Inked on Paper (16 page)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Jake

Thursday evening

Despite everything in my head screaming at me to track Presley down and talk about what had happened between us last night, I’d managed to make it through the day without doing so. It hadn’t been easy. With Gavin living right next door, I could’ve easily knocked on his door and asked him for her phone number.

But I hadn’t.

Instead, I’d spent countless hours thinking about her, fantasizing about all the things I wanted to do to her the next time… Only I knew she wasn’t planning on there being a next time.

After last night, those few minutes we’d spent together… I relived them over and over again. The sweet scent of her hair tickling my nose, the warmth of her skin so close to mine, the way she’d inhaled sharply when I’d slid deep inside her body… Something had happened in that moment. It was almost as though I actually knew her deepest, darkest desires.

Only I didn’t.

Not well enough to fantasize about a future with her. Yet I did it anyway.

Thankfully, there would be no thinking of her tonight. At least not for the foreseeable future.

Thursday dinner, once a month, was a ritual with my mother. She would warn me ahead of time that she expected me to be there, regardless of what was or wasn’t going on in my life. For the past six months, I’d only missed dinner once, and that time, my mother hadn’t spoken to me for a week after that—not until I had apologized and showed up the following week in an attempt to make it up to her.

Because having your mother ignore you was weird, I now did my best to accommodate her schedule whenever possible. Even if it wasn’t something I looked forward to. It wasn’t as though I had anything else to do anyway. Ever since I’d gotten back from New York yesterday afternoon, I’d been trying to psych myself up to write, to no avail.

And now the only thing I seemed to want to do was see Presley again.

Which wasn’t the same as writing.

I couldn’t help but remember the way it had felt to get lost in the characters once again after I’d seen Presley on Sixth Street. For that brief period of time, I’d been able to write, but then, for the past week and a half, my inspiration had dried up like a creek bed in the desert. Nothing.

The trip to New York had done nothing to help, either. Unless stirring up my anxiety and making me worry that I’d never get another book written counted. Then yeah, it’d fucking helped.

So, now, as I pulled my Mercedes up to the big, red-brick, two-story house in the quiet suburban neighborhood where my mother now lived, I took a deep breath, trying to forget all of the other stressors in my life so I could focus on this one.

It was only a couple of hours. I knew it wouldn’t kill me.

I
hoped
it wouldn’t kill me.

After exiting my car, I waved to one of the neighbors helping their kids out of a forest-green minivan, then proceeded up to the door, knocking twice. I glanced back at the street. Where was my sister? Why wasn’t she there to suffer right along with me?

Stuffing my hands in my pockets, I waited, staring down at my feet.

I looked up when the front door opened, noticing my stepfather, Alan Kapersky, staring back at me. For the record, it was difficult to think of him as a stepfather considering he was only a few years older than me. No lie.

“Hey, son.”

Was I the only one who found it strange that a man only three and a half years my senior referred to me as “son”?

“What’s up?” I replied in an attempt to be polite as I stepped into the house.

The whole “son” thing was creepy, if I was being completely honest. But I think it gave Alan a sense of authority over me, regardless of how untrue that actually was. Alan had been married to my mother, Deborah, for the past nine months, known her for almost ten. He had moved in with her after they’d been dating for two weeks, claiming his lease had been up—although I was pretty sure he’d lived with his mother—and he’d wanted to take things to the next level. According to Alan,
unlike me
, he wasn’t a procrastinator.

Maybe so, but
unlike me
, he didn’t have money.

Not that I had said anything to my mother or him about the whirlwind romance. It wasn’t my business. However, I had vented endlessly to my sister, Paige, and she to me about it. After all, this was husband number nine for my mother. And based on the math, I figured they had two years—three at most—before Alan was out on his ass, looking for a new place to live and another cougar to take him in.

It was thanks to my mother’s endless pool of younger men that I’d had an interesting childhood. Lots and lots of drama. Deborah had me when she was nineteen. My father, William Wild… Well, I didn’t know him. Sure, I knew
who
he was, that he had three grown kids and a wife, lived in an upscale neighborhood in south Austin, but I hadn’t ever had anything to do with him. Not since I was two, anyway, which, of course, I don’t remember. Since he’d paid his child support without complaint, my mother hadn’t had any issues with him not seeing me, so it wasn’t something I ever let bother me.

