Tonic

by Staci Hart

  “What’s going on with you two? There’s been a lot of talk that you two have a thing going.”

  I wasn’t sure if I could evade him, so I only gave it a half-assed attempt. I sighed. “There’s nothing going on.”

  “But you want there to be something going on.”

  I sniffed and scratched at my beard. “Doesn’t really matter what I want.”

  He made a face. “Why are you being like this? It’s not like you to make me drag details out of you.”

  I sighed again and pulled up a little closer, hanging my arms on the wall next to his. “I don’t know, Tricky. I really don’t. It’s just that from the second she walked through that door, she’s been under my skin, and I can’t shake her.”

  He nodded. “I know how that goes. What’s the deal with her?”

  “She’s resisted my charms on all fronts. Asked me to stop, told me she wasn’t interested.”

  His brow dropped at that. “Yeah, that’s final.”

  “And she gives me the signals, but I’m not about to chase down a chick who’s telling me no. It’s just that … I dunno. I can’t help it, man.” I sighed one more time, promising myself it would be the last, feeling heavy pressure in my ribs. “She’s smart, sharp as a fucking switchblade and gorgeous. I’m interested in her, undeniably. But we aren’t getting along, and I can’t figure out if it’s by design or by accident.”

  “Maybe there’s just something else going on with her. Can you just give her space?”

  “That’s all I can do. And it’s stupid.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah, waiting isn’t your scene. That’s more mine. But you’re a go-getter.”

  I shook my head. “It’s not the end of the world. She makes me feel a little like Liz did. Like I’d drown myself in her, sink until I disappeared. I don’t want to do that again, Tricky. I can’t.”

  He watched me, offering a nod. “I get it. I do. Maybe it is for the best then.”

  “Doesn’t feel like it. But to quote a great man, Heads and hearts are connected by threads impossible to cut completely.”

  Patrick narrowed his eyes in thought. “Paolo Coelho?”

  I smiled. “Joel Anderson.”

  A single laugh burst out of him.

  “Your interview is tonight, right?”

  “Yeah. Not looking forward to it.”

  I waved a hand. “It’s not so bad. Just don’t let her strong-arm you into anything, okay?”

  “Okay. Ronnie said Annika asked her about me and Rose.” His brand of the brood — something he could have copyrighted — passed over his face.

  “Well, you had to figure they’d want to talk about Veronica’s big crush on you, how she broke you and Rose up the first time.”

  The brood set even deeper into his face. “She didn’t break us up. I broke us up.”

  “And then you took Ronnie to the bar where Rose was bartending, thus barring you from getting back with her when you realized what a dumbass you’d been.”

  He huffed. “Still. It’s low. There’s no story there — that whole thing is old and worn out, and I’m with Rose. For good.”

  “Hey, I know that. You don’t have to convince me. Just convince Annika and maybe she’ll move down her list until she finds something that sticks.”

  “You really don’t think she’s going to try to press the topic with Veronica and me? Try to make some storyline out of it? Because I don’t believe that for a fucking minute.” He shook his head and raked his black hair back with his hand. “If this fucks something up with Rose and me, I swear to God, I’ll lose my shit.”

  I angled to face him, looking him square in the eye. “I won’t let that happen. Okay?”

  “You can’t stop it if it does. We’ve signed our lives away for this show, and you and I are the only ones who know it.”

  I wished I could say he was wrong, but I couldn’t. “This was a bad idea, Tricky. Maybe the worst idea. I just really fucking hope we can make something good of this. In the meantime, talk to Rose and tell her everything. Be honest with her. Keep her in the loop. She’ll be all right and so will you.”

  He sighed. “I hope you’re right.”

  As I turned back to my station, I hoped I was too.

  Annika

  That night, Joel handed a girl in his chair the mirror, trying to keep a straight face as the cameras rolled. I was too, pen between my teeth to give my mouth something to do besides laugh.

