Skin Deep (Ink & Brazen Women)

by Cassie Leigh

Sunlight cut a line across Roman’s hands, as the door to the bar opened and the fall of heavy boots echoed through the nearly empty bar. Declan slapped the bar top in front of Roman as he dropped into the stool beside him.

  “I covered your 10 am and rescheduled the rest.” Declan scowled at Roman when his announcement was met with a silent nod. “Don’t bother thanking me or anything.”

  Roman hung his head between his elbows, braced wide against the padded edge of the bar top.

  Billy swiped a towel over the space in front of Declan and sat a fresh bottle of beer in front of each of them. “’Bout damn time you got here to talk sense into our boy.”

  “Nah, this fucker was talking sense at the start.” Roman clapped Declan on the shoulder. “He warned me not to fool with Gigi. Just had to get my dick wet though. From now on, I’m listening to him, Billy. Not your romantic clap.”

  Declan’s nostrils flared as he leaned away. “You mean crap.”

  “No, I mean clap—like a goddamn disease. ‘Cause that’s what love is.” He took another pull from his fresh bottle, but it soured in his stomach and did nothing for the lump building in his throat.

  Billy grabbed one of the empty bottles and pointed it at Roman. “I’d lay good money you’re wrong. You got a good girl there and you’re gonna be eatin’ those words before long.”

  Ignoring the old man, Roman glanced sideways at his friend. Declan’s knuckles had gone white from his tightened grip on his own bottle. His tone was low, almost a threatening growl when he spoke. “I’m glad you’re taking my advice now. ‘Cause you’re not going to like this but you are going to do it. I don’t like admitting I was wrong about her but I’m doing it now. When you sober up—and I’ll see to it you do—you’re going to give that girl the apology she deserves.”

  “What the hell, man.” Roman’s jaw went slack as he did a double take at the vein pulsing in his friend’s forehead. Damn—he was serious.

  “She looked broken walking away from you. You got to watch her ass as she walked out. I got to see her from a different angle. From the angle full of tears and righteous fury. Jessica looked pleased with herself when you called her out and at times, she looked a little petulant about getting caught. She never looked that broken.”

  The front door crashed against the wall. “Ah, hell, you’re gettin’ it now,” Billy groused, shaking his head.

  Roman turned to see Ann stomp towards them in full business professional battle gear. Black designer pumps, white cigarette slacks and a tan blazer over a loose black shell, as if she was going to court or a hostile takeover instead of a relationship intervention. Only the best would do for his stepsister. She also didn’t hold back, wasting no time smacking Roman across the back of the head.

  “Stop—What’s your problem?” Roman flailed his hands to brush her off while Billy chuckled. Declan’s earlier emotional outburst shut down as he turned into the stoic façade he usually resorted to when Ann came around, which wasn’t often.

  “That’s for being an ass to my best friend.” Ann smacked him again. “That’s for jumping to conclusions that broke her heart.” Her hand lashed out for another strike. “And that’s for making me come down here to fix this. I trusted you with her!”

  Roman glared at her. “You’re lucky you’re my sister and not some dude or I’d lay your ass out for that.” His chest tightened as he worked to contain his emotions, shoving them into the beer as he steadily drained it. Everyone seemed confused about who cheated.

  Tossing a wad of bills on the counter, he tried to stand.

  Declan shoved him back down onto the stool. “No runnin’ away, man. You listen to her. Your sister and I don’t agree on much but I’m with her on this. I know what I said in the beginning but I was wrong. Did you even ask Gigi about what you saw?”

  “Ask her what?” Roman shot back. “That slime was kissing her. What’s there to explain? She said I was the only one and I wasn’t. I think you all are forgetting who wronged who here.”

  Crossing her arms over her chest, Ann huffed out her impatience. “You’re an artist. There is always context to color an image. Think, moron. Did she look very happy about that kiss?”

  “I didn’t stick around to find out. She looked pissed before he did it. I was relieved until he shoved his mouth on her.” Roman flung the words at them.

