Full Tilt Duet Box Set

by Emma Scott

  “Is it wrong to say having you tattoo me is turning me on?”

  “Yes,” he said, not looking up. “As a professional, I find it highly inappropriate.”

  I smiled, and bit my lip. I hadn’t been teasing. I felt the deep bite of Theo’s needle on the shallow skin over my shoulder blade all the way down my spine. The vibration settled between my legs. The need grew with the pain, receded when Theo pulled the needle away, to wipe the blood and ink, and again when he changed the needle.

  The texture of the pain changed then. The needle’s bite was more of a scrape, stinging brush strokes, as if he were coloring my skin with a marker that’s tip was made of glass dust.

  “You’re shading now,” I said, feeling the scrape of the tattoo well across my shoulder blade. “That’s a big butterfly.”

  “A butterfly?” Theo said, intent on his work. “I thought you said you wanted a giant happy face with Shit Happens along the bottom.”

  “Ha ha,” I said, only pretending to be annoyed, while inside my heart soared to see my Theo come back.

  After three hours he was done. Three hours watching that beautiful man bent over me, creating a work of art on my body, giving me a piece of himself. My shoulder throbbed but the pain was second to the need I had for him.

  “You ready to see it?” he asked. His voice was low, gruff, and if he was nervous, he didn’t show it. He looked at me with hunger burning in his eyes.

  I nodded. “I’m ready.”

  I moved to stand in front of the mirror he had on the wall of his station, while he took up a hand mirror from his desk. His eyes swept over my naked breasts as I turned to face him. He held the mirror so I could see my back reflected in the larger on the wall.

  “Oh my God,” I breathed.

  A blue butterfly poised on my shoulder, its wings the color of a summer sky when the sun is about to set. Rimmed in sharp, deep black, shining like onyx where the light caught it. It was so real, so perfectly rendered I imagined it would fold and unfold its wings at any moment, fly off my shoulder and into Theo’s palm.

  But the butterfly remained on its perch. At the end of the universe.

  Theo had rendered an arc of Jonah’s glass along the right side of my shoulder blade, a dark piece of sky, shining with stars and star dust within. It streaked across my skin before tapering away into forever, beyond what my skin could hold. Unfinished. But unending.

  I didn’t say a word, but pulled my gaze from the mirror to the eyes drinking me in. He set the mirror down, then his hand was at the back of my head, buried in my hair, the other pulling me close. He kissed me hard, his mouth demanding everything. I parted my mouth, taking him in deep.

  “Marry me,” he whispered between kisses. “Marry me, Kace. Be my wife…”

  “Yes,” I breathed. “Yes, God yes.”

  We gave ourselves up to each other completely, a perfect harmony of love and lust, our bodies striving to show the other what our souls knew. It was in every touch, every kiss; our kisses were words, declarations made with our hands on our bodies. Promises made with every gasping breath we shared. And the joy I felt wasn’t only for his proposal, but for what it meant. That despite our losses, we would keep going. Never give in or give up.

  Because love always wins. Always.

  Theo

  I shut off the lights over the tattoo stations and grabbed my jacket from the antique coat stand in the waiting area. The appointment book lay closed on the front desk, Vivian’s kitschy knick-knacks arrayed around it. The Magic 8-Ball front and center as usual.

  I flipped open the appointment book, as I did every night after the other artists went home. The next day’s schedule was almost fully booked. I already knew this: Vivian gave me hourly updates about how well we were doing. Still, I had to see it for myself, see it in black ink on white paper, every night before I left.

  I’m doing it, Jonah. Building a life. A legacy of my own.

  From the front door, the rap of knuckles on glass. By the light of the street lamp, I could see my father shifting from foot to foot, glancing around the empty parking lot. One hand in his jacket pocket, the other running through his silver hair.

  I unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door. “Dad, what’s wrong? Mom okay?”

  “Fine, fine,” my dad said rocking back on his heels. “I thought it was time I saw your place.”

  I stared. “At eleven o’clock at night?”

  “I heard you’re really busy. Didn’t want to interrupt.” He met my eye. “Can I come in?”