  She looked over her shoulder into the mirror at her new tattoo: a Cupie doll on her right shoulder with a banner up top that said No Ragrets and one below that said #YOLO.

  “Oh, my God. It’s perfect.” She smiled in the mirror and beamed at all of us. “It’s ironic.”

  He smiled like he was thinking a thousand things, and I wanted to know every one.

  “Thanks, man. Seriously,” she said, still beaming.

  Joel chuckled as he reached for the plastic sheeting to cover it up with. “Anytime.”

  He taped up the sheet and gave her a piece of paper with instructions, rattling off tips for her like he had a million times. She tipped him mightily and practically bounded out of the shop after Shep rang her up.

  The cameras were still rolling, and Joel sighed, shaking his head as he began to break down his station, pulling the plastic wrap off his tray and disassembling his gun.

  “So,” I started, “do you get a lot of tattoos like that?”

  He looked up, his hands busy as he answered. “We get all types, you know? Most people want art, something meaningful to carry around with them every day, reminders, that sort of thing.”

  “Do you get a lot of hipsters coming in?”

  He glanced up at me and then back down. “I try not to judge. If someone wants to come in here and get a hashtag tattooed on them, who am I to ask questions? They get what they want, something that makes them happy. That’s part of the problem with the culture sometimes. No one is more or less legitimate than someone else just because of how they choose to tattoo themselves. It’s just another way for people who historically have been persecuted for their choice to get tattooed to persecute someone else. None of us own the culture, and the people who judge are the worst kind of assholes.”

  I smiled. “So everyone’s included?”

  He shrugged and tossed a wad of plastic and paper towel in the trash under his desk. “That’s the idea.”

  “I like it.”

  He finally looked up at me and smiled, though there was something else behind his eyes, the same something that had been there for the last few days, ever since that first day of filming. He made me hot and cold, furious and fevered, and everything I learned about him, every time we spoke, the want to know more built until I couldn’t help myself, disarmed by him completely.

  It was late, the last segment of the night, and we were set to shut down. So as Joel finished breaking down his station, the camera crew broke down their equipment and PA’s swarmed, grabbing film and hard drives to take upstairs to start editing. I took a seat in his tattoo chair while his back was turned, and when he looked back and found me sitting there, that something in his eyes was gone, replaced with something else entirely, something that made my breath catch.

  He had frozen — I didn’t notice until he snapped back into action, moving to his desk to put his machine parts away, and I couldn’t help but watch his muscles and tendons flutter in his tattooed forearms as he arranged the pieces.

  “That was a great piece. Good shoot tonight.”

  He made a sort of humph sound, but it was amused. “Just doing my job.” He closed the drawer and sat on the surface, leaving one foot on the ground, his other thigh on the desk, elbow resting on it. He looked casual, easy, like your favorite pair of jeans, the ones that made your butt look amazing. That pretty much summed Joel up.

  I realized then that I’d missed flirting with him, and I felt like an asshole for turning him out like I had. He just made me so uncomfortable that shutting him out was my only defense again
st him.

  The realization made me even more uncomfortable than his flirting had.

  “You looking to get some work done?” he asked, nodding to the chair.

  I laughed softly. “No. If you couldn’t tell, I’m not exactly the alternative type of girl.”

  “You don’t say?”

  I smiled. “I know. Shocker, right?”

  “So, you don’t even have one tattoo? I mean, almost everyone has at least one that they got when they turned eighteen.”

  I wrinkled my nose and inspected the black vinyl of the arm rest.

  He laughed, the sound full and easy, just like the rest of him. That sound had me wondering again what my hangup with him was. “You do. Is it bad?”

  “Define bad?”

  “Bad as in you don’t want to tell me because it’s that bad.”

  “Then yeah. It’s bad.”

  He was smirking now, and I felt myself smiling back. “Tell me the story.”

  “How do you know there’s a story?”

  “Princess, there’s always a story.”

  I rolled my eyes, giving only a superficial impression of actually being annoyed. “Well, you’ve met Roxy.”

