Bliss and the Art of Forever (A Hope Springs Novel) (29 page)

“Are you sure about this?” Callum asked, his hand on the door to the tattoo parlor on Austin’s 6th Street, his gaze on Brooklyn’s pale face. He hadn’t seen her for two weeks, having been swamped with work and with arranging for everything Addy needed as part of the after-school program, though they’d talked twice to coordinate tonight’s appointment. “It’s a forever kind of thing, you know. You can’t change your mind when you start itching and peeling.”

“Thank you for the comforting thought, but yes,” she said, adding, “I’m sure,” as she scraped her hair away from her face and wound it into a bun she secured against the back of her head with a chopstick.

A fancy one, but it was still a chopstick. He was going to have to try that trick. See if it would hold any better than the bands he normally used. “Just checking. You know. Since that’s what friends are for.”

“A friend recommending a tattoo artist is one thing,” she said, shrugging out of the hoodie she’d worn over a black, body-hugging halter top, the hem of which skimmed the dropped waist of her jeans, leaving a bare strip of pale skin he couldn’t look away from. “A friend reminding me I’m due for a load of discomfort is something else.”

“I’m a good guy to have for a friend.” But damn if looking at her had him wanting to be something else entirely. Her body was killer. He’d known that from kissing her, but the outfit she was wearing . . . no, he hadn’t known it. Even though he’d had her pressed up against him, he hadn’t known it until now. “You’re going to want to keep me around.”

“So you keep saying.”

“It’s not just the itching and peeling. Don’t forget the discomfort of the needle. And the jolt to your checkbook.”

“Thanks, friend,” she said, looking up at him as he reached for the door. “But I’m good on all counts.”

There was something in her eyes, something fiery and challenging, that had him wanting to go all barbarian and throw her over his shoulder. Instead, he reined in the urge and said, “You’ll like my guy. He’s a good dude. He’s done a lot of my cover-ups. Name’s Geezer.”

“Geezer?”

“Well, it’s not his real name.”

“I certainly hope not,” she said, pulling open the door, since he hadn’t managed to stop looking at her long enough to do it.

The windows on the front of the shop were tinted, giving the place a dark and brooding feel. The reception area was equally macabre, with its black walls and dim lighting and the decor’s overwhelming use of skulls.

But the interior of Geezer’s looked a whole lot like a barbershop or a dentist’s office. Bright lights in an acoustical ceiling, a tiled floor that matched the speckled-black granite countertops. Three walls of cabinets and drawers. Three workstations with a sink at each. Three adjustable hydraulic chairs.

Two were occupied. The third was empty, the space Brooklyn’s, and the artist standing at the counter behind—in black jeans, black boots, and a long-sleeved black T-shirt—was going through his supplies. He was tall and lean, his silver hair worn in a military buzz.

His mustache, on the other hand . . . Callum waited for him to turn. Yep. The longest Fu Manchu he’d ever seen, hanging to the man’s chest. “Geezer.”

“Cal. My man. Good to see you.” They shook hands, slapped backs; then Callum stepped aside to say, “Geezer, this is my friend Brooklyn. She’s a needle virgin, so be kind.”

“Brooklyn. Welcome to my little corner of hell,” Geezer said, his laugh rather maniacal. “I mean, come on in, pick your poison.”

“You’re not helping things here, man,” Callum said, but Brooklyn reached for his arm and squeezed.

“It’s fine,” she said, her gaze cocky as she looked from him to Geezer. “I know a bluff when I see one. I teach kindergarten, remember?”

“You. A kindergarten teacher.” Geezer stepped back, looked her up and down. “I would’ve stayed in school for a teacher like you.”

“Kindergarten, Geezer,” Callum said. He knew the other man was teasing and trying to establish a connection with Brooklyn, but his own inner caveman was in rare form tonight, and he had this need to stake a claim.

“So what can I do for you, Brooklyn?”

She handed him a folded piece of notepaper. “Make sure you spell it right.”

“Believe it or not, I’ve got a master’s in art history. I do know how to spell.”

Brooklyn watched Geezer open the paper, then glanced over. “Callum forgot to mention that part.”

“I’m not sure Cal ever knew that part,” Geezer said, moving closer to Brooklyn to talk over the details of the tat. “Show me where you’re wanting it, and what you’re thinking about lettering and decorative extras.”

