by JA Huss
I shake my head and stifle a chuckle. “No shit?”
“No fucking shit. We’re the red-headed stepchildren of the family. Both literally and figuratively.”
“So you take after her? Your wild, Bohemian mother?”
“One hundred percent.”
“Do you tell fortunes too?”
She taps her head. “I see everything.”
“Well, you do have a front-row view of this town.” I nod to the window.
She giggles. “You don’t miss anything, do you?”
“Not a single fucking thing.”
“I like you, Tony Dumas. We should be friends.”
“Friends as in we’re gonna fuck tonight? Or friends as in friends?”
She laughs again. She’s an easy laugh. I like that. It’s a signal of sorts. The kind of signal that lets you know someone likes you. Which she just admitted, three minutes into our brand-new stranger relationship.
“That’s exciting,” she says. “And bold. And, I will confess, a very intriguing offer. But if you’re stalking Belinda Baker, I’m gonna have to take a pass.”
“You’ve already got your hands full with her?”
“Exactly.” She huffs and her smile falters. “She’s a very hard act to follow.”
“That she is.”
“Why though? Why is she so… interesting? I see the way people look at her. It’s like… she’s a magnet or something.”
“Hmm. I feel that pull.”
“Why though?”
I shrug. “I wish I knew, to be honest. I don’t want to be here. She’s been out of my life for ten years. Missing entirely for eight of those. But she shows up in my town a couple months ago out of the blue and suddenly I can’t fucking think straight. The next thing I know I’m two thousand miles away. I have a short-term rental apartment, I left my business in the hands of my dipshit brother-in-law, and I’m starting to think I’ve lost my mind.”
“Love has that power.”
“I’m not in love with her.”
“Of course not. And I’m not in love with Vann Vaughn, either.”
“Touché. I actually do have business here. But it’s not a short-term rental type of business. It’s a quick look-see and then back on the plane to Key West. But I’ve been in town for four days now and I haven’t even gotten started on it.”
“Too busy stalking her?” Soshee says. And it’s not an accusation, either. Just a fact.
I nod. Then sigh. “Yeah. There’s something wrong with me. I’m sick, I think.”
She nods in agreement as she purses her lips and stares across the street. “I get it.” Then she turns to me and her bright green eyes meet mine. There are a few seconds of silence as we stare at each other and it becomes uncomfortably awkward. So I pick up the menu and start looking at the food, unsure where this goes next.
“The lasagna is so good, you’ll want to cry when you take the last bite.”
Interesting choice of words. Crying after it’s over. That’s why I’m here, right? I glance at Soshee over the menu. “Is that right?”
“Mm-hmm. And the Bolognese? I practically come before I take the first bite.”
I lean back in my chair, surprised, my frown sliding up into a smile. Now we’re talking about coming at the beginning. A switch-up. A very nice change, if I’m being honest. And an intriguing way to cement this new friendship. “Jesus Christ, Soshee. Now you’ve got me thinking about the way you bite and come.”
She giggles again. Yeah. She’s definitely an easy laugh. Certainly likeable. “I know,” she says, still giggling. “TMI. But seriously, the food here is good. You should eat. And don’t forget dessert. We have a bakery in the back…” She bites her lip and sighs, then looks around and whispers, “The cannolis?” She runs the tip of her tongue across the edge of her teeth. “Better than getting a blowjob in the alley.”
I can’t help it. I laugh. Loud.
“Shhh.” We get another dirty look from the aunt across the room.
“Sorry,” I say. “But—”
“So you’ll take the lasagna?”
“Uh…”
She giggles again. Points at me. “Oh. You’re dirty. Bolognese it is. I’m off work in ten minutes, so I’ll bring two plates. That way we can come together.”
Then she stands up, winks at me, and walks off towards the kitchen.
My mouth falls open. I’m stunned.
What the hell just happened?
I’ll say one thing. For the first time in three months I’m thinking about a girl who is not named Belinda, or Rosalie, or Rosalinda.
Soshee returns twenty minutes later, sans traditional black and white Italian-restaurant waitress uniform. Instead she’s wearing a short, flirty sage-green skirt and a very fluffy cropped tan sweater that shows off a cute bellybutton ring. Behind her comes a troop of servers.
She slides in across from me and leans back in her seat as plates are put in front of us. It’s a lot of food. The spaghetti, of course. Plus a basket of bread, a bottle of wine, two green salads, and an almost overflowing charcuterie board.
She thanks her co-workers and then starts pouring us some wine.
“Well,” I say, leaning back to get a look at the dinner, “you definitely know what you want.”
“That I do,” she says, handing me a glass of red wine. “This is our first date, Mr. Tony Dumas. We need to mark the occasion.”
“Is it a date?”
“Friend date,” she says, winking at me as she takes a sip of her own wine. “Don’t worry. I’m not coming on to you. I just…” She sighs. Looks out the window at Sick Boyz. “Two AM is a long way off.”
“Are we staying until they close?”
“That’s what a proper stalker would do.”
“Are we proper stalkers?”
“We are.” She clinks her glass to mine. “We take our jobs very seriously.”
