by Sandra Marie
“Sore,” she admitted. “But all good.”
He rolled his chair over, scooting with his feet like a little kid in gym class. He pumped a glob of jasmine scented lotion into his palm and wrapped his fingers around her wrist. Her chair rolled across the floor, closing the distance between them. The half grin on his face was playful and friendly and too damn adorable to be allowed.
“As soon as Jon and Cassidy get here, I’m locking the door,” he said, running his thumbs over the back of her hand. A low moan left her throat, and she rested her head on her free hand and let him work out all the tension. His touch slipped and slid over every bump of her knuckles, his skin incredibly warm compared to her chilly fingers. She curled them into his palm, and he stopped rubbing, taking both of her hands and blowing warm breath on them.
“Will we even have energy to do what you have planned tonight?” she teased, ignoring the comforting buzz in her heart from his touch. He kept her hands wrapped in his, slowly melting her frozen fingers. She once again eyed his sleeve of tattoos—a sleeve of her own design work, and a swell of pride and gratitude swept through her. She liked that he trusted her to paint his skin. Her own body was a canvas of Tommy’s art, and there wouldn’t be a time she would gaze at one of her own tattoos and not think of him.
“Doesn’t take much energy to have a nice dinner,” he said, breaking her from her thoughts.
“What? No daredevil activity planned? That doesn’t sound like you.”
He chuckled, dropping his gaze to their hands. His expression softened, turned from amusement to contemplative. He turned her hands in his, tracing the lines that ran along her palms. Tingles sprang up through her skin, and she shivered and let out a giggle at the sensation.
“This night is about you, buddy.” His voice was teasing, but his touch was still gentle and soft, almost luxurious. A zap went straight to her heart, and she internally stomped it down; she couldn’t allow herself to see this night as anything more than what it was.
The broken bell clunked against the door, and her eyes met his, and they took a collective breath. Just one more tattoo, and then they could go play.
Tommy dropped her hands, and she felt weirdly incomplete as she followed him to the front of the shop. Jon and Cassidy were eyeing the art on the wall, Jon’s arm wrapped around Cassidy’s waist. Both were wearing puffy, rain-splattered coats, Cassidy’s displaying the Wonder Woman symbol on the back and Jon’s a plain deep blue.
“You should get this one right here,” Cassidy said, slapping her palm against Jon’s backside. He jumped and tickled her ribs, and all that gooey coupley lovey stuff had Rae aww-ing.
The cute couple turned around, greeting them both with ear-to-ear smiles. Rae hadn’t seen Cassidy since the Passion Party, and it’d been even longer since she’d seen Jon. A real shame, too, since his place was a frequent stop for Tommy and Rae adventure nights before he got all committed and cute with his girlfriend.
“You ready to see what Rae cooked up for you guys?” Tommy reached behind the counter and waved a folder by his face. Cassidy clapped and bounced over, eager to get a look, and Rae fought Tommy for the folder.
“Hey, they’re my designs. I get to show them off.”
He put a hand on her face and kept her at arms length. “I was gonna let you, but if you’re gonna be rude…”
“Give it to me, jerkbutt. Please?”
“There are those manners.” He shook his head but handed the folder over. Rae hip checked him, and a zap went through her again. Damn… If goofing off with Tommy was going to do that, then she was screwed.
She shook off the tingles. Cassidy’s eyes lit up behind her glasses, and she tapped a tune on the edge of the table. “Show me, show me,” she said, and Jon laughed from behind her, kissed the top of her head, and looked at her like she was pretty much the cutest thing to ever exist. One of these days Rae was going to get that look from someone other than her mother.
Rae bit her lip, holding back another “Aww” at their cheesy cuteness, and flipped open the folder. Like she always did when she first showed her clients the design she’d come up with, she kept her eyes on the client. She studied every reaction she could, every twitch, wrinkle, smile, frown… When it came to tattooing, she had to be sure they were completely satisfied. She’d hate to be that tattoo artist who forced her work on someone else.
Cassidy’s big brown eyes instantly circled to full moons, her lips slightly parting and a hushed “Oh my Thor,” fell from her mouth.
