Every Second With You (11 page)

She furrows her brow, leans away from me. “Wow. I didn’t expect that.”

“Well?”

“I live with Kristen,” she says, pointing out the blatantly obvious.

It irks me slightly, but I push forward. I’m not backing down. “Harley, we’re having a kid. And you act like moving in together is weird?”

“We have a lease and stuff.”

“I know. But it ends eventually, right?”

She nods. “December, I think.”

“Move in with me then. You need to finish school, and there’s no reason for us to have two places. I know you’re not hurting for money in the short term, and I’m not either, but at some point we have to be smart, right?”

“Are you asking me to move in to save money?”

I shake my head and laugh. “Seriously?”

She shrugs, but her cheeks start to flush, and she knows she asked a silly question.

“I’m asking you to move in with me because I’m ridiculously in love with you. And for the record, I was going to ask you before you told me you were pregnant. This is something I want for
us
.”

“Really? You were going to ask before?” Her lips start to curve up.

“Yes.” I trace her top lip, mapping the beginning of her smile with my fingertip. “So is that a yes?” This time I’m not going to freak out. I’m not going to shut down. I’m going to face up to the future like a man, and I’m going to be the man she needs.

She nods happily. “Yes. You are always a yes. End of the year let’s move in together.”

Then she kisses me, sealing our deal, and doing that thing she does to me with the slightest touch.

Turn me on.

She turns me on, always. Constantly. I groan as she nips my lips lightly, and then kisses me in a thoroughly sweet but intensely seductive way. She breaks the kiss to whisper in my ear. “You taste like a yummy sandwich.”

I laugh. “So do you.”

“I want more.”

“More sandwich or more me?”

“Both in general. But right now, more you,” she says in a low voice as she presses her lips against my jaw, and runs a hand down my arm, making me harder.

“Now, you’re not playing fair. I have a meeting in ten minutes, and you’re killing me, but I have to take a rain check.”

* * *

Ilyas strokes his beard absently as he shows me the needle he uses for thin branches. “See? It’s like a sewing needle,” he says. Ilyas is built like a football player, inked like a biker, and he speaks with an accent that’s some kind of combination of Greek and Russian. We’re in the back of his shop, and the front is filled with customers. He employs several artists and they are hard at work on this busy day.

“Like this?”

I press the needle against my forearm, demonstrating.

“Yes. Exactly,” he says, nodding.

“And that’s how I do the leaves?”

“That is precisely how you do the leaves, but first you have to
see
the leaves,” he says, closing his eyes, drawing in a deep breath and widening his hands in front of his face. “Like a vision. You see them, you draw them, and then you ink them.” Yeah, so he’s also a combination of arty and precise, too. “It is best when they are delicate. Have you seen ugly tattoos of trees? Fat, non-descript branches? Splotchy leaves? Hideous blossoms?” He spits on the black tiled floor, disgusted even by the mention.

I nod. “Yeah. I’ve seen some like that. I don’t want to do ones like that.”

“No. You don’t. You want to make transcendent ones. You want a tattoo that is like a painting. That
moves
someone, like a museum piece can do. Do you know how to do that?”

I flash back over the ink I’ve designed, the ways clients have responded, the remade heart on Harley’s shoulder. I grab my phone and show Ilyas a picture of her heart and arrow tattoo.

“That is very good. Hector said you had great talent. And if you want to make this cherry blossom, you need vision, a needle and a steady hand. And practice. I want you to draw and draw and draw, every day and night, until the cherry blossom feels like a part of you. Like a part of your heart.”

I nod.

“Come now. You watch me. I am starting a lily design in ten minutes using this technique.”

Then I spend the rest of the hour studying Ilyas’ technique, memorizing the move of the needle, the focus in his eyes, the way he shades in the lines.

When he’s done, he shows his client the design, and she gasps in awe.

That reaction never gets old. It’s one of the reasons why I do what I do For the priceless moment when a client first sees his or her ink.

“It’s gorgeous,” she says, and throws her arms around Ilyas.

