Friday shakes her head. “Paul thinks of me as one of the guys, no matter what I wear to work.”
Emily lifts her V’d fingers up to her lips and licks through the middle of them. “That’s because he thinks you do that as much as he does.” She laughs, and Friday shoves her in the shoulder.
Emily giggles. She looks at me. “What kind of hot dog do you want?”
“All the way,” I say. I wonder if I should take one back for Pete. But I don’t even know what he would like. “What does Pete like?” I ask. “Do you know?”
“Onions and mustard,” Friday and Emily say at the same time, and Emily makes a gagging noise in her throat.
Friday holds up forty bucks. “Paul gave me cash to get hot dogs for everyone,” she says. Someone bumps into her, and she drops a twenty. I bend over to pick it up.
I hear a whistle behind me and immediately tense. But it’s just Emily. She lifts the edge of my shirt with delicate fingertips. “Somebody had a really good time playing with markers last night,” she says, but she’s grinning. Heat creeps up my face. I tug my shirt down. “And somebody doesn’t want to talk about it.” She laughs. She and Friday lean close together with their shoulders touching. They both narrow their eyes at me. “How high up do you think those markers went?” she asks Friday. But she knows I can hear her.
“I’d rather know how far down they went,” Friday says.
They both laugh. A grin tugs at my lips despite the heat that’s flooding my face. “Far enough,” I say quietly.
Emily’s eyes narrow again. “They haven’t done it yet,” she says. She turns around to order.
“She’s right, isn’t she?” Friday asks. I nod, and she curses, pulling a five from her pocket. She slides it into Emily’s back pocket. “And it won’t be tonight because he’ll still feel bad about your dog.” She puts a hand on my shoulder and rubs it fondly. “I’m really sorry about that,” she says.
I hadn’t thought about Mags in hours, and now I feel bad for forgetting her. Tears sting my eyes, but I blink them back.
“Oh shit,” Emily says. “What did you do?” She glares at Friday.
“I mentioned her dog,” Friday says.
“I told you not to do that,” Emily hisses. “Pete said not to bring it up.”
He did? “It’s all right. I don’t mind,” I say. I want to miss her. I want to remember her. I want to talk about her.
Someone bumps into my shoulder, and I tense again. I don’t like this busy street. Not at all. I edge closer to Friday.
She looks at me as the vendor wraps up our hot dogs. “I want to like you, Reagan,” Friday says.
“I…want to…like you, too,” I say slowly.
“Those boys are like my family,” she says.
“Friday,” Emily warns.
But she holds up a hand. “Those boys are like my family. When I didn’t have anyone, they were there.” There’s a story here, and I really want to know what it is. “You have a family,” she says. “So if you f**k mine up, I will cut you.” She wields a plastic fork in my direction, but then she starts to laugh. “I’m just kidding,” she says. “Well, sort of.”
“I get it,” I say.
“She’s not even sleeping with him yet,” Emily says. “Leave her alone.”
Friday snorts. “I didn’t leave you alone.”
“You told us to spray disinfectant if we have sex at the shop.” Emily shakes her head. She grins. “So we bought extra disinfectant.”
“Eww,” Friday says.
I laugh. I could like these women.
We collect our hot dogs and head back to the tattoo parlor. But Pete’s not there when we get back. “Where did he go?” I ask.
“I sent him on an errand,” Paul says. He’s doing a tattoo and seems a little distracted.
“Is he coming back?” I ask. I’m not too happy to be stuck here, particularly since Matt has my car.
“Eventually,” Paul says.
I sit and eat my hot dog, but then the shop fills up. A group of marines walks in the door. There are five of them, and I suddenly feel cornered. I step toward the back of the building, but that doesn’t help my growing sense of unease, not in the least. Paul looks up from the tattoo he’s running, and his eyes narrow. “You okay, Reagan?” he asks. I’m not. I’m not all right at all. I thought I was past all this. But I’m not. Apparently, I’m only able to move past it when Pete’s with me, and that leaves me as disquieted as the men do.