After all, I had plenty of stepfathers to choose from.

My sister’s father, Ronald, had been my mother’s second husband. He had come along when I was four, and he’d stuck around long enough for my sister to be born, then hit the road after a short-lived ten-month marriage. According to my mother, he was a wild one who couldn’t be tamed. Oddly, it didn’t seem to bother her, either.

The others—Stan, Robert, Tony, Jeff, Matt, and Tim—they’d come and gone over the years, making waves on both their entrance and their exit. My mother, apparently, could reel them in, but she’d adopted the catch-and-release program. I’d never understood why she bothered to marry them, rather than simply date, nor had I ever asked.

Following Alan through the foyer, I noticed the brand-new seventy-inch flat-screen television mounted on the wall in the room my new stepfather had commandeered as his man cave. I figured the TV was a present from me, in a roundabout way, since my mother had recently asked me for money, and I’d forked it over in an effort to help her, though I doubted she’d really needed it. Then again, I knew Alan didn’t work, so maybe she did. However, if that were the case, it didn’t appear as though she’d used it to pay any past-due bills.

“Nice TV,” I told him.

Alan peered into the den, a grin forming on his weathered face. “Thanks. Anniversary gift.”

Anniversary? That was what he was going with? Really?

Could the guy not do the math? Married nine months, together for ten. When had an anniversary occurred?

Not that I asked. I didn’t want to know.

“Where’s my mother?” I quickly glanced around. Since I came over monthly, I was always aware of the new stuff they purchased, and it looked as though they’d spent some time at the furniture store in recent weeks. The month before, it had been Bed Bath and Beyond.

“Kitchen,” Alan muttered.

I nodded. “Any luck on the job hunting front?”

Alan’s eyes dropped to the floor. “It’s a tough market out there.”

Right. For a man who’d been working at a car wash when my mother took him in, I found it hard to believe that there weren’t other car washes in the area looking for good help. Then again, good was probably not a word I’d use to describe Alan Kapersky. Lazy, yes.

Standing there, not knowing what else to say, I tried to pretend it wasn’t awkward. “I’m gonna go talk to her.” I nodded toward the kitchen.

“Yeah.”

Luckily, Alan chose not to follow me when I started down the short hall that led past the stairs and to the kitchen and the main living room at the back of the house.

I found my mother at the counter, tossing Styrofoam food containers into the trash.

“Hey, Mom.”

Deborah jumped, shoving one of the boxes down before dropping the lid on the trash can. Apparently she was attempting to make me believe she’d cooked. I knew better.

“Hey,” she said, smiling, her light blue eyes sparkling in the overhead lights.

In my mother’s defense, she might’ve been fifty-five, had always had an interest in younger men, but she looked at least a decade younger than her age. She had a very strict routine when it came to her vanity, too. She was always dieting, went for a mani/pedi every two weeks without fail, and her naturally dark hair was lightened and cut in the same, short, 1990s-Rachel, layered style she’d always had.

And she acted far younger than her age, as well.

Not that it’d been easy growing up with her dating men who were much closer to my age than hers—drastically so, once I’d turned twenty-two—but my sister and I had lived through it and come out the other side without a mark—mostly—so I considered us lucky.

“I’m glad you could make it,” she said. “How’s the book coming along? Almost finished?”

They were the same questions she asked every time I came over. If I were to ask her how many books I’d published, she wouldn’t know. And though I’d mentioned the movie at least a dozen times, I doubted she knew the name of that, either. But that was the way my mother was. She was fiercely self-centered, always had been and likely always would be.

I still loved her unconditionally.

“Workin’ on it,” I told her, knowing she wasn’t paying much attention anyway. “Where’s Paige?” I peered around as though my sister and my niece might possibly jump out and surprise me, salvaging the evening.

“Abby had a counseling appointment,” she muttered, evidently not happy about that.

Lucky them.

Although my mother cared mostly about herself, I had to give her credit for raising me and my sister. She’d been mostly a single mom until I was six, when she’d married husband number three, though according to her tales, she’d dated since the day I was born.

I honestly hadn’t had a bad childhood. We’d moved around a lot, sure, but other than changing schools every few years because of my mother’s most recent marriage (and subsequent divorce), it hadn’t been terrible. I probably had her to thank for the fact that I was a loner. I preferred to keep to myself, didn’t have a lot of close friends, mainly because I’d never been in one place long enough to make any.