  “You idiot.” Billy spat. Roman had all but forgotten the man was standing there.

  Declan turned Roman on the barstool and shook his drunk ass, making his stomach churn. “She was angry at him and you didn’t jump off your bike and knock the shit out of him? If that had been Ann, I’d have turned his face inside out.”

  Blinking fast for a moment, Ann’s eyes widened at Declan’s slip before she shook it off and her face pinched up in concentration. “I tried to warn you about Chad. I should have listened to my gut and outright told you when she tried to laugh off his stalker ass. Roman, he’s been harassing her for weeks. She went out with him once and he couldn’t take no for an answer after that.”

  Roman stilled, his mind stuttering as he replayed the scene in front of her building through this new lens. Ann was right; perspective recolored everything. If that was true… “I fucked up.”

  “Took you long enough. Now how you gonna make it right?” Billy barked.

  “I’d start with groveling.” Ann offered, but she was looking at Declan when she said it.

  “I’m not good enough for that.”

  “Well, you better sober up and figure it out fast before she gets much more self-destructive.” Ann warned as she started backing towards the door. “Based on the state of inebriation I found her in, you don’t have long before she does something she’ll hate herself for and I’m laying the blame square on you, Roman. My job is done here, so I’m going back to work.”

  Billy waved her off. “We’ll take him from here, hon.” Ann disappeared through the door and Billy continued with a pointed look at Declan, “Then you’re next Declan. I’m taking a Weed Wacker to the thorns around your heart as soon as we’re done with Roman’s sorry ass.”

  Declan glared across the bar. “Just make the coffee and focus your meddling on him. We got enough problems right now, don’t you think?”

  CHAPTER 17

  ..................

  AFTER SPENDING SOME BONDING TIME with her Keurig, Gigi was considerably more sober. But she wasn’t taking chances with her Fiat—especially since her love life once again put her on the unemployment line. Roman wouldn’t fire her of course, at least she didn’t think so, but she couldn’t imagine sitting at that desk while he touched other people’s skin and not hers.

  She mentally shook herself. Didn’t matter. Uber existed for a reason. She could wallow in her pity party and return to the vodka cranberry. Instead she would take a wrecking ball to the things that brought her to this point—the backseat of a man’s car. For once, it had nothing to do with getting off. Sure, the stud driving was eyeballing her like he wouldn’t mind. Up until two weeks ago, the untattooed, Tinder-vixen version of her former self would have been intrigued. Instead, she viewed it as comical the way he divided his attention between checking her out in the rearview mirror, and making sure he didn’t rear-end someone.

  The newly tattooed, heartsick version of herself was ready to pass that torch on. She still wasn’t convinced that the old version was wrong for having the no-strings fun while it lasted. Live and let live. It just wasn’t for her any more—not when her heart wanted Roman.

  Her mother was the top of her “To Do” list. Her father’s poison had tainted Gigi’s relationship outlook by association and ruined her mother. She needed her mother to see the light yesterday. If Leslie Duval saw it today, that would be a good enough start. The car pulled up in front of the stately white colonial that she’d grown up in. A sigh of relief snuck out when she spotted her mother’s white Mercedes in the driveway and no sign of her father’s Porsche. It was still reasonably early on Monday, but if he’d chosen to work from ho
me, Gigi doubted she could have been brazen enough to carry this out. Her bravery only extended so far.

  Gigi thanked the driver, and stepped out of the vehicle. Her first step up the flagstone walkway seemed to echo in her ears as if she were still wearing the kitten heels she’d had on the last time rather than her Toms.

  Two weeks ago, she’d walked through this same door and had Chad’s hand up her skirt turning her world sideways. Now she was about to totally upend it. She opened that door and walked through. The smell of her mother’s pot roast wafting down the same hall where she’d stood and listened to her father sweet talk his other woman, right where her mother or anyone else could have heard. It was so blatant, as if he had no regard at all for his wife—which of course he didn’t.