“Taking Thor’s name in vain again?” Tommy teased.
“Shush. That’s a good thing.” Rae poked his side, like she’d done a million times, but her heart was in a tizzy tonight—probably due to the upcoming romantic evening with the man she secretly loved—and it sped up as she made contact. She quickly turned to Cassidy. “Right?”
Cassidy nodded. “One hundred percent a good thing. This was better than I’d imagined.” She picked up the folder and held it closer to Jon. “You like it? Please say you like it.”
Jon’s lip twitched, and there was hesitancy in his hazel eyes. “I do. But…”
“No buts,” Cassidy argued. “This is perfect.”
“For you, yes. It’s beyond perfect for you.” He lifted his gaze to Rae. “Is this going on both of us, though? We wanted the same design.”
Rae tilted her head. With a smug grin, she flipped the page in the folder to Jon’s design. His eyes instantly popped, and all hesitancy disappeared.
“Why you always got to show me up?” Tommy pinched her elbow. “I never get that reaction from him.”
She blew on her fingers and rubbed them against her chest. Admittedly, she’d outdone herself with Jon and Cassidy’s designs. When they’d told her they wanted a Disney/Marvel match-up that was small enough to hide, but big enough to notice the details, she got excited… then frustrated… then hopeless… She thought she was the worst tattoo artist in the world until she finally came up with a lucky stroke of genius.
Cassidy’s tattoo was a lock perched on its side, the metal twisted and intertwined with Captain America’s shield, Iron Man’s helmet, a spider web for Spider Man, Thor’s hammer, and the key hole shaped like Mickey Mouse. Jon’s tattoo was the key, decorated in all Disney glory, the metal engraved with shapes of Buzz Lightyear, Wreck-it Ralph, Grumpy the dwarf, Pluto, and Wall-E. The bit of the key, however, was the Avengers symbol.
Under both tattoos were the words: Different, but we still fit.
“You still want them on your upper arms?” Tommy asked, breaking both Jon and Cassidy out of their trances. Rae couldn’t help but feel like a freaking rockstar with how happy they were with the designs.
“All right, come on back, and we’ll get started.” Tommy led them to the tattoo chairs while Rae went to the scanner now that the designs were approved. With the size, it’d probably be a one to two hour tattoo, so she stretched her hand and bounced up and down on her feet to loosen up those muscles. The bag that Frankie had dropped off earlier sat by the printer, and Rae resisted the urge to take a look at it. She just prayed whatever outfit she’d bought fit… and hoped it had pink somewhere on it.
***
An hour had passed, and Rae lifted the tattoo gun from Jon’s arm and cracked her back. She was almost done. The shading on the key was a killer, but it was turning out really nice.
“Damn,” she said, wiping the excess ink off and then diving back in. “You got some muscles, doctor.”
“Under three layers of fat,” Tommy called out from the other side of Cassidy.
“Jealous?” Rae teased. Tommy had muscles, especially in his arms, but he’d always been on the skinnier side. He’d never know—because heaven help her if she ever told him—but Rae found that pretty darn attractive on him. Sure, she went after muscular or larger men, but that was less to do with attraction and more to do with her own insecurities about being the “big” one in the relationship.
“Of that?” Tommy gestured to Jon with a nod. �
�Nah.”
“You know I’m sitting right here,” Jon defended, and Cassidy cracked up in her seat, wincing a little as Tommy’s tattoo gun pressed into her skin.
“I think he’s pretty darn cute,” she said.
“Like a fluffy puppy,” Tommy added.
Rae met Jon’s eyes. “You want me to throw something at him?”
“Later. When he doesn’t have a tattoo gun up to Marvel Girl’s skin.”
Rae bit away a grin. The lovey dovey nickname was something she’d missed out on in any relationship. The closest she ever got was Tommy calling her buddy. Maybe that was why it meant so much.
After a couple of seconds of silence—because they rarely went longer than that—Tommy lifted his gun and eyed his cousin. “Never thought I’d see the day you got a couple’s tattoo, Jon.”
“Yeah, well… When you meet the right one.”