“What’s for dinner?” I asked when the tension in the brightly lit room became too much to bear.

“I made chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes,” she said with a grin.

By
made
, she meant she’d either stopped to pick it up at the local diner or they now delivered. The Styrofoam container of mashed potatoes still sitting on the counter was a dead giveaway.

“Fantastic. I’m starving.”

After helping my mother carry the plates to the table, I took a seat when she motioned me toward a chair. She disappeared from the room—I assume to summon Alan to dinner—and returned a minute later, a frown on her face. I don’t think she’d meant for me to see that, so I pretended not to notice.

“Abby said you took her to a movie a couple of weeks ago,” Deborah prompted.

“Yeah.”

“Does she seem okay to you?”

I picked up my fork. “Yeah. Why? Something wrong?”

My mother shook her head. “I’m just worried about her. Seems like she’s gotten over this rather quickly.”

I wasn’t sure a year could be considered quick by any means, not to mention Abby was still going to weekly counseling sessions, but I wasn’t going to argue with my mother. “We had a good time,” I told her.

Nodding, my mother scooped mashed potatoes onto her plate, her gaze sliding down the hall momentarily, then returning to me.

Alan’s chair was noticeably empty, and I briefly wondered if there was trouble in paradise.

“How’s work?” I asked her when she forced a smile.

“Oh, you know.” My mother waved the question off.

I put my fork down, watching her closely. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing,” she said instantly, a forced smile tilting her overly glossed mouth.

The last time my mother had said that, I’d ended up paying her rent for three months.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Presley

The weather had taken a nice turn, warming up considerably, so I’d opted to take my bike to work. After parking my 1999 Harley-Davidson XLH Sportster 883 Custom motorcycle—the one my father and I had restored together before he died—in my spot behind Different by Design, I made my way inside the building.

It was after seven, which, for a Thursday, wasn’t very busy. There were only three people downstairs, including Gil and the two women currently flirting it up with him.

“Hey!” Gil called out, not looking up from the arm he was presently tattooing.

“Hey.”

I offered the two women sitting with him a half-ass attempt at a smile as I went for the appointment book on the front counter to see who would be coming in later.

“You got an appointment tonight?” Gil asked.

“Yeah.” That was the only reason I was there. One of my regulars had come up with a design that he wanted me to do, something that had required me to pretty much trace the image, rather than add my own touch to it, so I’d conceded to his pleading.

I’d spent a few hours that morning drawing, but that had fizzled out shortly after I finished reading Jake’s book, refusing to pick up another in order to force him from my mind. And since I only seemed to be inspired when I saw him, I was beginning to fear that my muse was directly related to him.

And that pissed me off.

Not
at
him, of course. I had no reason to be mad at him, but I knew I couldn’t depend on someone like that. It irked the shit out of me that despite my best effort, I’d gotten my hopes up, too.

Moving over to my station, I started getting things set up for my appointment. I already had the design on the transfer paper, and I knew the colors I would be using, so it didn’t take long. Once I was ready, I went upstairs to check on Shawn.

“Hey, Presley.” Shawn made his way over and threw his arms around me as he always did.

“What’s up?” I hugged him, then took a step back and studied his face, trying to decipher whether or not he had anything new pierced. The guy was already sporting three nose piercings, plus one in his septum, several in his lips—two above, two below—as well as his tongue, his eyebrows, and various other body parts I had no interest in seeing.

As far as I could tell, the only thing he’d done was increase the size of the plugs in his ears, but that wasn’t unusual.

“Not much. You?”

Dropping down into one of the rolling chairs, I leaned back and looked around. “Still stuck,” I told him.

I’d shared my frustrations with Shawn about not being able to draw in an attempt to get his opinion. Although he was more into piercing than anything, I knew Shawn had drawn most of the tattoos on his body himself. He was good, and there was no doubt he could feel my pain.

Not that it had helped, but I liked Shawn. We were close, having worked together for two years. I’d even tattooed him once.

“What’ve you drawn lately?” he asked, hopping up onto the counter and staring down at me.

“Nothin’ much.” It wasn’t a total lie. Other than the fictional woman from Jake’s book, I hadn’t done much. I’d started to sketch a man, but when I’d realized it was Jake I was drawing, and not the character in the book, I’d abruptly given that one up.

“Don’t sweat it, kiddo.”

