Bliss and the Art of Forever - Alison Kent Page 0,64
to pull me bald.”
The thought brought Brooklyn a tender smile, and she watched as he dug into his pocket for a black elastic, then wound his hair into a knot and secured it. Doing so pulled his shirt up his torso a good six inches, giving her a clear view of the tattoo that seemed to undulate behind the waist of his jeans.
“It’s a dragon.”
“What?”
“The tattoo on your stomach,” she said, nodding down, lingering long enough to read the words there. “And it’s the Bene Gesserit’s litany against fear on the spine.”
“Yeah. I’ve had that one awhile,” he said, tugging at the shirt’s hem to hide the image—unless he was hiding the words—and leaving it at that.
She wasn’t going to press. “C’mon. You can wash up in the restroom. See what a mess my garage has made of your face.”
He followed her into the house, and she showed him down the hall before returning to the kitchen to make lunch. Sub buns—though since she only had three, Callum would have to settle for two—turkey, bacon, tomatoes, lettuce, mayo, and Swiss cheese, because that’s how she liked it.
She assembled the sandwiches, thinking as she did of fear being a mind-killer, as the tattoo’s text said, and Callum, at some time in his life, needing the reminder not to give in to said fear. Had he been afraid of something specific, or was the danger inherent to the life of a biker involved with drugs enough to require the warning?
But since she wasn’t going to ask—his pulling down his shirt to cover the ink took the subject off the table—she finished with the food, then went in search of her guest, finding him in the bathroom doorway, towel in hand, facing the bookcases that ran the length of the hall.
“You read all these?” he asked, catching sight of her.
“Most of them,” she said with a nod, liking too much that he looked right at home in her house, with her towel, smelling of her bathroom’s soap.
“No digital editions for you?”
“Oh, no,” she said, dispelling the notion. “I have a Kindle.” She let her gaze wander the shelves. “With a lot of the same titles loaded on it. Along with, oh, a thousand more?”
“You’re kidding.”
“I’m just your average bibliophile,” she said laughingly.
“Is that the reason behind the story hours?” he asked as he stepped back into the bathroom to hang the towel on its rack.
“Yes and no. The story hours are for the kids, obviously, but my love of reading, and my belief in the importance of reading, is a part of it.”
He leaned down, picked up a little steampunk owl that stood three inches high and had gears for eyes and riveted feathers. “You collect owls?”
“Not really.” Not since Artie.
He returned the one owl, motioned to the others sitting on adjoining shelves. “The evidence says otherwise.”
“It started as a joke,” she said. “Before Artie and I were married. One of his coworkers said Artie was the wisest man he knew for marrying me, and it stuck. The first trip we took together, Artie bought me one carved out of marble and no bigger than my thumb. After that, we made it a thing to hunt down a locally crafted owl everywhere we went.”
“You went to a lot of places,” Callum said after looking over all of the shelves.
“We did.” And that was all she wanted to say about that. Something he and his dragon tattoo should understand. “C’mon. Food’s ready.” She led him to the kitchen. “You want a glass of wine?”
“If you don’t have a beer, sure.”
“I do have a beer. Shiner Bock?”
“A beermaid after my own heart.” He twisted off the top, then stopped and frowned. “What did I say?”
“Nothing. Artie. The way you opened the beer . . . I watched him stand there and do that about a thousand times.” Ugh. What was with all her melancholy today? “Ignore me.”
“It’s okay. We’ve all got our demons,” he said, lifting the bottle to his mouth. “Mine ride in on imaginary Harleys.”
Oh, good. A change of subject. His memories instead of hers. “You said you’d thought you heard one when I came by Bliss the other night.”
“It’s no big deal,” he said, except she’d known that night that it was. “I sometimes wonder if Addy’s mother will come looking for her is all.”
“Even though you have custody? And she told you she didn’t want her?”
“That was six years ago. I’m not the same person I was then,” he said, taking