When I reach Rob, I notice a few private stations lined along one side of the hallway. Is this where the no one knows tattoos get done, or the discrete piercings happen?
“I lost you.” Rob’s arm weaves across my waist and I’m alarmed by the intimate squeeze.
“Oh.” I feel every one of my limbs stiffen. Not because I don’t like his intimacy but the fact he shifts moods faster than his car on that drag strip.
He removes himself and guilt racks me because I can’t stop wanting to make his face look like a boy on Christmas morning. So, when his eyes turn down, I inch forward fast and snatch his hand up. He glances back, a smirk across his face. “Jed’s waiting.”
He tugs me down the hallway as black curtains forbid me to see what the buzzing devices are marking on skin. Once we’re fourth down, Rob steps back to allow me to enter first. A long black vinyl bed sits along a wall with only a doctor-type stool and a small rolling tray next it. There’s no extra chair, and I bite the inside of my cheek wondering if I should have stayed out front.
Before I have any time to second guess my decision, a big burly guy plods through the curtained-off room. He’s probably six-three, broad shoulders, goatee and piercings popping out in numerous places. If I was in a dark alley, I’d most likely turn and bolt. Then a wide grin splashes across his face and that intimidating, scary as hell figure, turns teddy bear with only the shining of his teeth.
“Jed!” Rob welcomes him into the room with a boisterous chuckle.
“What’s up, asshole?” Jed shakes his head, making his way over to the station. “You decide now to cover up your dumb ass idea?” Although his words aren’t friendly, his demeanor is. “Don’t be shy, buttercup; take a seat next to asshole.” He points to the spot next to Rob and I step over. Once I’m seated down, he rolls over on the doctor chair. “I’m Jed.” He holds his hand out to me and I see something tattooed on each knuckle, but I can’t catch it all before he pulls away.
“Paige,” I meekly say, sounding way too mousy between these two guys with larger than life personalities.
“Pleasure.” He winks his brown eye and scratches his goatee before rolling back over to the cart, assembling his station. “What the hell are you going to cover it with?” He turns, crossing his leg over his ankle, resting back against the wall.
I turn toward Rob and his eyes flicker to mine before back to Jed’s. “I have no fucking clue. I just think it’s time that it’s gone.” My eyes scan Rob’s arms and I spot the lips next to the guitar.
“Drunken night of stupidity?” I ask, easing back against the wall.
Jed starts laughing and points to Rob. “Not this one. He was sober. Fucking idiot.” He turns to me. “Are you virgin?
“Excuse me?” I know guys like him can be forward, but this is a whole new level for me.
The crinkles around his eyes lift. “Shit, sorry. I mean your skin.”
“Are you asking me if I have a tattoo?” I clarify and Rob chuckles next to me.
Jed nods. “Yep.”
“Maybe I’ll entice you after tonight.”
Rob swings his arm around my shoulders, urging me into him. “You hitting on my girl, here?”
“Is she yours?” Jed’s eyebrow cocks up and Rob turns his eyes my way.
“Yeah,” he says and my heart hammers against my chest.
“Shit, then. Sorry.”
“That’s alright. Any suggestions on the cover up?” Rob releases me and I cross my legs on the bed, trying to dissect why I didn’t argue his claim.
Jed and Rob talk logistics of designs while my mind races with Rob’s meaning. It will be the first question once we get out of here, that’s for sure. To correct him in front of Jed felt wrong. Maybe because I like the idea of being his girl? Or my lack of interest in Jed. I mean, he’s not bad looking, just more bulky than what I prefer. I glance over at Rob and my teeth automatically bite down on my lip from how attractive he is. Those glass eyes, lean muscles mixed with the unruly black hair. From the moment I stepped out of my car and Rob’s eyes pinned me with lust, I was addicted. Completely, obsessed with the flutter in my stomach from his smoldering eyes on my body. During the past weeks, I’ve dressed for him, pranced in front of him, all on purpose. All to bring those eyes that entice the feelings of a sexual want inside of me. Why? When I have no chance of winning his heart—only his cock.
Before I have a chance to focus on what’s happening, Jed’s gone and it’s only Rob and I in the small room. Not about to lose my chance to confront him, I shift my body to face him. “Why did you tell him I was your girl?”
His shoulders shrug as he tucks his phone back in his pocket. “I didn’t want him to hit on you.”
“Oh.” I face the curtain, hoping for Jed to re-enter and free the tension.
“You aren’t going to ask me why?”
“Why?” I still don’t turn to face him. There’s something I can’t see in this moment on his face that I can hear in his voice.
“Look at me.” My head slowly twists and his eyelids are hooded with anxiety. “I’m not going to deny I like you, Paige. I do.” My heart soars out of my chest that he’s actually admitting the feelings we’ve both been denying. “But . . .”
“But?”
His lips turn down at the corners.
“Yeah . . . but I’m not the one for you. I have a past that I haven’t made peace with and it’s not fair to put you in the middle of it.” His back straightens and he shifts his jaw back and forth. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have led you on.”
When I sit there silent for a second, his hand crosses that invisible line between us and he links his fingers with mine. “That doesn’t mean I want to see you with someone else though.” His voice is such a low whisper, I wonder what he really expects from me.
“What do you want me to do then?”
“I don’t know.”
“You can’t have it both ways, Rob.”
“I know.”
“I can’t keep going on like this.” I should really say my heart can’t take it anymore. Admit that he keeps hammering away at it and if he doesn’t at least try to make this work between us, it’s bound to break regardless.
“I know.”
I disengage my hands out of his and a huge huff releases out of his mouth. Just as I’m about to ask him more questions, Jed steps through the curtained off area with a transparency of the tattoo.
Rob
“A dove, man?” Jed asks me for the fifth time.
“Yeah.”
“I’m not sure. You aren’t the dove kind of guy.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Figure you’re the kind of guy that likes his past.”
I tilt my head and stare at the guy who has painted most of my body.
“Just do it.”
Paige excuses herself and as soon as she escapes through the curtain, I don’t have to wait three seconds before Jed hammers me with a question about her.
“Who is she?” His head nods to where she just left.
“Roommate.”
“What happened to Dex and Chrissy?” He mounts the transparency over Jessa’s lips and a feeling of loss hits me square in the gut.
I remember the day Jessa pressed her lips on the black ink pad and then on my arm. I was trying to save a relationship that neither of us wanted. I grasped for any hope that I could live life normally again. My heart wasn’t invested, and she saw through it. Grant gives her everything I couldn’t.
Paige is different though, she’s fighting for me and it feels like the first time I rode on the tallest roller coaster, The Magnum, at Cedar Point when I was ten. How I sat down in the seat staring up at the big hill thinking how on Earth will I gain enough balls for my friends not to laugh at me? Will I grip the bar, or raise my hands? Then after that gut-checking first hill, it was smooth sailing. The faster the car went, the more I laughed and screamed. I was hooked, but for some reason, that first hill still scares me shitless. Paige scares me shitless. Damn, she’s the first girl to make me want to gamble for a different life.