“And she forces you into it,” Cassidy added with a laugh. “He’s got all these fun ones on his back. He can have one with me.”
Tommy made a whipping sound, and Cassidy stuck her tongue out him.
“What about you?” she asked him, peering down at his work on her lock. “Would you ever do a couple tattoo?”
Rae snorted from her seat, catching all their eyes. Like Tommy would ever commit to someone, let alone commit to having that someone on his skin. Tommy raised his brow and pulled his gun away from Cassidy’s arm.
“I’ll have you know, Miss Cynical, I have a spot reserved for just that.”
“Where would that be? Your ass?”
“Hardy har.” He let out a wistful sigh and pointed to his chest. “It’s right over my heart.”
Rae snorted again. Okay, so he had to be joking. Of course he was. That was Tommy, and she should know better by now.
She went back to Jon’s tattoo, nearly done. She just had a couple of finishing touches around the text.
“Do you really?” Cassidy prodded Tommy, and Rae and Jon shared an amused glance. Cassidy was new to Tommy and his sense of humor.
“I do.” Tommy met Rae’s eyes for a brief second, his voice going serious, but a smile still set on his lips. “It’s reserved for that special someone who manages to steal this adventurous heart.”
“I bet it happens soon,” Cassidy said, straightening her shoulders. “You’re getting up there, aren’t you?”
Tommy’s jaw dropped, and Jon and Rae tossed their heads back. He snapped a glove their way, and Rae dodged it. “Laugh it up. You guys are the same age.”
“Yep, we’re up there with you,” Jon said, his smile directed at his twenty-three-year-old girlfriend. Rae hesitated on bringing up the fact that she’d be thirty in just a month.
And she had a cat now. Oy.
They finished up the tattoos around six fifteen. Cassidy and Jon left one-hundred-percent happy and in love with their tattoos, and after giving them big squishy hugs and sending them on their way, Tommy shut off the lights, plunging them into darkness.
“Are we playing hide and go seek in the dark?” Rae joked, but honestly she’d be okay with that. Her eyes adjusted to the lack of light, the only source of it now coming from the street through the front window. The shadows on Tommy’s face said he was smiling.
“I have this for you after you change,” he said, and his silhouette moved to the side, stretched down, and popped back up with a giant rectangle.
“What in the world is that?”
“Patience, antsy pants.”
Excitement bubbled up and down her skin. Tommy stepped toward her, his body heat working like her own personal space heater. She moved into it almost instinctively, a buzz of bees awakening in her belly.
He tilted his head in his playful Tommy way, and Rae realized she’d never been more excited for a date in her life.
“So,” he said. “You ready for this?”
As soon as Rae went in the back with her big bag of new clothes, Tommy wriggled out of his shirt and into his tuxedo tee—the only “formal wear” he owned. He pushed his arms through his heavy coat and slipped out the front door with the giant red envelope. He propped it up against the side of the building, blowing into his hands for warmth before grabbing his phone. If he was going to pull this off, he was gonna do it justice, and that meant a kickass romantic as hell playlist to accompany their night.
He took a page from John Hughes, knowing Rae’s love for eighties hits, and set his iTunes up. If he didn’t have to hold the envelope, he’d attempt to hold his phone sky high like Lloyd Dobler, but he wasn’t that gifted. He had another movie moment in mind, anyway.
His breath puffed from his mouth, floating into the air. It’d been raining on and off all day, and clouds covered the stars. He’d have to pull out plan B for one of the activities for sure. Hopefully Rae didn’t find it cheesy as hell.
Actually, he hoped she did. The whole night was full of cheese.
When he saw her shadow moving through the shop, he cracked open the envelope and eased out the posterboard pieces he’d worked on all last night. Amusement rippled through his chest, causing the smallest of chuckles to escape. He couldn’t wait to see her expression when he pulled off this stunt.
The bell on the door clunked, and he grinned wide, ready to surprise the hell out of her, but his grin faded almost as quickly as it arrived. His fingers froze on the posterboards, and he surprisingly didn’t drop them all to the snowy ground.