  “Yeah. Sure.” I moved aside and watched mutely as my father came inside my shop for the first time. Both hands in his pockets now, he strolled the small entry like a visitor at a museum, taking in the framed tattoo samples. My eyes narrowed, remembering how my father’s face had always been wide open with joy at Jonah’s exhibitions. Tonight he was closed off, his lips drawn down, his eyes hard.

  I crossed my arms, braced myself against his expression. I wanted to ask what the hell he was doing here. What he wanted. To see for himself how I’d squandered Jonah’s money? How I’d gotten an advanced degree but chose to use it for a business that polluted bodies with ink?

  Fuck that. I wouldn’t say a word. If he had something to say, he could say it, but I was done inviting his disapproval.

  “Incredible amount of variety,” he said, turning to me. “You can do all these?”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded, strolled deeper into the shop, hands clasped behind his back. I followed after, turned the lights back on and watched him take in my place. He went to the nearest station—Edgar’s—and tapped his fingers along the reclining chair’s brown vinyl.

  “Looks like a dentist’s chair,” he said. “Does it hurt as much?”

  I shrugged. “It can.”

  My dad inspected the art Edgar had on the wall of his station and pursed his lips. Edgar did our more hardcore designs for our more hardcore clients: snarling wolves with blood dripping from their fangs, horned demons, skulls and flames.

  “This isn’t your station,” Dad finally said.

  “No, I’m over there.” I jerked my head.

  “Can I see?”

  I tensed. Since I began tattooing six years ago, my dad had never asked to see my work. Not once.

  Doesn’t matter. You’re a success. You don’t need anything from him. Not one goddamn thing.

  “Sure,” I heard myself say, and led him to my area in the back corner.

  He stepped inside the low, wooden walls and inspected the art hanging above: prints of my favorite obscure artists, framed sets of client photos, and the Unfinished Series. Kacey had cut out the Inked article and framed that, too.

  The silence was getting too heavy as I waited for the hammer to fall, for my dad to pass his judgment. I gritted my teeth, determined to not say a word. To not concede ground.

  “Okay, I think it’s that one,” he said, pointed at a sample of a name in sharp, glassy font. “And that one.” He swiveled his finger to a boxy, sturdy Old English font. Turning to me, he took off his jacket and set it on the reclining chair, then began rolling up his shirt sleeve.

  “Wait. You want a tattoo?” My arms fell to my sides, the shock stealing my strength.

  My father nodded. The eyes holding mine were heavy with regret instead of sharp-edged disapproval. “Am I too late?” he asked, his voice fraying at the ends. He cleared his throat. “I mean, it’s late at night…”

  “No,” I said, my heart pounding in my throat, softening my own voice. “No, Dad, you’re not too late.”

  Another silence fell and we stood within it for a moment, then my dad nodded gruffly and looked away. “Good. So… How does this work?”

  I moved into my space with him, flipped on the desk lamp. “Uh, well…” My thoughts were scattered over a wave of nerves, as if this were my first tattoo. “You need to tell me what you want and where you want it.”

  My dad sat on the chair and tapped the inside of his right forearm. “Right
here seems appropriate. And what I want is names. Yours and Jonah’s.”

  I stopped, stared.

  “Can you do that? In those styles I pointed out?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I can.”

  I grabbed my sketchpad and pen. I envisioned our names in the fonts my dad wanted and quickly mocked up the tattoo: Jonah’s name curling over the top of mine, his font more elegant, mine more solid.

  “Something like this?” I showed him the sketch.

  His downturned lips turned into a smile, and he looked at me in a way I’d never seen him look at me before. “Exactly like that. You’re…incredible.”

  Twenty years leaned on me hard. Two decades of waiting to hear something like that from Dad. The weight pressed, stubborn and mistrustful.

  “You didn’t come to the grand opening,” I said. I tossed the sketch back on the desk and crossed my arms to conceal my shaking hands.

  My father didn’t flinch or shy from my stare. “No, I didn’t. And I regret it. I regret a lot of things. Actions I took. Words I said I can never take back. But even more, I regret the words I never said.”

