobby of my building smells strongly of someone cooking heavily spiced food, and my stomach rumbles. I’m on a first-name basis with a few of my neighbors—Mrs. Montgomery across the hall, for one, and old Mr. Price on the same floor—but I don’t know anyone who lives on the lower level. I feel slightly regretful—if Mrs. Montgomery were the one cooking, I could knock on the door and get a plate, if she hadn’t already left one covered for me on my mat.
I’m grateful that I have good neighbors, at least. It’s made the last six months easier than they might have been otherwise.
I slip my key into the lock, still trying to exorcise Dante from my thoughts. I toss my phone and keys onto the counter, crossing the kitchen to get a beer out of the fridge, and try not to look at the pile of bills on the counter. The tip he gave me is in my jeans pocket, and I fish it out, taking a long sip of my beer as I count it out.
A thousand dollars... I take a breath, setting the bills down. There’s no way he could have known—but it’s more than I would have made tonight if I hadn’t had to reschedule my clients. I would have had to have an exceptionally good night to walk away with a profit like that. I look at it for a long time as I sip my beer, wondering if I should tell Rico.
If I do, he’ll expect a part of it. But if I hide it and he finds out—if Dante mentions it at their next session, for example, I’ll wish I’d chosen to ‘fess up. Still, it’s hard to think of losing any of it.
“I’ll figure it out tomorrow,” I murmur to myself, sweeping the money off of the counter and tucking it into an envelope that I keep on my bookshelf for cash tips until I can take them to the bank. I sink onto the couch, pop the cap off of a second beer, and switch on the television. There’s nothing in particular that I want to watch, but it feels good to be home, the windows cracked to let the salt breeze and sound of the waves in. It fills the living room with a sense of peace that I imagine can only be found here—in this place, in this city. It’s a part of the reason I’ve never left.
Even when, for a little while, I thought I might want to.
I’ve always been prone to staying up late—the nature of my job is that I’m late to bed and late to rise, but even when I was younger, I struggled with the schedules imposed on me by the school system. I hated being in bed by ten to get up at seven in the morning, and my father’s erratic shooting schedules for the films he worked on didn’t help. He often told me that if he could have kept me at home, he would have. It would have made things easier for me. But he couldn’t teach me himself, and my mother was long gone. The public school system was the only option for me.
And not a good one,I think wryly, absently rubbing a scar on the back of my thumb. The careless touch makes me think of Dante, oddly enough—of the way it felt when he took my hand, of the smoothness of his skin under my fingers when I touched him.
I’ve never felt that way with a client. Business is business, and no matter how intimate the area I’m asked to tattoo or how attractive the client, I’ve never looked at them that way. I don’t know why this was different.
The private setting, maybe. But regardless, it doesn’t matter. Dante Campano isn’t someone I should be spending this much time thinking about.
