But it turned out he was better at sex than promises, and his sudden vanishing act had left a bruise on my heart that had never completely healed. To make peace with it, I’d simply come to accept that tender spot as part of me, and I avoided pressing on it.
Could the dream be about Dallas? But why now, twelve years later, when I’d already moved on? Sure, it had taken me a long time, but I’d gotten there. I dated occasionally. It wasn’t my fault I’d never fallen head over heels for someone again. It wasn’t like you could choose your soulmate—either you felt that thing or you didn’t. And I’d just never felt it for anyone else. What was I supposed to do, fake it? I’d rather be single.
The three of us were quiet for a moment before Emme spoke again. “Why does it have to mean anything? Maybe it’s just a random bad dream.”
I shook my head. “I don’t believe anything is random. But let’s talk about something else, okay? I’ll figure it out. Deciphering messages from my subconscious is not your problem.”
“Well, what’s your subconscious saying about that dark purple dress?” Emme asked.
I laughed and shook my head. “Nothing yet, but I’ll let you know if I hear something.”
“Good. We’re now thinking October or November up at Abelard, and I’m envisioning kind of a soft autumn color palette—eggplant, heather, thistle, sangria, eucalyptus.” She ticked the colors off on her fingers.
“That’s going to be beautiful, Emme,” I said. Abelard Vineyards was the winery our cousin Mia and her husband Lucas owned up on Old Mission Peninsula. It would be gorgeous that time of year.
“I agree,” said Stella. “But can you really plan a wedding that fast? That’s only a few months away.”
Emme rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically. “I’m a wedding planner, Stella. That’s what I do. We’ll get better prices in the off-season, and besides …” Her cheeks went pink and her shoulders rose. “We don’t want to wait. We want to be married yesterday.”
Now it was Stella who sighed. “Must be nice to be so in love. How’s it going living together?”
“Fantastic. I’ve never had so much sex in my life,” Emme whispered excitedly. “And it’s better every time. Nate is just … so generous. And talented. And well-endowed.” She shivered. “It’s mind-blowing.”
I peered into my empty glass, wondering if a second glass was a horrible idea. I didn’t drink much and had a pretty decent buzz from the first.
Emme looked across me to Stella. “What about you? Things still strictly platonic with Buzz?”
I nudged Emme with my foot. Buzz was our nickname for Stella’s psych professor boyfriend, Walter. We called him that because he was so passionate about his beekeeping. What he wasn’t passionate about was Stella—at least not sexually. Emme and I remained perplexed about their year-long relationship, which seemed more like a friendship than anything else, or maybe like a brother and sister hanging out together. But Stella claimed to be fine with that.
“Yes,” she said. Then she looked around, like she was trying to find something she’d lost. “Is there a menu anywhere? I’m getting kind of hungry.”
“I’m up for some food,” said Emme. “I’ll flag down the bartender.” But beneath the bar, she nudged me back, and I knew she’d noticed, just as I had, the way Stella had avoided any further discussion about her and Buzz.
I understood completely. Who’d want to follow up Emme’s dreamy rhapsodizing about Nate’s sexual prowess and their mad rush to the altar with anecdotes about holding hands at the movies and listening to endless stories about pollination on their Sunday morning jogs? I didn’t want to talk about my sex life either. Two-year dry spell aside, it was pretty depressing that I was twenty-nine and the only guy I’d ever experienced mind-blowing sex with was my high school boyfriend.
Stop thinking about him.
I put him from my mind and did my best to focus on what Emme was saying about centerpieces and seating arrangements.
Dallas Shepherd was nothing more than a memory.
Two
Dallas
“I really think you should reconsider, Lisa.” I handed back the picture of Tweety Bird to the eighteen-year-old girl sitting in the chair across from me. “My gut feeling is that you’ll regret getting this tattoo.”
“How do you know?” Lisa pouted, which made her look even younger.
I shrugged. “Just a hunch. Let’s talk about another design, okay?”
“But I love Tweety Bird. And I want it to say ‘You’re my Tweety Pie’ above and then my boyfriend’s name below.”
“Then I’m definitely not doing it.” I sat back in my chair and crossed my arms. “I have a strict rule about tattooing names on people. I won’t do it.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’ve never known anyone who had that done and wasn’t sorry later on. I’m all about having no regrets in life.”
“I won’t regret it,” she insisted. “Rocky and I are in love. That’s forever.”
“A tattoo is forever. Love, not necessarily. Either way, I won’t put your boyfriend’s name on your arm.”
“How about his face?” She began scrolling through pictures on her phone. “He’s really cute.”
“No.”
“His real name is Rockton. Would you put that?”
“Not a chance.”
“Haven’t you ever been in love?” she demanded.
“Once,” I told her.
“What happened?”
“That’s complicated. And private.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Suffice it to say, I fucked up. I was young.”
She gave me the side eye. “You don’t look that old.”
“I just turned thirty. I was seventeen then.”
“Oh.” She nodded, confirming that thirty was definitely old. “So what did you do?”
I cocked my head. “Didn’t I just say it was private?”