  He glanced around my shop, and then back to me. “I always thought Jonah was the glue that held our family together.”

  “He was,” I said.

  “Maybe so,” my dad said, shaking his head. “When he passed, we all fell apart. We…stopped. Halted in our tracks, helpless and broken. But not you. You kept going. You took care of your mother when I couldn’t. You said you were going to buy your own place and you did. You went back to school so you’d know what you’re doing. I see it all now, Theo. You take care of yours. You took care of Jonah all the time he was sick. All the way to his last breath, you were there for him.”

  “Dad, don’t…”

  He held up his hand. “Let me finish, or I never will.” He swallowed hard, but never looked away from me. “You took care of Kacey when she was alone in New Orleans, drinking herself to a slow death. You stepped up when she was pregnant and you stepped up again when she wasn’t. You love her.”

  I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

  He reached out and put his hand on my shoulder, hard but warm. It passed through the wall, melted through layers of armor, sank into my inked skin until I felt my father touch my bones.

  “I see you, Theo. I see you. If Jonah was the glue that held us together, you’re the rock we set our backs to. I’m proud of you for that.” His chin quivered, his voice cracked. “I’m so proud you’re my son.”

  His hand slid around the back of my head and his forehead pressed mine. We didn’t cry. We breathed a shared, shaky breath as twenty years let go of my heart like fists unclenching.

  Dad clapped my shoulders and cleared his throat. “Talk is cheap,” he said. “Let’s do this. Get it done before I chicken out, as the kids like to say.”

  He waited as I sat in my rolling chair at my desk, transferring mine and Jonah’s names to the stencil paper. He eyed me as I set a needle in the barrel of my tattoo machine.

  “It’s going to hurt, isn’t it? I might only get through one name tonight.”

  “You can handle it,” I said, grinning and set his elbow on the arm of the chair. “Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  Just as I readied the needle above his skin, he put his hand on my wrist. “Wait.”

  I looked up. “Yeah?”

  He smiled, patted my cheek like he hadn’t done since I was a kid. “Do your name first.”

  “Jesus, Dad, you’re killing me.” I had to laugh as I sucked in a breath, let it out slowly until my hands were steady. I bent my head over his arm, holding it gently but firmly. The rotor buzzed. The needle went to work. I watched, almost as if from afar as my name appeared on his skin, imbedded there forever in black ink.

  Then Jonah’s name appeared under my gloved hands, to the side and above mine. When I finished, I held up a mirror to show him. “See. You’re tougher than you thought.”

  He stared at the image of his sons’ names in the fonts he’d chosen.

  It was one of the best things I’d ever inked. My brother and I on our father’s skin.

  Forever.

  My dad stared too long, his face unreadable.

  He hates it. He hates that I did that to him, and it’s too fucking late now. Permanent.

  I rubbed the back of my neck. “Well?”

  “It’s perfect,” Dad said hoarsely. He caught sight of his reflection, and the tears welling in his eyes. He coughed, shot me a stern look. “Stings like a son of a bitch, though.”

  I gave him his look right back. “Good.”

  His eyes widened. For a moment he stared at me, agape. Then a bellowing laugh burst from him, warm and rich, and it filled my shop and every last empty space in it.

  Kacey

  Three years later

  The weather in Pittsburgh is hot and sticky at the late end of August. I feel the humidity wrap around me the second I lug my six-month pregnant body out of the rental car and into the parking lot behind Carnegie Mellon’s University Center. Theo unstraps our fourteen-month-old daughter from her car seat in the back.

  “Stroller?” I ask.

  “Nah, I got her.”

  Theo doesn’t like using the stroller. He prefers to hold Frannie as much as possible. He settles her into the crook of his arm, his tattoos stark against the teddy bear pants my mom sent us. She sends Frannie something at least once a month. Through her granddaughter, she’s coming back to me, slowly. Little by little, day by day.

  We stroll across the Carnegie Mellon campus. The walkways are less crowded in summer. Only a few students cross our path as we make our way to the University Center.

  We pass through a little grove of oak trees, their boughs shading little wrought iron tables and chairs. I smile, as I always do, when I see the placard naming the grove: Legacy Plaza. Theo meets my eye and smiles too.