I nod, but I’m seriously not all right.
Paul puts down his tattoo gun and walks to the back of the shop with me. He pulls the curtain around the private area. I heave in a breath, finally able to fill my lungs since those men came in the room. “Better?” he asks.
He sits down at a table and opens a box of pens. He starts to absently draw on a piece of paper.
“Don’t just stand there,” he says. “Sit.” He pats the table in front of him. “People make me nervous when they pace,” he says. He doesn’t even look up at me. He’s just sits and draws quietly.
“Paul,” I start. “I think I should go.”
He nods, but he still doesn’t look up. “Let me know when you’re ready so I can pack up my stuff.”
“What?” Why would he need to pack?
He finally looks up, and his blue eyes meet mine. “I sent Pete on an errand. And he left knowing I would take care of his girl. So if you leave, I have to leave. Just let me know when you’re ready.”
“I don’t need a babysitter,” I bite out. But my eyes are filling with tears already. I blink them back furiously.
“I didn’t say you needed a babysitter,” he replies, and I can tell he’s annoyed. He’s still gentle and caring, but there’s something roiling beneath the surface, too. “Those guys make you feel uncomfortable, huh?” he asks. He looks down at his paper again. He’s not paying me much attention, yet I get the distinct feeling that he is.
I nod and bite off the end of my fingernail, pulling so hard that I tear the cuticle. I wipe the blood on my jeans.
“Shit,” Paul says. He goes to a drawer and pulls out a Band-Aid. “If Pete comes back and you’re bleeding, I’ll never hear the end of it.” He tears the bandage open with his teeth and pulls the tabs off it. He holds it out like he wants to wrap it around my finger. I stick my hand out, because I get the feeling he’s not going to stop. My hand is shaking, though, and I hate it. He wraps it up, and then he gives me a squeeze.
He sits back down and starts to draw again. I sit across from him, and he passes me the paper, where he’s drawn a simple daisy behind prison bars. The daisy is reaching toward a shaft of sunlight. “Shade that in for me,” he says.
“I don’t draw,” I say, but I sit down across from him.
“Everyone knows how to color,” he says with a snort. “Just pick some colors and stay between the lines. Or go outside the lines with purpose.” He shrugs. “I don’t care.”
I pick up a marker and start to fill in the lines. And I go outside the lines with purpose. I smile at Paul, and he grins back and winks.
When I’m done, I stare down at it. The daisy is colorful and pretty, but withdrawn with its petals submissively lying down, and it’s leaning toward the shaft of sunlight. “This is me, isn’t it?” I ask quietly.
“Is it?” he replies, but he doesn’t look up at me. He keeps drawing.
“Yeah.” It’s me. I tap his arm, and he looks at my fingers, his brow arched like he’s amused. “Can you put this on me?” I ask. I’m almost breathless, I’m so excited.
“Do you want some time to think about it?” he asks.
“Do you usually ask people that?” I reply.
“Only when I think I need to.” He still looks amused but serious at the same time. He heaves a sigh. “Where do you want it?”
“Where do you suggest?” I ask.
“Maybe on your shoulder?” he says. He slides latex gloves over his fingers and snaps them on his wrists. “You don’t think Pete will mind if I do this, do you?” he asks. I’m not sure he really cares, but I’m glad he asked.
“Well, if you were going to put it on my inner thigh,” I say, “I could see him not liking it.” I laugh at the thought.
“Oh, that was going to be next place I suggested.” He snaps his latex-covered fingers, but they don’t make any noise. I get the idea, though.
A laugh bubbles from my throat. Paul starts pouring colors into tiny little cups. “You’re going to have to take that off,” he says, and he tugs on the arm of my T-shirt.
Uh oh. I didn’t think of that. He pulls a T-shirt from a cabinet and uses a pair of scissors to cut down the back of it. I take it, grateful that he thought of it. He turns his back while I pull my shirt over my head and slide the torn T-shirt on. It hangs open at the back, but I don’t care. I leave my bra on. He did say my shoulder, after all.
