The Best of Winter Renshaw - An 8 Book Collection - Winter Renshaw Page 0,513

was more amusement than anything else, and for a split moment, I felt like the butt of some inside joke.

And then I wondered if he was gaslighting me. I know what people see when they look at me.

Privileged.

Naive.

Innocent.

Gullible.

Easily had.

"Still doing all right?" he asks, not glancing up.

I nod even if he isn’t looking at me right now. "Yes."

The muscles of his forearm flex as his left palm splays across my skin. A moment later, our fingers brush when he pushes the fallen hem of my top out of the way.

In the strangest way, this feels like a dream.

The icy-cold air on my bare flesh …

The sterile scent of alcohol wipes and powdered gloves …

The vibrating sting of the needle against my skin …

The heavy metal playing on speakers in the back …

The shaved heads, “sleeved” arms, Harleys parked out front, and the girls in half-shirts and mini-skirts all work together to form an ambience foreign to any I’ve ever known …

I try not to stare too much, but this must be what Alice felt like when she first arrived in Wonderland.

“There.” Madden shuts off the machine when he’s finished, and then he cleans the tattoo one more time before dabbing on a finger-sized scoop of ointment.

“Can I see it first?” I ask when he reaches for a bandage.

He stops, turning to face me, his shoulders slumping like I’m asking the world of him. “Right. Go ahead.”

Sitting up, I contort myself until I can almost see the beginning of a black and blue outline against warm pink skin.

“Here.” Madden shoves a handheld mirror toward me.

It’s a butterfly. Small. Not much bigger than a silver dollar. Brilliant blue with black veining.

“You done now? We good?”

I place the mirror aside and let him patch me up. Tattoos are flesh wounds, I know that. And I’ve already read up on the aftercare. I say nothing as he hands me a set of instructions printed on yellow paper.

Madden cleans up his station before yanking off his gloves and tossing them in the trash. “Missy will check you out up front.”

“Oh.” I’m not sure why I expected him to walk me up. He’s not a hairstylist or aesthetician. People don’t come here because of the service.

Sliding off the client bed, I tug my shirt into place and locate my bag. My skin throbs from beneath the bandage, but it’s tolerable and not as bad as I expected.

“Thank you,” I say, turning to him before I make my way to the front. My gaze falls to his right hand for some reason—as if my subconscious was expecting a freaking handshake—and he definitely notices.

Awkward.

I can’t get out of there fast enough, and as I trot to the front in my pink Chanel flats, I’m not sure if all eyes are actually on me or if I’m imagining it. I’m sure to them, I’m an alien—a strange sight. I even heard one of them say, “They don’t make ‘em like that in Olwine,” when I first arrived.

If they only knew how much I’d rather be like them than like … me.

I envy their freedom more than they could ever know.

As soon as I pay—$150 cash plus a twenty-five percent tip—I step lightly toward the door and eye my little white Volvo parked on the corner, but the closer I get, the more I realize something looks … off.

“Oh, my God.” I clap my hand over my mouth when I see it—the boot. “No. No, no, no.”

A sign a few feet back says: NO PARKING 4-6 PM MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY, and I check the time on my phone.

4:07 PM.

“Seriously?” I talk under my breath, a habit my mother detests. But if she knew I drove to Olwine today to get a tattoo, she’d detest that even more.

I grab the ticket off the window and dial the number on back, which goes to voicemail after a few rings.

Great.

Taking a seat on the curb, I hold the ticket in one hand and my phone in the other and try, try again.

And again.

And again.

I just need the jerk who did this to take it off so I can get home before my mother marches down to the police station and tries to file a Missing Persons’ report—which she’s done before when I was forty minutes late coming home from the library once.

True story.

“You, uh, need help?”

Following the sound of a man’s voice, I twist around and shield my eyes from the afternoon sun.

Madden.

Rising, I tug my shirt into place and exhale. “Seven minutes