  Sometimes it’s hard to believe in coincidences.

  Frannie looks around with mild curiosity. Her light brown eyes—the same as her father’s—catch a squirrel spiraling up a tree trunk. She has one pudgy fist crammed against her mouth. Her hair—brown and curling like her uncle’s was—falls around her face, rounding it out even more. She’s a calm, happy baby. She hardly ever fusses and I can count on one hand the meltdowns she’s had since officially becoming a toddler. I wonder if she remembers the trip we made here last year. She was only a few months old, still part of me likes to think she was aware of everything.

  Immediately inside the University Center, the atrium opens up and out, revealing the installation. A riot of color and light in the sunlight streaming in from the windows. Every piece of glass illuminated: the waterfall, the sea life and the blazing sun hanging above.

  “Your Uncle Jonah made that,” I tell Frannie.

  “Pretty! Pretty!” she says, her eyes lighting up.

  As we do every year, Theo and I move to the small stand to the right of the installation. On it, a smiling picture of Jonah next to a short—too short—biography. I touch the letters of his name. Theo stares at his brother’s face. A moment of silence. The sun outside slips respectfully behind the clouds. Even Frannie is quiet. A shared inhale and exhale, then we smile at each other.

  Frannie reaches for the colorful glass and Theo brings her closer to look it. He shows our daughter the exhibit, helping her name the turtles (turls) and the octopus (ock-a-push).

  I ease myself onto a bench and run my hand over my bulging belly. The baby within—also a girl—kicks and turns and pushes against my hand as if she’s trying to break out. She never stops. Often times I’m up in the middle of the night, walking back and forth in our living room, singing lullabies to her until she falls asleep. She’s going to be a handful, I can tell already.

  Like her daddy… I think. I look to Theo holding Frannie, and my heart feels like it’s too big for my chest.

  The sun emerges again, slicing rays through the installation. I lean back and watch the glowing light pl
ay off the colors. The pearly sea foam, the flowing cerulean water, the violets and pinks of the coral reef.

  But it’s the sun—Jonah’s sun—that always draws and holds my eye the longest. It’s a tangle of orange, yellow, and red curls. Chaotic, yet perfect, every piece as it should be. Except…

  My eyes are drawn to the left side of the sun. A gap in the tangle where one ray of orange light is missing. The curl that smashed to bits when the installation was hastily removed from the Vegas gallery three years ago. It hit the floor, scattering into a thousand shards that were then crunched underfoot to dust. Only a few slivers remained for Theo and I to find.

  Theo comes to sit beside me. He settles back on the bench and Frannie slumps against his chest, her eyes drooping. I reach along the back of the bench to rest my hand on my husband’s shoulders. I kiss him lightly, then our baby’s chubby cheek. We sit for a minute in silence as Frannie falls asleep.

  I see Theo’s eyes drink in the installation. He smiles as he finds the gap in the sun.

  “It’s still my favorite piece,” I say.

  Theo takes my hand, kisses my fingers. “Mine too.”

  I feel the warmth from the red and gold curls of glass. My love for Jonah a warm glow in my heart, like a sun that never sets. And deeper within, a fiery core—my love for Theo burning with powerful, unending intensity.

  “Love again,” I murmur. “He told me to love again, and I do. So much.”

  “He told me to love you.” Theo’s warm, soft eyes meet mine. “But I already did. So much.”

  Only the tiniest wave of shock courses through me, followed by understanding. “I knew,” I say. “Somehow…I think I’ve always known.” I touch his cheek. “Why tell me now?”

  Theo shrugs, making Frannie rise and fall with him. “Felt like the right time. And the right place.”

  I smile and turn my gaze back to the glass. “Yes, it is.”

  We sit a little while longer, and when we rise to leave, Theo takes my hand, our daughter tucked securely in his other arm. I recall when he and I got up off our knees in the Wynn Gallery. Shedding tears and love amidst the shattered remains of Jonah’s glass. We stood up together, emerged from the barren space together, bonded not in shared grief, but in shared love.