“Wow,” he breathes, when he walks around behind me. “You guys had a lot of fun last night, didn’t you?” He chuckles. I look over my shoulder and flush at all the ink that I never did wash off. I haven’t been home long enough.
“We were trying out some designs,” I stumble to say.
“Umm hmm,” he hums. “Sure you were.” He laughs, and a grin tugs at my lips. “The tramp stamp is pretty creative.”
I haven’t even seen that one yet. “What does it say?” I look back over my shoulder.
He points to a mirror behind me, and I go stand in front of it and look over my shoulder. I blush like crazy when I see that he’s written, Pete’s girl in a gothic script with squiggly flowers and vines draping down below the waist of my jeans.
Paul opens the curtain and motions to Logan. He comes to the back and signs something to Paul. Paul shows him the design, and Logan picks up a pencil and starts to add something to it. “Don’t worry,” Paul says to me. “You’ll love it.”
“What is it?” I ask.
“Trust me,” he says. He turns me around, and I sit down on the tattoo table. “Ready?” he asks.
I nod.
He transfers the outline of the design to my skin. The quiet motor of the tattoo gun starts to run, and I feel it touch my shoulder. It’s like an ant bite. It doesn’t hurt. And when he starts to move it, the pain goes away completely. I sit quietly, and sometimes Logan speaks to me. I talk to him, careful to look at him when I respond, but he doesn’t have any problem talking to me even though I don’t know sign language. He’s pretty witty, actually. After we start the second hour, Emily sticks her head behind the curtain.
“Are all the marines gone?” Paul asks. He looks down at me to check for my reaction, I assume.
“Yeah, only one of them wanted a tat,” she says. She comes around to look at my shoulder. I hear her draw in a breath.
“Shh,” Paul says shushing her.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing,” she says, but her voice cracks, and she wipes a tear from her eye.
“Did he put some boobs on me or something?” I ask. Now I’m really worried.
“Did you draw that?” she asks Logan. She goes and wraps her arms around his chest. He nods and kisses her forehead. “You did a really good job,” she says.
“Hey, I shaded it,” I say.
“All done,” Paul says. And he turns the gun off and lays it down. He swipes some lotion across the tattoo and washes it, then pulls me up by my elbows and points me toward the mirror. “What do you think?” he asks.
He watches my face closely. Paul does that a lot. You don’t have to speak for him to know how you’re feeling.
I turn my back to the mirror, and I see the work of art he’s created. He drew the daisy, and he’s colored it with my colors. It’s reaching toward a shaft of sunlight from behind bars. That part is exactly what I expected. But at the base of the daisy, Maggie lays with her head balanced on the lower petals, just like she used to balance it on my knee. She’s perfect in all her black-and-white glory, and the eyes sparkle, just like hers did. A sob builds in my throat. “I love it,” I croak out. “It’s perfect.”
Paul reaches for me slowly, careful not to scare with me with his slow movements, and he pulls me to his chest. I wrap my arms around him, and he closes my open shirt behind me with his fingers and draws me close into him. He strokes a hand down the back of my head. “You’re welcome,” he says. I see Logan give him a thumbs-up.
“Thank you, Logan,” I say. I look in the mirror again. It’s truly perfect.
“Next time, we’ll do one without bars,” Paul says as he sets me back and looks into my eyes.
I nod. “Next time,” I say. For the first time since the assault, I feel like my cage is slowly being unlocked.
Paul still has his arms wrapped around me when the curtain opens and Pete sticks his head into the area. He’s grinning until he sees me wrapped up in Paul’s arms. “You guys should put up a sign so I know there’s something intimate going on back here,” he says. He looks at me closely and scowls when he sees me wipe my eyes. “What the f**k did you do to her?” he asks.
He walks forward, and Paul lets me go. Pete tips my chin up. “Are you all right?” he asks. He’s worried, and I both hate and love that he is.