Callum gave them their space, dropping to sit on the bench that was part of Geezer’s workstation. It didn’t take them long to settle on the specifics; Brooklyn knew what she wanted, pointing out added design frills from his book, and others from his wall. There was no debate, no argument, no uncertainty. She was that way about everything. Or almost everything.

It was her trip to Italy, possibly staying in Italy, and dealing with the things that had belonged to her husband that were giving her grief. She didn’t talk about it, not in those terms. She didn’t complain, but he knew she was having a hard time.

Not surprising, he mused, as Geezer got started. She was upending her life. Head over heels upside down. And though he understood why she was putting herself through the upheaval, he had a feeling she wasn’t sure what she was doing was the right thing. Maybe it had been when she’d agreed or promised or whatever, but time had passed, things had changed.

He didn’t have it in him to fix this for her, as much as he wanted to. She was going to have to deal with the ghost on her own. He looked over to where she sat hunched forward and facing him, her face pale. She winced once, as Geezer got started, then she opened her eyes and focused on his.

“You doing okay?” he asked, wishing he could make this easier for her, too, but it would be done with before the end of the evening, and there wasn’t a doubt in his mind she’d be happy with Geezer’s work.

She nodded and said, “Tell me about your first tattoo.”

Now he was the one to wince. And not from the pain. “I don’t even know if I remember my first.”

Geezer looked up and scoffed. “Of course you do, dude. Everyone remembers their first.”

“Fine,” he said, sitting back and crossing his arms over his chest. “Then how ’bout I don’t want anyone to know about my first.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Geezer said, leaning close to Brooklyn’s back. “If it was anything like mine, it was a piece of crap.”

“Thankfully, no one can see it now.”

“What was it?” Brooklyn asked.

And because he understood her need to be distracted, he gave in. “It was a terrible piece of barbed wire around my ankle. No depth. Cheesy design. Black ink. No better than a prison tat, really.”

“Probably got it in prison,” Geezer mumbled.

Callum rolled his eyes and made a cutting motion across his throat, which Brooklyn unfortunately looked up in time to see. “I didn’t get it in prison, no. I got it not long after high school. But the ink was done by a guy whose clientele didn’t care how much practice he’d had, most of them being on the inside. And it showed.”

“I do great cover-ups,” Geezer put in, leaning his head around Brooklyn’s shoulder. “For a price.”

“I know all about your prices. And it is covered up.”

“But you have been in prison,” Brooklyn said, bringing the conversation back to the spot where he’d dropped it.

Kinda late to try and hide it. “County a few times. A two-year stretch in the state pen when I was twenty, but that’s all ancient history.”

She didn’t ask about his crime. She simply said, “What’s on your ankle now?”

Of course she’d want to know. “Just some abstract art.”

She nodded toward his leg. “Show me. I want to see.”

“Yeah,” Geezer added. “We want to see.”

“You know, G, if you weren’t so damn good, I’d be taking my future business elsewhere,” Callum said, leaning down to hike up the leg of his jeans and unlace his boot. He pulled it off, rolled down his sock, and turned his leg, enabling Brooklyn to see the details of the wing that started near his arch in a sort of spiral, then uncoiled around his ankle and spread up his calf.

The artist who’d done the cover-up had taken liberties with the concept, and loose feathers drifted down to hide the old barbed wire. The wing itself appeared to have been inked with a fine calligraphy pen; the lines were that sharp, that defined. Shadowing was done with stylized dots, giving the tat the look of a sketch. Originally it had all been black-and-white, but over the years he’d had colors added so it now matched the phoenix on his chest.

“Mercury?” She lifted her gaze to meet his, hers appreciative, thoughtful. “Hermes?”

“Take your pick,” he said, and shrugged. “I worked as a sort of messenger for a while. Got caught because I didn’t have wings.”

She let that settle, the buzz of Geezer’s needle loud in the silence, until she asked, “Is that when you went to prison?”

He nodded. Seemed as good a time as any to confess his sins. “Possession of a controlled substance. But not enough to cost me a lot of time.”

She took him in, her gaze seeing through his bullshit. “Two years sounds like a lot of time to me.”

