I couldn’t focus too much on it at the moment, not with his fingers laced through mine, tugging me to “Come on, we’ve got a table.”
I didn’t know who we was, but I went along with it, still dazed by both the familiarity of the way he’d greeted me and the fact that I’d kinda enjoyed it.
More than kinda.
We, apparently, was a small collection of people Tristan knew, some of whom I’d seen in different places across the neighborhood as I forced myself to venture out more and more. He introduced me to them in a blur of names and faces I was too staggered to retain, then pulled me into seat beside him in the booth.
Like it was some kinda norm.
“You look good as fuck,” he said, his eyes noticeably low as he pulled back to stare. “I see you’ve got my ink on display.”
“I do,” I told him, my own eyes narrowed as I tried to figure out what was different about him, because there was definitely something. I leaned in, taking a deep inhale, and just like that, I figured it out, meeting his gaze with a smirk. “You’ve been smoking, haven’t you?”
His face cracked into a slow, easy smile that answered my question before he’d even opened his mouth. “A lil’ bit,” he admitted. “Had an early shift at the shop, then was there all fuckin day,” he groaned. “So… yeah. I may have done something to take the edge off.”
“I didn’t know edge was even possible with you. You’re so laid back,” I said.
He shrugged. “Everybody has their shit, you know?”
“I don’t, actually.” I raised an eyebrow at him. “I don’t know much about you at all.”
“I could say the same, so what are we going to do to fix that?”
“What makes you think it’s something to be fixed?”
“Because I say it is. That’s enough, right?” he asked, with a fresh grin that made me… squirm a little in my seat.
I didn’t like how much I liked the way he made me feel.
Very suddenly, the others started up a round of loud whistles and cheers, with Tristan joining in. I followed their attention to the stage, where a man and woman who were obvious crowd favorites had stepped forward.
“That’s Eddie,” Tristan explained, answering the question that must’ve been apparent on my face. “He owns the tattoo shop. Astrid is his lady, she owns the yoga studio.”
Yeah.
Looking at them, it tracked.
“What are they about to do?” I asked, unable to pull my eyes away from them. They were both beautiful.
“Eddie draws, Astrid does poetry. It’s good stuff.”
Any further explanation he may have planned to offer, was cut short by music. On the stage, Eddie and Astrid had finished their set up, with Astrid stepping up to the mic amid applause to say, “This… is Reinvention.”
Just the mention of that word I’d claimed for myself had me sitting straight up in my seat, attention rapt as they began. My gaze followed every stroke of Eddie’s thick charcoal pencil, my ears keenly tuned to Astrid’s words as she spoke the process of rebirthing yourself, and what it required.
The energy.
The healing.
The focus.
The willingness to fuck it all up and simply try again.
And again.
The courage to stop thinking about it, and actually do it.
It was overwhelming.
But I couldn’t tune it out.
I watched Eddie draw the beautifully detailed phoenix while Astrid spoke of pulling herself, beautiful and whole, from the ashes of what she once was.
I had to fight back tears.
The absolute last thing I was about to do was cry in a crowded room of strangers about a poem, but my hold on that particular resolve was tenuous at best. Especially when, after their performance, Eddie and Astrid came by the table to say hello.
She took one look at me, sitting there by myself because I didn’t know them to be jumping up to offer hugs. So she came to me instead, arms outstretched, and I returned the gesture because I didn’t want to be – more – weird.
But then, she put her mouth right next to my ear, and said, “You’re going to be okay.”
I wanted to ask what the hell that meant but she’d already moved on, speaking to someone else. In “typical” circumstances, I might’ve snatched her up, forcing an explanation out of her, but for now I had to swallow that urge.
“You good?” Tristan asked, his big hands closing over my arms as he bent to look me in the face. “You look spooked.”
I glanced to where Astrid was, still confused as hell by what had just happened.
“Ohhh,” Tristan groaned. “She say something to you?”
My eyebrows shot up. “Yeah.”
“She swears she’s not a psychic, but man… she knows stuff. It wasn’t anything bad, was it?”
I blinked. “No. No, not at all.”
“Okay then… come to the bar with me. Let’s drink to whatever she told you.”
You’re going to be okay.
Yeah.
I… guess that was something to drink to.
So we did.
Multiple times.
I didn’t take it far enough to get drunk, but I was certainly feeling much more mellow than when I arrived by the time Tristan decided we needed more privacy than the large booth with the group allowed.
Even with the liquor in my system, I was grateful for the much quieter corner he found.
And… I was actually having a good time.
After Eddie and Astrid, there was a comedian who’d come on, a singer after that, and then a whole band. Every act was really talented.
At some point, I realized Tristan had completely abandoned any pretense of watching the stage to watch me instead. I ignored it at first, but after the next performer left the stage, I turned to him, arms crossed.
“Whatever you’re about to say, know that your annoyance makes you even finer,” he said, before I could even open my mouth. And just that quickly, I was laughing instead of scolding him. “Damn, I was wrong,” he grinned, biting his lip. “The smile…”
I shook my head, forcing my face into a neutral expression. “Mmmhmm. Here I was thinking you’d sobered up some, but you are definitely still… lifted.”
“You don’t think you have a pretty smile?”
“I know I do. I also know I’m much finer when I’m mad.”
Tristan chuckled, leaning toward me so our shoulders were touching. “Okay. Maybe the smile hits me in a different place then, how about that?”
“I wouldn’t know,” I told him, then glanced at the time on his watch face. “Shouldn’t you be tucking in your kid or something, instead of out… caking?”
His eyebrows went up. “Caking?”
“Yes, caking,” I repeated. “Or what, do people not call it that anymore?”
“I wouldn’t know,” he shrugged. “And my kid is with her mom tonight, so she’s good.”
“Is that why you were stressed out enough earlier to need to…” I made a smoking gesture with my fingers, and he laughed.
“Nah, nothing to do with that. The drama stays at a minimum.”
“With the kid, or the mother?”
“Both,” he chuckled. “Kiara and Von, they’re laid back.”