“Well then.” I clink my glass to hers this time. “Here’s to our first date as stalker friends.”
Soshee Ameci is good company. She talks a lot. But she doesn’t overpower me. I’m a hard guy to overpower, actually. I hold my own. And she’s funny. Even though I can tell this situation with Vann and Belinda makes her sad, she doesn’t mope.
In fact, she rallies like a champion. “You know,” I say, after our plates have been cleared and the table has been brushed clean with a small sweeper, “you’re taking this all very well.”
“This meaning Vann?”
“Yeah.”
She shrugs, glances outside across the street. “I’m a good catch, Tony Dumas. I know my worth. And you can’t make someone love you, but you can make them take notice. And that’s what I aim to do. If he chooses Belinda over me, I will ensure that he regrets it one day. And I don’t mean I’ll ruin his life or anything so predictable as that. I mean…” She tilts her head up. “I will be the best me possible and make sure he understands what he walked away from.”
“I’m starting to think he doesn’t deserve you.”
“Yeah. Maybe. My brain thinks that too. But my heart…” She places her hand over it. “It’s sick at the thought that we’re not meant for each other.”
“Hmm.”
“Is that how you feel about Belinda?”
“No.” I shake my head. “No. It’s more like… an obsession. One I lost control of without knowing it.”
She points to me. “An addiction?”
“Yeah. Like that.”
“So walk away.”
“I don’t think I can.”
“But why?”
“Why can’t you walk away from Vann?”
“Touché.”
But it’s a real question. And we both know this because we go quiet as we stare out the window. People are coming and going at the tattoo shop. This is a college town and that college is just a couple blocks down the street. So I’m guessing students wander in there all the time. To look, mostly. Dream. Maybe even some of them make appointments.
But you can tell the students from the actual customers without much effort. You know who’s really getting work done just by their look.
They are serious tattoo fanatics. This shop is no joke. These brothers are the real deal.
And I hate that. Because Belinda is an artist. Even if tattoos were never part of her creative dream before she came to live in this town, there’s no way she doesn’t appreciate what goes on inside Sick Boyz Ink.
“Are we really going to stay here until they close?” I ask.
Soshee doesn’t even look at me. Just nods her head. “I am.”
“Will you follow him home?”
“Hmm.” She drags her eyes off the shop and finds mine. “Will you follow her home?”
I nod.
“We can do that together. They live at the same place.”
“I know. I hate that.”
“Me too.”
“I followed her last night.”
“Vann didn’t work last night.”
“I know. But the two other brothers did. They walked her home.”
“Fucked up your good time, huh?”
“Nah. I sneaked around the garage after they went inside. But she caught me. She was waiting for me.”
“Did you guys…” Soshee waggles her eyebrows at me.
“No. I kissed her. And she kissed me back. For a second. Then she told me to stop.” I sigh. “And I did. And she pushed me away and told me to get out of her life. That’s pretty much where it ended.”
Soshee is wincing.
“I know,” I say. “I get it. I should go home. I have a business to run.”
“But you’re not going to, are you?”
I shake my head. “I think…” I look at the tattoo shop again. “If I could just fuck her one more time, ya know? I could put it behind me.”
“You don’t really believe that?”
“I do. I put her behind me before. For nearly ten years. I can do it again.”
“Hmm. Well, how did you do it last time?”
I think I blush. Because Soshee laughs. “Oh, my God. What did you do?”
I shake my head. “I can’t say it out loud.”
“Yes, you can!” She reaches across the table and slaps me on the arm. “You can’t leave me hanging like that. Tell me!”
“We… screamed at each other. Said every fucking insult you could think of. I’m talking some very mean shit. And then we fucked. Still insulting each other. Still raging. Still willing to display our hate. And then when it was over?” I shrug. “It felt… over.”
“Hmm. The be-all-end-all ultimate rage-filled hate fuck. That’s intriguing. So you’re gonna try that again?”
I nod. “I think it’ll work. I need to make this girl go away.”
“Are you sure you’re not in love with her?”
“No. No way. We’re not meant to be together. This is some sick obsessions shit, Sosh. We are not soulmates, or lovers, or even frenemies. She is the one who needed to get away. What we had together wasn’t blind love, it was sick rage. We were a match made in hell, it was hate at first sight, and when she walked away from me and never looked back it was a relief. It was bliss. I need to get that bliss back.”
“Wow. I think that was the most thoughtful sentence you’ve said all night.”
“I’ve been thinking about it for a while.”
Soshee laughs. “So you simply need a hate fuck?”
“Yeah.”
“And then you’re out of here?”
“Yup. Gone.”
“Well, I’m not going to lie. I’m really going to miss you when you go.”
“We literally just met a few hours ago.”
“So funny. Because right now, you feel like my best friend.”
I hold up my nearly empty glass of wine. “Cheers, my new BFF.”
She clinks me and smiles. “Cheers to us.”
CHAPTER SIX - BELINDA
The anger I felt when Vann drove off and left me on the side of Mulberry Street, a good three miles out of town… yeah. That’s some rage right there.
Of course, the practical version of me knew I’d asked for it. I did. I said drop me off. I got out. He pulled away.