I loved that he called me that, considering I was two years older than he was.

“I’m trying not to,” I assured him, sighing heavily. “How’s Angela?”

Shawn smiled, all the piercings in his face pulling with the movement. “She’s good.”

“And Frankie?”

“Perfect.” Shawn nodded toward a picture frame sitting on the counter behind me.

I spun around to look, grinning when I saw the small bundle wrapped in blue.

Shawn and Angela had been together for a year and a half, and they were now the proud parents of a two-month-old little boy. Although their relationship could be considered somewhat volatile at times—during the year and a half they’d been together, they’d probably broken up at least a dozen times—I knew they loved each other. They were just very passionate, somewhat immature people.

“Oh, hey,” Shawn said, causing me to spin back around to face him. “What’s goin’ on with Blaze and Blue?”

I waited for him to explain, because I had no idea what could possibly be going on with them. I’d told Blaze to keep her hands off, but this was Blaze—she forged her own path and rarely took commands from anyone.

“He’s following her around like a lost puppy,” Shawn said with a smirk. “It’s quite nauseating.”

I frowned. I hoped like hell Blaze hadn’t slept with him. That was the last thing I needed.

The bell above the front door jangled, and Shawn leaned back to peer over the railing just as Gil hollered at me.

“Looks like you’re up,” Shawn said with a smile.

Sighing, I got to my feet and offered him a small wave before making my way downstairs.

“Presley!” Ricky Cardeno’s deep voice echoed in the small shop as soon as he saw me coming down the stairs.

I couldn’t help but smile back at him. He was one of my favorites. He reminded me a lot of my dad, who I missed more than anything. At sixty-one, Ricky had full-body art, with very little room left for anything else, yet he still insisted on making things fit. It had taken a little creativity on my part, and I kept telling him he needed to retire from his day job as an executive sales rep for one of the leading tech companies so I could have a go at his arms. Because of his job, he’d kept his arms blank, but promised the day he retired, he’d give me first dibs on them.

“You ready?” I asked when he set me back on my feet after giving me a huge bear hug.

“Always.”

Grateful for the next couple of hours when I could ignore all my personal issues, I motioned for Ricky to take a seat.

And got to work.

Two and a half hours later, a little longer than I’d anticipated, Ricky’s tattoo was finished. At his insistence, we’d started filling in the empty space between his various backpieces. After this one, he didn’t have room for much more, and I told him as much as I wiped ointment over it.

“I know,” he said, turning his head to the side. “But then you’ll just have to start filling it in with small stuff.”

“I can do that. Hearts, butterflies, roses. You name it, it’s yours.”

Ricky chortled. “Not a chance, Presley. I know you. You’d rather do skulls than butterflies any day.”

It was true, I would.

I took a step back so he could get up. “All done.”

When he was on his feet, I grabbed my hand mirror and handed it to him so he could check it out for himself. He spun around and admired the colorful ink with a smile, which always made me feel good.

“You’re pretty good for a girl, you know that?”

I could only take that as a compliment considering Ricky wouldn’t allow anyone else to tattoo him these days.

“I try.”

After placing the plastic wrap over the ink to protect it, tossing my latex gloves, taking his payment, and telling him good-bye, I stood at the front counter and checked the appointment book for tomorrow, wondering if I would bother to come in since it was Friday. There wasn’t much on the calendar, which meant the others would likely be free to pitch in for the walk-ins.

The bell jangled above the front door, and I looked up, my breath doing a strange stutter in my chest when I recognized the man gracing the doorway of my tattoo shop.

“Chapter One,” I whispered, shocked.

“Hey.” He looked as though he was hesitant to come inside.

Forcing myself to relax and remember that it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing that he’d shown up, I was surprised by how quickly a smile formed on my lips. “Never thought I’d see you in here.”

And that was the truth. I might’ve fantasized about Jacob Wild a few times, but I still had a hard time seeing him as a tattoo man. Had either of us bothered to get undressed last night, perhaps I would know one way or another if I was right or not.

“No?” He winked as he approached. “And why’s that?”

I shrugged, fighting the urge to look over to see if Gil was watching us.

The absolute last thing I needed was to supply Gil with any ammunition to give me a hard time. He was ruthless about it, which was one of the many reasons I did my best not to let him know when I was interested in someone.

Not that I was interested in Jacob Wild.

Much.