“Look, I paid a hundred-dollar deposit to get this appointment with you.”
“For a tattoo. Not a true confession.”
“You won’t even give me the tattoo I want. My dad’s a lawyer, you know.”
“Is he aware that you’re here with a picture of Tweety Bird?”
She fidgeted in her seat. “Just tell me what you did. Then I’ll pick a different design.”
I sighed heavily and checked the clock on the wall. It wasn’t even six yet, but this day had been long enough already. I had the same dull ache in my head I’d had for the last four months, and I still had to call my older brother, Finn, at some point. I wasn’t looking forward to it. Maybe if I told her the story, she’d get bored and move on. “Senior year, I was getting in trouble too much and my parents sent me away.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Dumb shit.”
“Where’d they send you?”
“To obedience school.”
My humor was lost on her. “Was the girl upset?”
“Probably. I left without telling her.”
She gasped. “Why?”
“I didn’t want to say goodbye.”
“She must have been so pissed at you.”
“She probably was.”
Lisa’s eyes went wide. “You don’t know? Like, you never talked to her again?”
I shrugged and checked the clock again. “Told you I fucked up.”
“But…but why?” Lisa seemed genuinely distressed at my assholery. “If you loved her, why leave her like that?”
“Because she was better off without me and I knew it. Now let’s talk about another design.”
She brought out her phone and showed me a Pinterest board she’d created with tattoo ideas. Most of them were pretty terrible, but I got the feeling she liked birds and flowers, so I got out a pencil and sheet of paper and sketched something for her—a small bird standing on a little branch with flowers at both ends. It was feminine but not cutesy, a classic subject with an abstract feel. She loved it.
I pu
lled on some gloves and got to work. I wasn’t much for conversation while I was tattooing someone, but I was used to people wanting to talk to me. It always amazed me the way some people treated their tattoo artists like therapists. Maybe it was just that they wanted to talk through the pain. Maybe it was the fact that I was entirely focused on them and they weren’t used to having someone’s full attention. Maybe the fact that they had to trust me with their skin made them feel like they could trust me with their feelings. Whatever. It was fine with me—as long as they didn’t expect me to reply—and if they found something therapeutic about getting a tattoo, well, good. God knows I’d worked through some emotional shit with ink. Sometimes it was all you could do.
Lisa got queasy about halfway through, so I decided we should take a break. While she relaxed with a bottle of water and a few deep breaths, I peeled off my gloves and checked my messages. My doctor’s office had called to confirm my films had been sent to Boston, as requested, and my brother had called—again—but didn’t leave a message this time.
My friend Evan, whose station was next to mine, knocked on the half-wall separating us.
“Yeah.”
He pulled back the black velvet curtain above the wall. “Hey. Beer after work? Widmer?”
“Sounds good.”
“How much longer will you need?”
“Probably an hour or so.”
“Okay. I’m done, so I’m gonna run home and eat dinner with Reyna. Text when you’re ready and I’ll meet you.”
“Will do.”
An hour and a half later, Lisa was the proud bearer of her first tattoo. Her complexion had lost most of its green tinge, and she was all smiles as she studied it through the protective plastic bandage. “I love it,” she said. “You were right, this is much better than Tweety Bird.”
“Told you so.”
“Am I done?”
“Yes, but sit tight for a minute. It’s not good to get up too fast, and we need to go over aftercare instructions.”
“Okay.” She was silent as I handed her a sheet explaining when she should remove the bandage, how she should wash and dry it, and what to put on it to help her skin heal.
“No sun, no swimming, no soaking for two weeks,” I warned. “And after it’s healed, make sure you use sunblock on it.”
She nodded. “I will.”
I stood up and offered her my hand. “Thanks for coming in.”
“Thank you.” She rose and shook my hand. When she let go, I waited for her to leave so I could start cleaning up, but she continued to stand there, looking at me curiously.
“Something else I can do for you?” I asked.
“I want to know what happened to the girl. The one you loved.”
My heart stuttered a little. “I don’t know.”
“Well …” She fidgeted impatiently. “What was her name?”
“Maren.” I hadn’t spoken her name out loud in years. Feeling it on my lips again made my chest go tight.
“Do you ever think about her?”
Every day. “From time to time.”
A smile snuck onto her lips. “You still love her.”
“Goodbye, Lisa. Thanks for coming in.” I turned my back to her and texted Evan that I would be out of here shortly.
She laughed. “See? Sometimes love is forever. Even if you don’t want it to be. You should go see her.”
“It’s too late.”
“It’s never too late.”
I ignored her and she finally walked away, but as I finished cleaning up, I kept hearing her words in my head. You still love her.
The vise on my heart contracted. Of course I still loved her. I’d never tried not to love her. No matter what I had done, or how long it had been, or how many other women had tried to take her place in my heart, she was always there, as permanent as any tattoo on my body.
I’d been thinking about her a lot lately, too. My memories of being with her were so fucking vivid these days. They hit me out of nowhere, as if someone had pushed a button in my brain. The colors were so vibrant, from the sapphire blue of the lake we used to swim in to the golden flecks in her brown eyes. If I took a deep breath, I’d smell the lotion she used to wear that made me want to lick her skin. I could hear her laugh as if she was in the same room with me.