“It’s better than twenty.” And it so easily could’ve been worse. He’d just dropped off a package he’d been certain contained enough coke to send him away for life. “And I wasn’t much more than a kid. A harsh way to learn the lessons that hadn’t stuck when my parents had tried to hammer them home.”

“Are they stuck now?” she asked, then sucked in a sharp breath.

Callum looked from Brooklyn to Geezer, but the older man was intent on his work. “Oh, yeah. I still make mistakes, but rarely of the stupid variety. Same with choices. I’m over the bad ones. Not saying I don’t ever make a wrong one, but I look before I leap.”

“That’s good to know,” she said as Geezer blotted his work and sat back.

Callum lifted his chin. “Can I see?”

“Not yet. A couple more tweaks,” Geezer said, leaning forward one more time. Brooklyn closed her eyes and Callum waited the fifteen minutes or so until the other man gave a nod and turned her chair, offering her a hand mirror so she could check her reflection in the big mirror above the sink.

Callum had known that she’d chosen a quote, and knowing Brooklyn and her love of books, he’d figured it was something literary. But Geezer had turned it into a work of art: the script, the feather and floral embellishments, the swirls of font.

Know your own happiness.

Want for nothing but patience—

or give it a more fascinating name:

Call it hope.

“That’s some damn fine work, G. Really, really nice,” Callum said to the other man, then to Brooklyn, “I hate admitting that I don’t know who that is, but it fits you.”

“It’s Jane Austen,” she said, still looking in the mirror at the reflection. “From
Sense and Sensibility
. Mrs. Dashwood is talking to Edward Ferrars. He loves one woman, but is bound by honor to another, and he’s in a
melancholy humour
, as Mrs. Dashwood puts it. She tells him ‘that the pain of parting from friends will be felt by every body at times . . . ’ ” She stopped, as if the same thoughts running through his head had made a synaptic leap into hers. “Anyway, I like the part about hope.”

The pain of parting from friends. How about the pain of parting from someone whose friendship had become so much more? The idea of Brooklyn walking out of his life—

“Hope’s a good thing to have,” Geezer said, taking the mirror and bandaging up Brooklyn’s shoulder while explaining how to care for the tat.

Callum supposed the other man was right, that hope was a good thing, and since it was all he was going to be left with . . . hope that Brooklyn wouldn’t leave, or if she did that she wouldn’t stay gone. That she would realize how good they were together and give life in Hope Springs a second chance. That this connection between them was strong enough to get him through the pain of parting . . .

“You ready?” she asked. She’d settled up with Geezer and was working her arms into her hoodie.

Callum helped her pull up the side that covered the bandaged area, then pushed open the door and followed her outside. “We probably should’ve brought the truck instead of the bike.”

“Why? Because of me? I’m fine.”

“You sure? You want to get a coffee or something before we head back?”

“Coffee, no. Taco?” She nodded. “Pain makes me hungry.”

He laughed at that, glancing down one side of the street then the other. “Feel like walking? We can grab a bite on the corner there.”

The bite they grabbed ended up being more than just a taco. They added beans and rice and enchiladas and guacamole to the mix and feasted on the best Tex-Mex he’d had in a while. Then again, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had any. Usually by the time he and Addy sat down to dinner, it was a rotisserie chicken and mashed potatoes made fresh in the grocery store’s deli, if not something from someone else’s kitchen.

He really did need to do a better job of cooking at home. He did manage to shun fast food; not hard to do in Hope Springs since he had to go out of his way to hit one of the joints. Most of the time it was Malina’s Diner, or now that Two Owls Café stayed open till six, he was able to grab several servings of their casseroles to go, and have food for a couple of days. He did rely too much on Fat Mike’s Pies, and there was a new burger joint downtown he wanted to try. He’d have to see if Brooklyn wanted to go.

Opening his mouth to bite into his taco, he met her smiling gaze. “What?” he asked, before his teeth cracked through the shell.

She shook her head. “Nothing. Just wondering where you’d gone.”

“Thinking that I should probably hire a cook. Or look into one of those places that delivers precooked meals made out of fresh ingredients. I’m terrible when it comes to feeding Addy at the end of the day. We eat breakfast for dinner way too often,” he said, thinking of the Olaf pancakes he’d made Brooklyn a couple of weeks ago.