After she’s done, he walks me out. “Now, you go. And you practice. You will show me the tree you make this week, and if it’s as good as Hector says, then I will introduce you to some artists you can learn even more from.”

“That would be amazing.”

I thank him many times over. Things are falling into place. This feels like potential, like possibility, like a future that makes sense. The more I hone my craft, the more I can grow and improve in my job.

As I leave, it hits me that my job is not just for me anymore.

Chapter Sixteen

Trey

I must be made of iron.

Harley’s been sitting topless on my futon for the last hour. The window is open, and a warm breeze filters in¸ mingling with The Postal Service playing faintly on my phone. The heat wave has broken, but it’s still September, and there’s a light sheen of sweat on her neck. It takes all my resistance not to lick her right now.

But then, resistance is something I’ve learned to manage better. We both went to an SLAA meeting this evening—she to the girls,’ me to the guys,’ and then we came back here so I could practice.

She’s behaved too, sitting cross-legged, wearing only a pair of white cotton underwear, as she reads a book for her literature class and I draw on her chest. Her blond hair is twisted with a pencil on top of her head, and a few loose strands have fallen. One sticks to her neck, the heat making it curl. She is the perfect canvas, and I’m nearly done. She twitches once as I finish shading in the last pink blossom right under her collarbone using a tattoo stencil pen.

“Stay still,” I tell her in a soft voice.

“I am,” she says, never taking her eyes off the pages.

A few minutes later, I’m finished.

I release a breath I barely realized I was holding, and then relax my shoulders. I stand up and look at the drawing on her body. It starts above her right breast and curves over to her bare, unmarked shoulder.

“Come look,” I say and bring her to the bathroom.

She appraises herself in the mirror, nodding several times as she admires the pink blossoms, the red leaves, and the brown branches. “This is amazing. You are seriously talented, Trey. You might almost tempt me to have you do one on me too.”

“Thank you for letting me practice on you. You know what the cherry blossom tree means?”

She shakes her head.

“In Japan, it’s a symbol for the preciousness of life. With tattoos, it represents femininity and beauty, so it’s perfect for you,” I tell her, watching her eyes shine in the reflection. She is so beautiful. I press my lips to her neck, kissing her, and then licking off her sweat. I watch her reaction in the mirror. Her eyes flutter closed, and she draws in a quick breath. “Especially now,” I whisper. “It’s even more perfect for you now.”

Her lips part, and she moans lightly.

“And this reminds me that I have unfinished business with you.”

“What’s that?”

“Something I was remiss in doing last night.”

She opens her eyes, meets my gaze in the mirror. “What would that be?”

I spin her around. “I wanted to be inside you so much last night that I couldn’t wait. But now I can do my favorite thing. I love going down on you,” I tell her and she inhales sharply, licks her lips and nods a yes.

I run my fingers along her hipbone, that spot that drives her wild, before I fall to my knees, and pull down her underwear, helping her step out of them.

I look up at her, and she’s ready, her eyes are hazy, and she reaches for my hair, threading her fingers through me, pulling me close. I lick her softly at first, because that’s how she likes it. She needs the tease, the kiss, my lips against her and kissing her wetness like I do her mouth, before I plunge my tongue inside her. She cries out, clasps a hand over her mouth, and yanks hard on my hair.

I know this won’t take long, and I love when she loses control like this, because I’m the only one she’s ever been like this for. Ever, ever, ever. I make quick work of her, cupping her sexy ass, burying my tongue inside her. She rocks her hips against my mouth, fast, and then faster, until she’s fucking my face just the way I like it. This is my favorite place to be, and I couldn’t be happier to hear her pant and moan as I kiss her senseless until she comes, hard. She tastes so fucking good on my lips.

After her legs stop shaking, I stand up and run my finger across her jawline. She shivers against my touch, her eyes all wild and drugged.

“I love everything about the way you taste,” I tell her.

“You do?”

I nod. “Everything. Do you have any idea how many times I thought about doing that to you during those six months when we were just friends?”

She shakes her head. “No. How many times?”

“Every single night. I can’t get enough of it.”