  Gigi didn’t even consider ratting him out. Her mother must know and must just be turning the other cheek. It had been easier to believe that. Gigi had never dared to ask; what if she didn’t know? What if she did know and thought she was sparing her children and her reputation if no one else knew? What should have mattered was that a bad man was destroying a good woman—in the same way a bad woman destroyed a good man, to the point that he wouldn’t question what he’d seen.

  No more. Enough tears and bottled up pain had passed because of suffering in silence. Because of selfish people and their urges.

  “Mom, are you home?” Gigi called as she pushed open the kitchen door.

  Her mother stood in front of a steaming bowl with a masher in her hand, pearls around her throat and an almost plastic expression on her face. It was like a twisted Leave It to Beaver scene. “I didn’t expect to see you today, Gigi. What a pleasant surprise.”

  She’d lay money down that her mother wasn’t going to feel that way in a moment. “Dad due home soon?”

  Leslie nodded in understanding of the usual subtext—will Dad be interrupting us because I don’t want him to hear this. “Oh no, we’ve got time. He said he’d be working late again.”

  Pulling up a stool at the edge of the granite counter that divided the kitchen in half, Gigi perched on the edge. “This is a lot of food if he isn’t going to be home for dinner.”

  “I’ll heat some up for him when he gets home. Not that he’ll eat it. I’m taking a plate to the neighbor. He’s a widower and he’s not used to cooking for himself. His wife, Rebecca, and I were good friends before she passed.” Leslie pushed the bowl across the counter near Gigi and sat on the stool beside her. “It keeps me busy to feed a friend occasionally, now that I don’t have a house full of kids to chase around town.”

  Gigi hadn’t considered her mother’s potential boredom or lack of direction once she’d moved out. For the first time, she wondered if this June Cleaver act was her mother’s own choice. “Why don’t you do some volunteering? Is there something else you’d like to be doing?”

  “I always assumed I’d go back to work when you all were grown. But your father said it would make him look bad. I wouldn’t be qualified for much after so many years out of the work force.” Leslie sounded like a wistful girl recounting an unrequited love instead of a lost career. “What good is a Fine Arts degree that hasn’t been used in ages? I find I’m a lady of leisure for better or worse.”

  Gigi worried her bottom lip as she stewed on her mother’s admission. Telling her mother what John Duval had been doing could hurt her in more ways than Gigi had considered. Her father neatly trapped her mother and isolated her from any kind of help other than her own children and maybe a neighbor. Perhaps this was why Leslie stayed with him for so long.

  More pieces and layers to all the things that people do, the decisions they make. Did Gigi have any right to judge? Maybe not, but she could help her mother. Gigi would not leave her helpless the way John—she no longer wanted to think of him as her father—made Leslie assume she would be.

  “There’s something weighing on you, honey.” Leslie’s smile was that open smile, so encouraging and yet layered with sadness that the Botox and a bad marriage just couldn’t hide. “You can tell me. Whatever it is we’ll get through it.”

  Gigi took the opening, tentative, as if she was putting one toe in the water—or in this case, a few well-chosen words. “What did you and Dad do on Saturday evening? Anything special?”

  Leslie’s expression went slack and her tearless eyes dull with resignation. Her mother could already see the hit coming, but damn it all, she walked through it anyway.

  Her answer came out monotone, lacking any emotion. “He was out of town on a business trip.”

  “No, Mom. He wasn’t.” There. She’d said it—the easy part at least.

  Leslie drew herself up with stately dignity, transforming herself into a visage more akin to Jackie-O than June Cleaver. She exhaled two words. “Tell me.”

  “I have a job now at a gallery. We had an event on Saturday night. My boss sold Dad a painting and I saw him there with her. She wasn’t much older than me and the way they hung on each other in front of all those people—it was clear they were together.”

  “Did anyone else see?” She stared straight ahead. No tears. Not yet. Her hands twisted the diamond bridal set on her left hand.

  Gigi twisted her own ring, the promise ring John had given her mother. It had been on her right hand since her mother passed it down to her on her graduation. She mostly ignored its presence on her hand. “Chad was there from his office. My friend, Ann—you remember her, don’t you? I’m not sure how many other people there he might have known. My advertising did its job and the gallery had a successful event.” She’d leave out the part about getting drunk in the back to avoid an accidental run in.