But what the actual fuckety-fuck?
It was fine. I walked off my rage for about a mile, then I called an Uber.
Vann was already at work when I arrived. In fact, he was in his studio and the buzzing of the tattoo machine was filtering down the hallway to the front seating area.
I did not go back there. I did not say one word to him. I just sat at the counter, greeted the people who came in—mostly to look at the ink displayed on the walls—and minded my business.
Fuming. Raging. Filled with heat and anger.
Eventually the other brothers arrived. Vic first. He’s the oldest. Huge dude, tatted up from top to bottom. He grunted at me amicably when he came up to the front to check his schedule, nodded his head at the people in the waiting room, and then disappeared inside his studio.
Vonn and Vinn, the twins, showed up next. They did the same—but they always talk to me. So I pretended I wasn’t about to murder their baby brother and smiled as they joked and clowned about tramp stamps with the sorority girls in the waiting room.
But eventually all the brothers were busy and I was left with my thoughts as everyone with appointments went back to get their work done and the lookie-loos wandered outside.
I asked Vann to drop me off. I can’t be mad that he did that.
But I am.
He is all I think about.
I barely pay any attention to the customers who come and go. Or the schedule. So it’s not until nearly dinnertime when I realize Vann didn’t actually have an appointment this afternoon. In fact, he doesn’t have an appointment until eight o’clock tonight.
So who the hell has he been working on all this time?
I’m not going to look. It’s none of my business. I do not care.
I don’t need Vann. Best friends are totally overrated.
Totally. Overrated.
Except when they’re your only friends.
I need more friends. That’s my mission this week. Get more friends. I’m gonna put myself out there and find a new BFF. I need to replace Tara. Vann is not going to be my default best friend. It’s not going to happen. No way.
I’m mad at him. We’re over. He can take his all-American good looks and that stupid perpetual charming grin and shove them all up his ass for all I care.
Done. That’s what we are.
Over.
A little after six I weaken. It’s pure and simple curiosity. I slip off my stool and walk down the hallway. But it’s not for Vann. It’s only to get everyone’s dinner order.
Because that’s my job.
Vic declines dinner. He has a case of protein bars in the break room and his current client has a huge back piece he’s trying to finish, so he’s not taking a dinner break. Vonn and Vinn want Anna Ameci’s, because of course they do. My day would not be complete if I didn’t have to run into bitchy Soshee Ameci at least once.
And Vann…
I stop in the doorway to his studio, confused. He’s hunched over the back counter, a spotlight shining down on the space in front of him.
“What the hell are you doing?”
He doesn’t turn around. Just keeps buzzing the machine.
“Are you tattooing yourself?”
He pauses the machine and growls, “What the fuck do you want?”
“It’s dinner time. What do you want to eat? Your brothers want Anna Ameci’s, so I’m gonna call the order in.”
“I don’t need you to get me dinner. I can get it myself.”
“You’re probably gonna run into Soshee,” I say lightly, trying to joke about the fiery red-headed waitress who has feelings for him that aren’t reciprocated.
His machine starts buzzing again. Clearly, he is ignoring me.
I don’t like fighting with him. This is not what we do. I want us to go back to th
e way it’s supposed to be. Where he smiles at me and I laugh at his grin and fun antics. We’re a good team. A friendly team. We tease each other, and have deep serious conversations about bombpops verses creamsicles, and we’re always on the same team when his twin brothers break out a Frisbee for an impromptu game.
We’re friends, for fuck sake. Why does he have to complicate things with deep feelings?
His new anger is… intimidating. I don’t think we’ve ever had a proper fight. Definitely not one where I tell him to drop me off three miles outside of town and he actually does it.
So I’m not used to this attitude of his. I feel a little unsure of myself as I wait in the doorway.
“What?” he snaps, pausing the machine. But he doesn’t turn to look at me. Doesn’t even glance over his shoulder.
“Look—”
“I’m over it, Belinda. OK? Just… go away.”
He goes back to his ink.
“Fine,” I say, turning on my heel and heading back to the front of the shop. But I mutter, “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you,” the whole way.
I order the food and then sit on my stool, tapping my fingernails on the glass counter as I wait for it to be ready for pickup.
This is not my fault. I did not lead Vann on. I tried to set him up with Tara, for fuck’s sake. And we had a good time when we did the little road trip to Key West. We went to the beach and had a party with the freaking Dumas brothers. We slept in the same cottage, and drank, and had meals together, and… that was fun.
I mean, the whole going home thing was weird, and seeing Tony was unsettling, but the Vann and Belinda part? That was fun.
Why can’t he see that we’re good together as just friends?
Why must he push this thing we don’t have between us?
It’s not my fault I don’t feel his pull, right?
I sit there for a few more minutes, then slip my jacket on and head out to pick up the food. Praying that Soshee isn’t working the takeout counter.
She’s not. Thank God for small miracles. Her younger cousin, Annabelle, is. She takes my money and tells me she’ll be right back with the food without any animosity.
I like Annabelle. She’s only about seventeen, but she’s cute, and friendly, and doesn’t hate me because Vann and I are BFFs.