“I think it’s your turn now though,” she says.

I don’t argue with that as she strips me, takes me in her mouth, and I lose my mind with pleasure.

Later, we’re naked on my futon, and Harley lays her hand on my thigh. “So listen, remember those cards I told you I found?”

“Yeah.”

“I went back to my mom’s and I did what you said.”

Oh shit.
I flash back to the day she went there, when she tried to talk about it and I was far too focused on fucking her to listen. But I want to listen now. I want to know.

“What did you find?”

“More cards,” she says, and then she jumps up and grabs her purse.

She digs into her purse, and shows me several cards. I study each one, tracing the words as if I can decode them. Stories of the sand, the beach, and a girl. Like this one:
She could build them as high as the sky, with sand turrets and towers that reached for the clouds. Only, there were no clouds where she was, underneath the bluest of blue, so different from the places she was used to . . .

“It’s kind of a cool story,” I say.

“Yeah, I love it. And that’s all the more reason why I want to find them,” she says, and tells me how she and Kristen hunted for a name, an address, any sort of information. “I really want to know where they are. How to reach them. I want to talk to them, Trey. So what do I do?”

I push my hand through my hair, running through scenarios in my head. Sites to try, names to research, documents to look into, but the reality is we’re here in New York, and her grandparents are probably somewhere in California, and she doesn’t even know their last name. She can’t waltz into the hall of records for the county and dig around till she finds the info. I wish I knew a detective, or an investigator to track them down, but then it hits me.

There’s one person who just knows stuff. Who can find things out.

And I can’t believe I’m about to suggest this because two months ago he was my worst enemy, but he might be the one who can help her. And it takes every ounce of guts and restraint to get the words to travel from my brain to my throat to my mouth to my lips, but I want this for Harley, and I want to show her I can move on.

“What if you asked Cam to help find them? He could probably figure out their names somehow, right?”

She blinks several times as if she doesn’t recognize me, as if I’m some strange robot inside her boyfriend’s body.

“Are you serious?” Her mouth hangs open, the shock still lingering.

“Give it a shot,” I say, even though there’s a part of my brain that’s smacking me for suggesting this at all. But I ignore that part because I know this is what she needs. “I want you to find them and he’s one of those people, right? He’s the kind of person, for better or worse, who knows how to figure things out. Just don’t wear your socks and Mary Janes when you go see him, okay?”

She shakes her head, and laughs. “I burned those motherfuckers.”

Chapter Seventeen

Harley

The receptionist doesn’t remember me. But I recognize her instantly from the last time I walked through these doors three months ago. Her stick-straight blond hair is blow-dried in the same perfect bob, exactly as she looked when I told Cam I’d work for him again.

She has no idea what goes down behind his closed door. She probably has no clue about his secrets.

But maybe she has her own secrets too. Maybe she has darkness inside her that she hides behind her perfect hair, and her pink, lip-glossed, closed-mouth smile. Maybe she’s struggling to fit in this world.

I smile broadly. It’s all I have to give a stranger, but sometimes it’s all someone needs for their day to be better.

“Hi. I have an appointment to see Cam Jackson. I’m Harley Coleman. And you have gorgeous hair.”

She touches the ends of her hair briefly, and her smile reaches her eyes for the first time. “Thank you,” she says crisply. Then she calls Cam’s office to let him know I’m here. She says he’ll be with me shortly.

I nod and take a seat. I’ve never taken a seat here before. I’ve never waited before. But I have to be okay with that because I’m no longer the star in Cam’s stable. I’m not in his stable at all, and I need to be grateful for whatever help I can snag from that fixer of a man. I open the book I have an essay test on later this week and re-read some of the passages full of symbolism, since the professor said he’d focus on that in the exam.

Ten minutes later, the receptionist tells me I can go to Cam’s office.

I stand, and smooth out unseen wrinkles on my green T-shirt with a cartoonish owl on it. My hair is cinched in a ponytail, and I have on jeans and combat boots—the reminder of who I am is as much for Cam as it is for me. My purse is on my arm, the gift for him inside.