  “I have.”

  “So, our birthdays are only a month apart, and when we turned eighteen, she got me drunk on Stoli and dragged me to a tattoo parlor.”

  He ran a hand through his hair. “Oh, God. Maybe I don’t want to know.”

  I laughed. “I’ll gladly stop there.”

  “No, I won’t be able to sleep not knowing. Lay it on me.”

  One of my brows rose. “Hmm. Well, now I don’t know if I want to tell you. The thought of keeping you up at night sounds really appealing.”

  That something was back behind his eyes, and his smile fell. “Not fair.”

  I smiled apologetically. “I really didn’t mean it like that — I’m sorry. More in the way that it would be fun to torture you.”

  He leaned toward me a bit. “So where is it?”

  I felt my stupid flush bloom across my cheeks. “Well, I knew I wouldn’t want it somewhere I could see it, where anyone could see it.”

  “Hip?”

  I bit my lip before answering. “Lower back.”

  He laughed again, teeth flashing from behind his dark beard. “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “What is it?”

  My cheeks could have been steaming, they were so hot. “A Chinese character.”

  He shook his head, still laughing. “Oh, Annika.”

  I made a face at him. “What happened to accepting everyone?”

  He made a face right back at me. “Did it make you happy?”

  “No,” I conceded.

  “Then it wasn’t the right piece for you. Did you see that girl when she left? You thought her tattoo was stupid, but she left here ready to fly. What you think doesn’t matter to her. But you can barely even tell me what you have tattooed on your body because you’re so embarrassed.”

  I didn’t want to admit how right he was. He didn’t wait for me to — he probably knew he had me.

  “What character did you get? Did it mean something to you?”

  “It does mean something to me,” I said, wanting to defend myself, but I was without a single bit of traction, except this. “It’s the symbol for ice.”

  Joel watched me for a long, quiet moment. “Tell me what it means.”

  I swallowed, feeling the weight of his eyes on me, my own eyes on my fingers as they traced a small split in the vinyl of the arm of the chair. “Ever since I was a little girl, I was serious. Roxy was the sun and I was the moon. She was the spring and I was the winter. She was the fire and I was the ice. Cold, just like the place where my ancestors were born. Led, ice. Hard and harsh and sharp. I’ve always been this way,” I said, as if I were trying to convince myself that it was all right just as much as I wanted to convince him.

  He watched me in a way that made my heart speed up. “That’s not what I see.”

  I met his eyes. “What do you see?”

  “Snow. Cold and soft, the sum of an infinite number of beautiful pieces. And when the light hits just right, you shine.”

  I had no words, my mind blank as my eyes hung on to his like a lifeline.

  He broke our gaze and moved to stand. “Let me see it.”

  “What?” I blustered, caught off guard.

  “Stand up and turn around. I want to see it.”

  I was too surprised and caught up in the moment to refuse, so I stood and turned, laying my palms on the armrests as I faced the back of the chair.

  One hand rested on my hip.

  My heart stopped as I wondered what the hell I’d gotten myself into.

  I glanced over my shoulder, my gaze bouncing between his face — turned down too much to read — and his reflection in the speckled, antique mirror, which I couldn’t see much of either. His free hand moved to the waistband of my tailored pants, and his fingers hooked and tugged, pulling the band down low.

  His thumb ran over where I knew the tattoo was, and I felt his breath. Every place where we connected spoke to me of ownership.

  “You got this done here? In New York?” His voice was rough.

  Mine wasn’t much better. “Yeah. In Brooklyn.”

  “Let me cover it up for you. Give you something you’re proud of. Your skin …” He paused, and I wished I could see his face, read his mind. “This shouldn’t be here, not on you. Let me … I want to …” He had moved closer, his hand on my hip pulling me back into him slightly enough for me to not have noticed that the backs of my thighs were touching his, my back arched just enough, his breath hot.