But it wasn’t just the memories getting to me—it was the thought of her now. I wasn’t on social media, because fuck that shit, but I’d been drunk and curious enough times late at night to look her up. I knew she still lived outside Detroit not far from where we grew up, I knew she had quit ballet and opened up a yoga studio, and I knew she grew more beautiful every single year, so beautiful it hurt.
You should go see her.
My stomach muscles tightened. The truth was, I’d been thinking about it. Ever since the test results came back.
On my way out of the studio, I stopped to talk to Beatriz, the owner of the shop, who was wiping down the glass case of body piercing jewelry in the lobby. Her long, blue-tipped braids swayed in front of her shoulders as she worked.
“Hey,” I said, “got a second?”
She looked up at me and smiled. “Sure thing. How did it go with Tweety Bird?”
“I talked her out of it.”
“Good man.” She straightened up and set her rag aside. “What can I do for you?”
I rubbed the back of my neck with one hand, wondering how to approach this. I hadn’t told her about my head yet. “Remember when I said I might need some time off for a family thing?”
Beatriz nodded. “Yeah.”
“Looks like I might have to go back east for a few weeks. Maybe even a couple months.”
Her dark eyes were concerned. “Everything okay?”
“I’m not sure yet. I hope so. I know that’s a long time, and I don’t expect you to keep my position open—”
She held her hand out to silence me. “Your position is here whenever you get back. I won’t say we won’t miss you since you’re so damn popular, but your job is safe, Dallas. You’re wickedly talented and professional as fuck.”
That made me smile. “Thanks.”
“When do you need to take off?”
“I have to call my brother back tonight. I’ll know more after I talk to him.”
“Okay. Just let me know. You’ve got appointments on the books but I’m happy to call them and reschedule for when you get back, or suggest another artist.”
I nodded. I hated to lose business to another artist because I had worked hard to build up a clientele over the last few years, but the truth was, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to work again anyway. And it wasn’t like I needed the money. “Thanks, I appreciate it.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Are you okay? I know you said this thing with your family is stressing you out, but I feel like there’s something else. Some kind of inner turmoil.”
Beatriz was good at reading people. In fact, she claimed to be a little psychic. “Maybe you can tell me,” I said. “Did you bring your crystal ball today?”
She reached over the counter and gave me a shove in the chest. “Crystals are not the same as a crystal ball, asshole. And it’s not my psychic powers telling me something is off with you, it’s your face.”
I looked down at my reflection in the mirror standing on the counter. Same dark hair with a cowlick that wouldn’t behave. Same stubbly jaw that could probably use a razor. Same scars above my eyebrow and beneath my chin. And if I smiled, I’d see the tiny chip in one front tooth my mother always wished I would get fixed. “What’s wrong with my face? I don’t see any turmoil. Looks the same as always to me.”
Beatriz sighed heavily. “There’s nothing wrong with your face, Dallas. You’re gorgeous. You know that. If I liked men and I wasn’t your boss, I would totally want to bang you. It’s your expression, the vibe you’re putting out there, your soul. It’s full of inner turmoil.”
“Hm. Well, maybe it’s just been a long day, and my soul needs a beer.”
She shrug
ged. “There’s that.”
“On that note”—I turned and headed for the door—“I’m out. See you tomorrow.”
Widmer Brothers was just a couple blocks away from the shop. As I walked over, I debated calling my brother and getting it out of the way. While it would be nice to have the buzz a couple of beers would give me to dull the edges of what was sure to be a tense conversation, I knew I’d feel even less like making the call once I’d knocked them back. Knowing me, I’d blow it off again. It’s not like I had made a decision yet.
Finn wouldn’t get that. He thought he knew best, just like always, and he was going to pressure me to do what he said. Well, it was my fucking life and I’d make my own damn decision when I was good and ready. Maybe he needed to hear that, and maybe provoking a fight would let me blow off a little steam. Pulling my phone from my pocket, I stood on the sidewalk in front of the brewery and made the call.
It was nearly eight here, which meant it was just before eleven p.m. in Boston. Maybe he was already sleeping because he had to get up early, although I had no idea what a neurology professor’s schedule was like during the summer.
Yes, my older brother is a neurologist as well as an associate professor at fucking Harvard Medical School.
That’s right, Harvard.
As you can imagine, Finn was the pride and joy of my family, always had been. Excelled at everything he’d ever done, from academics to music to running track. When he graduated from high school, class president and valedictorian (naturally), and proud holder of not one but two state records in track and field, he had already accepted his full ride to study chemistry at Harvard, although it had been very difficult to turn down his scholarship to study piano at the San Francisco Conservatory. My mother practically cried every time she told the story.
I was the other son.
When I entered high school two years after he left, teachers were expecting another Finn Shepherd, Wonder Boy. What they got was me. I didn’t blame them for being disappointed—plus I was used to it. I’d been disappointing my parents for fourteen years. What was another four years being a disappointment to strangers?
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