her tone and when I looked to her, I saw that her bottom lip was trapped between her teeth, just begging for the permission to smile. "And don't tell me ... Your favorite color is black."
My lips curled in a reluctant smile. "I can't imagine what your first clue was."
Audrey shrugged. "Oh, I don't know ..." She took a step back and dragged her scrutinizing gaze over my leather jacket, jeans, and boots. All black.
I chuckled, averting my eyes toward my bike. Gleaming beneath a lamp and begging me to hop on and take it home. Home. Haven. Away from people and Audrey and that tattoo ... That fucking tattoo ...
My eyes flicked back to the sharp black lines, teasing me from beneath her collar. The cross hung above them, playing in multiple contrasts. Darkness and light. Hell and Heaven. Evil and good. Standing there, I then felt the analogy applied to us as well. Her, in pink and denim. Me, in black and nothing but. Her, wearing the symbol of Christ. Me, wearing the anger of the damned.
What was a woman like her doing with the brand of the devil on her chest, disguising itself as art?
"I'll let you leave," she said apologetically. "I just wanted to thank you again for the tattoo. I'd been wanting to get it done for a while, but I was kinda scared, so I put it off. But I'm so glad to have it now. It feels like it's always belonged there."
"I'm glad," I replied with a single nod.
"I wasn't sure I'd feel like that," she admitted airily. "I thought I'd regret it. You know? I don't have any other tattoos, so I wasn't sure what it'd be like after it was done. I mean, once it's there, it's really there. It took my cousins to convince me ..."
She prattled on nervously, and my eyes dipped to her mouth. Her lips moved; her voice as gentle as the breeze around us. Her lip gloss reflected the light, glittering with multicolored sparkles, emphasizing the rounded curve of her bottom lip and the subtle dip of her Cupid's bow. I stopped listening to her speak and focused on those lips, so pronounced in structure but so temptingly soft in appearance. My mind wandered, wondering what her lip gloss tasted like and if it would glide against my lips or create a tacky barrier that would only make me frustrated and angry.
"... you know what I mean?"
I lifted my eyes back to hers. Shame burned my cheeks, realizing I had no idea what she'd just said, and I smiled through the humility. "Sorry. What did you say?"
"Oh." She dropped her gaze to the sidewalk and her shoes, before clearing her throat. "Um, I was just saying that I really love the tattoo."
That wasn't all she had said, and I knew it. I felt guilty. I felt like a pervert. But I pushed myself to smile genuinely as I replied, "I'm glad."
"You truly have a gift, Blake," she said softly, and fuck, I hated when people said that. It implied that it was intentionally given, that it wasn't just a silly, stupid fluke. But I said nothing as she went on, "You make people feel whole."
Oh, if only she knew what a crock of shit that really was. I broke my brother, robbing him of any chance he’d have at being his own artist. I drained the love from my mother’s heart and stole the happiness from my dad. I was a leach, a parasite, and I was paying for it with my life.
And that's why I needed to leave. To remove myself from her presence and get away from the twinkling sparkle of her lips and the taunting glint of that cross around her neck.
With a curt nod and an agonizing smile, I stepped backward. "I really need to get going," I brushed her off, pushing her away with my words, and she nodded hastily.
"Oh, of course, yeah. Get home safe, okay? Have a good night."
"Thanks, you too."
We parted ways and I moved swiftly toward the Harley. I was so close, ready to swing my leg over the seat and get the hell away from there, when a thought wedged itself between my resolve to leave and the need to stay.
What the fuck does it mean?
I thought I had let it go. I thought it no longer mattered. But with the sudden popularity of my work on Instagram and all of it leading back to that