“No …”
“Oh,” she replied curtly, then said, “I can’t remember the last time you called me.”
I studied the ceiling for a moment as I tried to remember the last time I’d called my mother and came up empty. “Huh. I guess you’re right.”
“Of course, I’m right. I’m your mother.” She used the tone that I knew she thought was playful but instead just came across as obnoxious and superior.
I forced a chuckle and wished I’d called my father instead. “Yeah …”
“Anyway,” she went on with a sigh, “what’s up?”
“Um, well, I was actually wondering how it was going with finding a place—”
“For Jake?” She cut me off, implying shock with her high-pitched tone. I couldn’t blame her for being startled. After my initial reaction, she’d been hesitant to bring it up with me again.
“Yeah,” I answered reluctantly.
“Oh, well, we found a couple of places we thought we’d look at. Your dad made an appointment to meet with the director at one of them next week, so I guess—”
“I’ll go.”
“You want to come?”
I nodded to the ceiling, affirming my resolve to go through with this. “Sure.”
“I was hoping you would,” she admitted. “You’re so close to him, I wanted to get your approval before we settled on a place.”
That word settle stuck out like a sore thumb and my brow furrowed with irritation. “We’re not gonna settle on a place, Mom. We’re going to find—”
“Blake. You know what I meant.”
Stop being so defensive. I fixed my jaw and nodded. “No, I know. Sorry.”
“Anyway, your father and I are going to watch a movie. So, I’ll see you—”
“What movie?”
“Oh, um … That new Stephen King one, I think? Which one is it, Paul?” I heard Dad mutter something from not too far away and Mom said, “It. We’re watching It. The remake.”
I nodded with startled approval. “You like horror movies?”
“Like them? Honey, I love horror. How do you not know this?”
My lips turned and twisted with question. “I don’t know.”
She huffed with laughter. “I mean, come on. Where do you think you get it from?”
With well wishes for a good night and good rest, we hung up, and I wondered about that. Where had I thought I’d got it from? I guess I’d gone through my entire life just assuming I was the bad seed of the family, a heathen in black, or a rebel with a tattoo machine. Assuming that something had simply gone awry in my DNA and I’d ventured on my own toward the dark side. I’d never even considered that maybe I could’ve picked up on some things from my God-loving parents. I’d never taken any notice.
Maybe I was more like them than I thought.
Chapter Eighteen
SHANE HAD ARRANGED the photoshoot for Saturday. While I was happy for it to coincide on a day when Jake wasn’t around, I found it odd that I still didn’t want to go alone. It was my first time being professionally photographed. Well, outside of the mediocre point-and-shoot sessions for school pictures, conducted by some greaseball moonlighting as a photographer, and I was nervous.
Cee would be there, I knew that, but she wouldn’t be there for me. She’d be hanging around, ogling Shane and waiting impatiently to get him back to her place. She’d be watching as ModInk’s photographer instructed me to stand this way and that, but she wouldn’t be there for me. And hell, I didn’t want her to be.
I wanted Audrey.
Perched on my bike, one block away from the shop, I stared at the phone in my hand. For one desperate moment, I considered calling Dr. Travetti, to ask her to come down as my groupie. To cheer me on and pump me up. But how fucking lame would it be, to ask my shrink to come, and all because I didn’t want to call the girl I liked.
“Don’t be a fucking pussy,” I scolded myself in an angry grumble, as I hit her name in my contact list.
I almost hung up, but she didn’t give me a chance. “Blake! Hi!”
My groan was coupled with my smile. How could she always sound so happy, like every day was Christmas and every moment was a gift?
“Hey, Audrey.”
“How are you?”
“Um, good,” I answered honestly. “How about you?”
“Well, I mean, it’s Saturday and I don’t have work, so obviously that makes it a great day.” Her voice was full of smiles and laughter. “What are you up to?”
There it was. The opener. She’d given it to me, she’d made it easy, and I grabbed for it. “Actually, funny you ask. I had an interview the other day with ModInk—uh, it’s this big tattoo magazine, and—”
“Oh, that’s so cool!”
“Yeah,” I agreed, nodding. “Today, they’re doing a photoshoot down at the shop and I thought I’d ask if you, um …” I felt like an idiot, pursuing the pretty girl who was so completely out of my league, she was practically in a whole other universe. My hand raked through my hair, and I pinched my eyes shut, knowing it now looked like crap and would need to be redone for the pictures.
“I’d love to,” she answered, before I could ask. “I just need to do a couple things and then I’ll come down. Would twenty minutes from now be okay?”
“Yeah,” I replied in a voice so choked, I was surprised I could speak at all. “Yeah, that’d be fine.”
For two seconds too long, there was nothing but air passing between us. Whispers of the mind, secrets of the heart, and I wished I knew what to say to take the awkwardness away. Hell, forget awkwardness—I wished I knew what to say, period. But Audrey … She always knew.
“I’m really excited to see you,” she confessed quietly, making it seem easy to speak her mind.
The nature of my being wanted to scoff, insistent that there was no way she could possibly be excited about seeing me. But before I could give in to instinct, I found myself wondering what the good doctor would tell me to do. What would she tell me to say? Because it was Saturday, she wasn’t working, but if she was, I’d take my bike over there right now and ask her to coach me in how to talk to pretty girls. But I was left to my own devices, so I took a deep breath, focusing harder on the saint in my heart and less on the devil in my brain.
Then, I replied, “I’m excited to see you, too.”
***
“Okay, Blake. Stand just like that and look down. Right into my lens,” Toby, the cameraman, instructed, crouching to the ground at my feet.
I felt like an idiot, standing outside the shop with my arms crossed over my chest, but I did as I was told without protest. I let my lids droop as I looked directly at the camera and Toby nodded with approval as he snapped a few shots.
“Perfect, awesome,” he praised absentmindedly, shifting his heels and grabbing another shot from a different angle. “Look over here now—excellent. Great.”
A few more clicks of the camera and he rose to his feet with a directing wave of his arm. “Lex, this damn wind is killing me. Can you fix his hair again?”