  And then, he disappeared. I stood, finding my hands were trembling, wondering where I was and how I’d gotten there. The shop was mostly empty — no one had seen, not that it would have looked like much from the outside. But from where I stood, I felt every single deliberate move like a telegraph, telling me exactly what he wanted to do without him having to finish the sentence.

  His back was to me when I turned around, his face down — I couldn’t see it in the mirror over his cabinet of ink and needles as he dug around in the drawers, seemingly for nothing in particular.

  “Let me know if you want me to draw something up.”

  “Okay, I will.” I paused, not knowing what else to say, feeling like I should say something. But there was nothing that I could say. “Well, have a good night, Joel. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  He nodded, glancing at me in the mirror. “See you, Annika.”

  I tried not to bolt out of the shop, but once outside, I admit it — I took off. I hauled up the stairs and into the office to grab my bag, grateful that Laney was already gone, and I texted my driver, asking him to pick me up a few blocks away so I could walk, put some distance between me and Joel, get the energy out of my body, through my legs and feet, into the pavement.

  ICE QUEEN

  Annika

  THE CITY PASSED BY OUTSIDE my window as we drove to Brooklyn, the lights zipping past in streaks, my eyes focused on a fleck of mud on the glass.

  Nothing made sense.

  It was pretty clear to me that I wanted more from Joel than I’d admitted to myself before, and I felt like an asshole for the amount of pushback I’d given to him for coming on to me. All because the idea of him and me freaked me out on multiple levels. I wasn’t sure what I even wanted from him. Sex? Definitely. The way he touched my skin, as simple as the motion was, it was undeniable — my body wanted his body.

  Past that?

  I sighed, unable to even imagine what went past that. Dinner with Joel? I didn’t think he’d like the idea of a nice dinner at the restaurants I frequented. Joel in a suit. My thighs squeezed together remembering him in the suit that first night, imagining him in one again, sitting across from me at a candlelit table, or in my room, my hands under his jacket, pushing it over his shoulder—

  Stop it, I told myself. We had nothing in common. What would we even talk about?
My heart argued that we hadn’t lacked for conversation up to that point. My head told my heart to sit down and shut up.

  Indecision swarmed through me like evil bees, but in the center of that was the honeycomb — the knowledge that I wanted more from Joel, though I wasn’t ready to define was more was. That knowledge, at least, was comforting, the release of the levy I’d been doing my damnedest to keep standing, and I was flooded with relief.

  More relief came as we pulled up in front of my house — Roxy would know what to do.

  I thanked my driver, climbed out of the car, walked across the sidewalk and into the house, ready to spill it all.

  The house was dimly lit, having wound down from the day, and Roxy sat on the couch, humming along to The Lumineers as the soft, folky sounds filled the room. She looked up from her sketchbook and smiled.

  “Hey.”

  I set my bag down on the hall table. “Hey.”

  Her smile fell a hair. “You okay?”

  I sipped in a deep breath. “Yes and no.”

  She full-on frowned and set the drawing of a garment on the coffee table. “What’s going on?”

  “Anni!” Kira squealed and bounded down the stairs and into my legs, which she wrapped her little arms around.

  I smoothed her hair, looking down at her. “Hey, Bunny. What are you still doing up?”

  “Mama said I could wait up so we could play.”

  Roxy stood. “Baby, I said maybe, but I think Anni’s tired.”

  I waved her off. “No, it’s okay. I promised her yesterday.”

  Kira beamed, and I took her hand.

  “Come on, let’s go. What are we playing?”

  “Anna and Elsa,” she said definitively and to no surprise to me.

  I laughed. “So I’m Anna?”

  Kira gave me a look like I was crazy as we climbed the stairs with Roxy in our wake. “You’re Elsa. You’re always Elsa.”

  “Oh, of course. I thought maybe we were switching it up. Looks like Mama’s going to play too. Who will she be?”

  “Sven. And Kaz will be Kristoff”

  Roxy rolled her eyes. “How come I always have to be the moose?”