And… my smile came crashing down. Do not think about him referring to your butt as tight, Ris. Focus!
"Just because I've never hit another person in my life doesn't mean I won't make you the first." I blinked coolly. "Charlie."
What did the man do? He laughed.
"I'm serious," I insisted, earning another laugh from him.
"I know, babe," Dex chuckled. "I heard all about you sellin' off the rights to my kneecaps."
Oh crap. There may have been a gulp that was processed in my throat. "About that..."
He leaned forward over the counter, elbows propped up on the edge. "Sooner or later you'll figure out that eventually I find out everythin', Ritz."
That suddenly sounded like way more of a threat that I hope he'd intended it to.
~ * ~ *
"Get that ugly shit out of my face," Blake snapped at Slim.
I—who had a hummus sandwich an inch away from my face—choked on air, right before gasping, "That's what she said," like there was a fire beneath my ass.
Slim tipped his head back and laughed, loud, pulling the sheet of paper he'd been shoving into Blake's face away. "Ah, shit."
"Sorry," I apologized, looking over at Blake. He was shaking his head, still tearing away at the baked potato he'd been eating. "You asked for it."
He waved his fork-less hand in my direction. "Sure, smart ass."
I waggled my eyebrows over at Slim, referring to the ugly shit Blake had been cawing at. "Not that my opinion matters, but I think it's awesome."
The piece of paper he'd been holding up against Blake's face was a design he'd finished last night. The artwork was of a bright blue dragon with huge black wings, firing out a spray of rainbow colors. I mean, considering my name meant rainbow, I had a fondness of them. Plus, it was epic.
"You want me to save this one for you?" he asked a little too quickly.
Like I wouldn't remember he tried at least once a week to get me to agree to a tattoo. It wasn't like I hadn't thought about it regularly. I did. I loved the tattoos that the guys and Blue did, but there was only one place on my body that I could instantly think of where I'd want one at. That one place was the only location I couldn't have done.
The inside of my arm.
But I didn't want to hurt Slim's feelings and have him think that I didn't want his work since I'd kept shooting him down each time he brought it up.
"If you could tattoo over some scar tissue I have, I'd tell you let's do it right now. You can't though, right?"
The redhead nodded slowly, frowning. "Not a good idea." He tipped his head in question. "Where at?"
That wouldn't give away too much, would it? "My inner bicep." Well, what was left of it.
"Is it a lot?" Blake asked, narrowing his eyes.
Crap, I forgot how observant he was. "Yeah."
He pursed his lips. "Is that why you're always wearing long sleeves?"
Of course he'd notice. Of course. I mean, I did happen to be the only person I could think of that wore long-sleeved clothing every day. Sure most of the material was light, but the fact was, in Texas heat, I'd stick out like a sore thumb. Someone was bound to notice it at some point.
Most girls my age were usually trying to take clothes off instead of putting more on. That seemed to be the story of my life. When some people my age were worrying about certain things, I'd be stuck tackling a whole different type of monster. Oh well.
I wanted to touch my arm but I had to fight the urge so that I wouldn't draw more attention to it. "Yeah. It's pretty big."
Blake glanced down at the wrong arm before shaking his head, smiling just a bit. "Girl, we all have stuff wrong with us. You see these ears?" He pointed at them and for the first time, I noticed that they looked just a little bit larger than they should have been ideally proportional. "Kids used to call me Dumbo."
Slim snorted really loud. "I can see that."
I elbowed him in the side. "That's so mean."
The redhead shrugged. "They used to call me Gingervitis." He paused. "Cinnamon dick." He looked up at the ceiling as if in deep thought. "Once, some shit-nuggets pulled down my pants in gym class to see if—," he sent me a sidelong glance, "the carpet matched the drapes."
"Holy crap," I started laughing, not able to help it.
Slim nodded, grinning. "Yeah. I was a late bloomer, so you can only imagine."
Blake covered his face with his hands, his shoulders shaking. "You had a little tonsil tickler, didn't you?"
"I hadn't hit puberty yet!"
"Be honest, that really happened like last week, didn't it?" Blake snorted.
By some miracle, right before I face-planted the desk from how hard I was laughing, I caught Slim shooting the middle finger in the bald man's direction.
"Fuck you, Dumbo. I was just trying to make Iris feel better." He cocked his head to look at me with an expression that showed how hard it was for him to not bust an amused gut. "Did my Little Red make you feel better about your arm?"
I didn't even have to think about it before nodding. Most of my life, my mom and yia-yia had told me that the imperfection gave me character, that it wasn't a big deal. And it wasn't. Really. It was ugly, but I'd managed to hide it as well as I could because frankly, more than the looks of disgust, the pity faces I got were what truly bothered me.
Most people thought that the cancer made me into some weak, broken thing. The only thing I'd sacrificed along the journey of four different surgeries was physical strength. My left arm would never be as strong as my right for obvious reasons. I’d lost most of the muscle over a decade. But that was it. The doctors had worried that I'd lose mobility but thankfully—thankfully—I didn't. It was just a little smaller and weaker. Big deal. I couldn't ask for more when the prognosis could have been so glum.
I wasn't built out of glass. I'd been healthy and strong my entire life except for those stages throughout my childhood and teen years. It was me who had kept my family afloat when things had withered. No one needed to feel bad for me because of my arm. I was made of tougher stuff than that.
And in that moment, it struck me that I'd felt bad for myself. I didn't need to hide my arm to know what I was capable of, what I was made of.
Because like Blake and Slim had tried to point out, we all had our physical nuances. Blake's ears didn't make him any less friendly or creative. Slim's hair was probably his signature now that he didn't have to deal with a bunch of immature douche-bags.
I felt... renewed and grateful to them.
I couldn't help but smile over at him. "You definitely did," I snorted. "Pippi Longstocking."
To his credit, Slim waited almost a minute before tossing the balled up napkin at my face.
“I think I liked you more when you didn’t talk.”
I tossed the napkin back at him before collecting my leftovers. I opened up the fridge to put my stuff up and spotted Dex’s bottles of Nesquik lined up neatly inside. Snatching one up, I pressed the cold bottom of it to Slims’s neck as I walked past him and made my way toward the front. The office door was closed and so was the private room.
Dex was at his station with a client when I walked by. He happened to look up at the right time, so I held the bottle up and gave it a swirl, mouthing, “For you.” I tipped my head in the direction of my desk and grinned at him.
The smile that came over his face before he mouthed back, “Thanks,” made my chest constrict.