He’d seen Rae in almost every attire known to man. Among his favorites was the bulky elephant costume on Halloween, the stained pink, orange, and yellow tee from the color run they did last year, and the time she’d been hit with a mud puddle from a passing car, and she ripped off the bottom half of her jeans only to reveal a pair of knee-high pink and white striped socks underneath.
Rae was adorable in everything, but when she stepped onto the walk, tilting her head in that Rae way—half curiosity, half faux annoyance at his antics, she struck him speechless.
“Ermuphugle,” he sputtered, the only word—or non-word—he could manage. His eyes drifted over her, and he was powerless to stop the ogling. Yeah, he was ogling his best friend. A dark blue dress draped her body, clinging to all the right places. Tommy was a fan of Rae’s affinity for displaying her impressive cleavage, and he often teased her about it, but this dress went right up to her neck and she still looked kickass. Intricate lace gave him a peek at her skin, showing one of the tattoos he’d placed near her collarbone a while back. Her purple peacoat was left open, showing how the dress cinched at her waist and flowed over her hips. It was cut just above her knees in the front and swayed around her ankles in the back.
But it wasn’t just the way it fit or the way she wore it. Tommy gulped at the rich color of blue that made her eyes pop in a way he’d never seen before. The urge to palm her cheeks and rest his forehead against hers shook his hands. He could stare into those eyes for the rest of the night.
“Were those supposed to be words?” Rae teased him, starting to button her coat. Tommy blinked, trying his best not to lose his mind completely. Thank heavens he had notecards to do some talking for him.
He hoisted up the posterboard, praying they were in order because he didn’t have the mental capacity to fix them right now.
The cutest of snorts floated through the air, and her mesmerizing blue eyes fell to the words.
“Read these out loud so I know when to change cards…”Giggle-giggle-snort. “Really?” she asked, and he quirked a grin and flipped to the next card. Rae began reading just like Keira Knightley in Love Actually, except Rae said them out loud as requested.
“You don’t have to be quiet like the girl from the movie… I’m not stealing you from my best friend…”
Rae snickered, her eyes leaving the cards. “You are my best friend, you idiot.”
“You're killing my vibe here.” Tommy kinked his neck to the side. “Humor me and play along.”
Rae stuck her tongue out between her freshly lipsticked lips and read on. “You ARE my
best friend. And I’m yours.”
He paused a moment, giving her a cocky grin. Then flipped to the next card.
“Suck it, Frankie.”
Rae let out a laugh, shaking her head at him. He took a breath and smiled, finally feeling his brain coming back to him.
“So, buddy,” she continued to read, “you asked for romance…
“And I did a lot of studying.
“Hours and hours and hours…
“And hours of studying.
“I know the ins and outs of all romantic gestures…
“All the famous I love yous…
“(you’ve bewitched me body and soul… you complete me…or my favorite…
“I’m Batman.)… Batman is not a romance movie,” she added on her own. He flipped the card, knowing what she’d say to that one.
“There’s romance in Batman… It counts.”
She playfully wrinkled her nose, but kept reading.
“So prepare for a night of movie magic.
“Starting with food, because I bet we’re both starving… Amen, buddy,” she added.
“Don’t forget to have what she’s having.” She raised a brow, a look of amusement and horror in her eyes. He flipped to the last card.
“Yeah, I watched that movie, too. I won’t ask you to fake an orgasm at the table, though.” She snorted. “I might ask you to.”
Tommy lowered the cards, the music of John Hughes soundtracks still floating around them. He hoped his voice didn’t betray him again. “You’re gorgeous, by the way.”
Pink stained her neck, and she lifted a shoulder. “Why thank you.”
“You should wear blue more often.”
“Pink is better.”
“I’ll wear your pink if you wear my blue.”
“That is a deal I can get behind.” She fell into step with him, and he just noticed her shoes and suppressed a laugh. It wasn’t every day he saw a girl in a fancy dress and tennis shoes, but it was Rae, and he liked it.
“Did you really watch When Harry Met Sally?” she asked when they got in his car. She cranked up the heat and set it to the floor vents.