  The room was still, the silence stretching between them. Neither woman rushed to fill it.

  Leslie slid the ring she’d been toying with off her finger and laid it on the counter. “I need a locksmith and I need to call your brother before your father gets to him. Your brother will know the best divorce lawyer. Your father hasn’t won a case in years and the dissolution of our marriage won’t be breaking his dry spell.”

  Tears threatened the corners of her already red eyes. If her mother wouldn’t cry, Gigi still had enough in the well for both of their broken hearts. Leslie turned and pulled her into a hug. She sank into her mother’s warmth. It had been so long since sincere affection had been in this house, this pristine stage of false morality.

  “We’re both going to be alright, Gigi.” Leslie pushed Gigi back, swiping at her tears with the corner of her apron. It was a gesture that reminded Gigi of being young and scraping her knee. Only this time she’d scraped something far more important—her heart. “A man will not bring us down. We’re stronger than that. We are going to be just fine. I promise.”

  She gave a halfhearted nod in agreement.

  “No,” Leslie commanded, still gripping her shoulders, “Say it. You must say it to make it a reality, otherwise it won’t take hold deep enough. Let me hear you.”

  Gigi wet her dry lips and repeated her mother’s affirmation. “We’re both going to be all right. A man will not bring us down.”

  “That’s my girl.” Leslie smiled and it was open and real. Not plastic. “Now let’s make those phone calls.”

  CHAPTER 18

  ..................

  GIGI STOOD NEXT TO THE brick building that housed Ink Spinners with her bag balanced on the hood of her Fiat. Since she pulled into the parking lot, she cataloged the contents of her purse while sitting in her front seat at least twice, now she was doing it again. If anything was missing, even one item, she would go home. He probably wasn’t even expecting her to come in. Which was even more reason that everything had to be right. Nothing out of place.

  She’d spent two hours in the mirror painstakingly making over her messy hair into a dark waterfall of cascading curls arranged to fall over one side while the other side had been smoothed. Her makeup struck that delicate balance of temptress and business professional. As she chose her outfit that morning, a part of her wanted to drip so much pink it
would make him sick to look at her. Not just a subtle reminder, but an all-out dig at the flirting she never should have done. Another side of her wanted to go severe with unrelieved black and white. That too was another kind of dig—a stark denial of everything that had passed between them.

  In the end, she settled somewhere in the middle. Her high-waisted black pencil skirt buttoned up the front with a little left undone to give a hint of leg at the bottom. She paired that with a white formfitting blouse that gave a hint of the deep pink bra she’d been fully aware was too dark to wear underneath the thin top. The finishing touch that gave her the boost in confidence she needed had been the bright fuchsia heels, just couture enough to avoid being hooker heels.

  Tomorrow she’d scale it back, or maybe next week. If she was going to brazen this out she wanted to make it painful for him, at least for today. Her mother had the right idea—no man would bring her down. Gigi wanted this job and if she had to look at Roman, then so be it. She didn’t just need this job to pay her bills—she’d been good at it. She loved running the gallery space and elevating the shop’s marketing potential. Being the boss’s girl would have to be a benefit she learned to live without.

  Gigi slicked on a final coat of Moxie Mauve lipstick, like war paint. She placed it carefully back in its designated side pocket, and took her first steps forward with her head held high.

  “Shoulders back, girlfriend. Put some hip action into that strut.” Gigi breathed in through her nose and on her exhale, she repeated her new mantra. “If mom can leave John Duval, high-powered attorney, I can do anything.”

  ..................

  A low whistle sounded from across the shop. Roman looked up to see their new apprentice, Jasper, slack-jawed with his eyes fixed on the front window and then over in time to see Gigi through the glass seconds before she entered the shop in all her audacious glory. Hot damn—she had fire in her and she was here.

  Declan, good friend that he was, took care of the kid by delivering a swift kick to the shin.