“So tell her that.”
“You’ve never tried to tell my mom that how she feels about something is wrong.” Cassie laughed at that, an amused cackle.
“Doesn’t change her mind easily, huh?” I smirked, knowing the answer was obvious.
“Yeah, no. Not in the slightest.”
“Probably worth it, though, I think. I mean, you can’t rush your process to your new normal, right? So, at the least, you gotta express yourself to her so she knows where you’re coming from, even if she doesn’t agree. But knowing she loves you, I think she’ll come around to understanding where you’re coming from.”
She laughed again, her eyes searching my face. “You’re good at this.”
I frowned. “At what?”
“Relationship advice.”
I snorted. “Well, it ain’t because I’m some kinda expert. God knows I got my own set of problems with my parents.”
She tilted her head. “Really? Like what?”
“Like, I don’t really see them or talk to them much.”
“That’s kind of sad.”
“Wasn’t a falling out, or a blowout fight, or anything like that. We just…they don’t get me. How I can live in the city. Why I feel so compelled to put all this ink on my skin, on my face. Plus, my dad is what you might call a functioning alcoholic and my mom…” I waved a hand. “Mom is just difficult. And they were just never…supportive, or very affectionate. When they figured they couldn’t change me, couldn’t stop me from doing what I was gonna do, they quit trying. And when they quit trying to change me and talk me out of art and tattoos, they just sorta quit on me in general. It was tough. It is tough. It’s made it hard for me to connect with people.”
She leaned against me, her shoulder on mine. “You connected with me pretty well.”
I shook my head. “This is different.”
She frowned, gazing up at me. “How so?” A pause. “You don’t think we’ve connected?”
I hesitated. “No, we have. I know we have. We’re friends. And that’s more, and it’s happened faster than anything else I’ve ever had in my life.”
“I’m not following.”
I swallowed hard. “Tricky to put into words.”
“Try.”
My turn to stand up, stretching my arms over my head and twisting my back until my spine popped. My turn to stare out the window rather than at those intense gray-green-brown-blue-everything eyes. “I don’t go around sticking my head into people’s business. Like, ever. Real deep down, I only really trust the best friend I’ve ever had in my entire life…my cousin Juneau. She’s the only human I’ve ever really trusted, or genuinely liked, let alone loved. And she’s my cousin. Like the sister I’ve never had. And even her, I don’t let in very far. I mean, I trust her, but my shit is my shit. So I don’t let others into my shit, and if I’m not gonna let others into my shit, I’m not gonna put myself into their shit. I just do my tattoos and go home. That’s it. That’s all it’s ever been.”
“What about girlfriends?”
I shook my head, fighting to find the right way to put this so I didn’t sound lame and pathetic. “Been a couple girls here and there, but…nothing serious.” I sighed, shook my head again. “That’s a lie. There was one serious thing, but…that’s a whole other ball of wax, and I don’t really know how to even talk about it.”
“So you don’t really date?”
I shrugged. “Nope. Not really.”
I wasn’t looking at her, but I could feel her deciding whether to give voice to what was on her mind. I just waited. “So, maybe this is none of my business, and feel free to say so, but…what about sex?”
I shifted from foot to foot. Swallowed hard. Rolled a shoulder. “Like I said, there’ve been a few girls here and there.”
“This is a weird conversation.” Cassie laughed at this, a soft breathy sound that shot through my gut.
I was way too glad that she didn’t push that line of conversation. “Yeah, it is.”
She was suddenly there, behind me. Close enough that I could smell her: eucalyptus, tea tree, lavender. “I’ve never had anyone as deep into my shit as you are.” The silence, though momentary, was profound and intense.
“I never set about to get up in your shit. I guess I just somehow ended up there.”
“I’m okay with it,” Cassie said.
I turned in place to look down at her. Platinum hair loose and wild and tangled, eyes burning like stars, her entire being blazing with chaotic, vibrant energy—she burned. Her cream-and-ivory silk skin beckoned my hands, called to me. Her body sang for my touch.
I didn’t dare. Not with her. Not now. Maybe not ever—she was strong, yes. But she was fragile, barely keeping herself together, if at all. My hands, huge and rough, could wield a tattoo gun with delicate precision, could thread a needle. But to touch a person? A woman like her? Someone so small, so delicate? No. Tattoos didn’t react. Didn’t cause me to lose control. And I knew from painful experience that to lose control was to hurt.
I shoved my fisted hands into the pockets of my shorts, clenched hard, nails digging into my palms. Yet the way she was looking at me, silent, lips parted, eyes soft and searching.
I could kiss her.
Inches separated us. I could palm her cheek and kiss her. Those lips looked as if they tasted like cherries and wine. Her skin looked softer than plush and velvet and silk. She was wearing so little, tearing it all away would take a matter of moments.
I could hold her to myself and never let go, never tire of her.
I felt a surge of the desires I’d kept long buried. Desires so strong I barely knew how to deal with them under the best of circumstances, so powerful they scared me. Desires that led to a loss of control. And to lose control was to cause hurt.
I backed away from her, shuttering myself. Steeling myself against the siren song of her skin and her changeable eyes. The call of her lips and the pull of her curves.
I turned away, my entire inner being seething with a boiling mess of things I didn’t understand and couldn’t handle and refused to face—the same things I had refused to face for years.
“Ink?” My name—three letters on an upward inflection. A thousand unasked questions in that single syllable.
“I…”
The dryer with my laundry in it buzzed at that moment. Thank fuck. I yanked the clothes—mostly shorts and underwear along with my bedding—and shoved the whole mess into my bag, shouldered it, and headed for the door.
“Ink!” She reached the door first, touched my bicep, and her small hand on my arm set me alight, made me burn, melt, shake. “Where are you going?”
I had no idea what to say. I had no clue what I was feeling, or how to deal with it in my own head and body, much less how to communicate any of it to her. I couldn’t help looking down into her eyes, though. “I don’t know, Cass. I just…I’m—it’s—”
I was almost never at a loss for what to say, but right then all words and all thoughts were tangled up in the driving, consuming, burning need to touch-taste-hold-devour this woman. It was sudden and unexpected and was igniting things I’d kept shoved way down deep in the farthest back corner of the junk drawer of my soul.