Fade Back (A Stepbrother Romance Novella)

by Brother, Stephanie

  “You seem a bit nervous, am I right? Can I get you a soda?” he asked.

  “A-a soda would be great.”

  “Hey Karen, would you get us some Cokes?”

  “What am I, a housewife?” she snapped back, but since she was already scooping out a Diet Coke for herself, she brought them two icy cold cans. “One time only, Dickie-boy,” she said before settling back to her ink and papers.

  “Dickie-boy?” Becka asked, taking a sip from her can and trying not to think about it interacting with the latte churning in her stomach.

  Fitz chuckled again, devilishly. “Well, you know how it is with nicknames. And the last name like Dixon doesn’t help, I guess.”

  “Go on…” Becka smiled lasciviously, the cold drink helping her ease into her sauciest persona.

  “No, no, enough about me. I asked about you. Why do you want to get some ink?”

  “Ink is cool.”

  “Couldn’t agree more,” he sipped on his soda. “Let me rephrase. Why do you want this ink? What does it mean to you?”

  Becka’s face burned. But something in the way Fitz fingered the dog-eared page, searching for meaning where Becka knew there was none, made her feel comfortable enough to say so.

  “This… doesn’t mean anything to me. I just thought it sounded cool, and well, kind of deep.”

  “Have you seen this movie?”

  “Sure I have!” Becka replied, drinking long from her can again.

  “Did you like it?” Fitz asked, gentle as a fawn.

  “Well… I liked this scene.”

  “Yeah…” Fitz took a deep breath. “I don’t think this is the tattoo for you. Now, I don’t usually push people away from their ideas, just so you know. But I must have inked this on half the girls your age in this city, and I think you’re different. So tell me about yourself.”

  “I don’t know where to start!”

  “Tell me something important to you. What are you good at. What do you like?”

  “Well, I like… ummm, well… partying, I guess.”

  “I don’t think I needed much help figuring that out,” Fitz gave her a sidelong look and grinned before he went on. “But that’s not who you are. If that’s all there was to you, well you may as well get a massive tramp stamp or something. Don’t laugh, I do it every frikken’ day.”

  Becka sputtered out her drink, hurriedly covering her mouth with the back of her hand. “You don’t! Still? I thought they went out of fashion, like, before I was born!”

  “I do! And you know what, those girls are all about partying, all the time. But for you? Some twee phrase about love and dreams in swirly font? No. You deserve better.”

  “Don’t fight it, girlfriend,” Karen’s weary voice drifted over, “He’s on swirly-lettering strike right now. You’d better just give in to the process or go to the parlor at the mall.”

  “Don’t mind her. Were you into sports?”

  “Yeah, but… mostly because my dad liked them so much. I hated it myself, to be honest. Bookish girl, late blooming, et cetera et cetera.”

  “Alright. I get it. But what did you like doing?”

  “I liked… I liked math.”

  “Math?” Fitz’s eyebrows raised in surprise, his pen poised.

  “Yeah. Geometry, specifically.”

  “Geometry, huh? Why?”

  “I liked how precise it was. Like, how shapes and angles and forms can be consistent. Across everything, across universes. It’s about taking everything there is and could ever be and making it something we can understand. Taking everything that’s all jumbled-up and fragmented in our minds and expressing it as simply and purely as it can be. In a shape. Or an equation. It quantifies everything. Geometry takes ideas and makes them… real.”

  Fitz nodded his head all the while Becka was speaking, his movie-star brow furrowed and his luminous eyes became thoughtful. Why does he look so familiar? Becka just couldn’t shake the nagging thought off.

  “I think I get it. Look, would you be available in a few days to pick this up again? I want to draw something special for you. Are you free Thursday? Come back Thursday. Early. I want plenty of time to work you over.” Fitz’s lazy eyes flew open, “I mean work on you! On it! Work on the tattoo. For you.” Becka beamed inside and out as Fitz squirmed. He must have noticed her purple eyes after all.

  “I can come Thursday. But not too early, and not too late. Right on time.” Becka winked and took one last swig of her soda.

  Thursday couldn’t come fast enough.

  Chapter Three

  “So who’s doing it for you?” Jerome asked, inspecting his nails as he lay sprawled across Becka’s couch. Friends for years, Jerome was bedecked with tattoos of his own: swirling tribal designs etched over with newer, more complicated curlicues. Jerome, her second bestie forever, after Mick. The three of them met in coding club at their college’s computer lab, and have been inseparable since. Jerome was formerly known as Jeremy, but officially changed his name to Jerome as soon as he came out. And don’t you dare call him Jeremy anymore. A gold ring glinted in his left nostril, and his high-and-tight hair style paid homage to his years in the armed forces. Before Jerome came out, he managed to squeeze in a rather unsuccessful one night tumble in bed with Becka, which prompted a night-long conversation and subsequent purge from the closet, and the two remained firm friends ever since. He liked to come over and raid the kitchen for snacks. He said he didn’t have the self-control to keep any in his own apartment. Plus, Becka had cable.

  “Fitz? Down at Dickie’s Emporium.”

  “Dickie boy? Ooof, you lucky thing. That guy is HOT. I wish he was gay every day.”

  “You know him?” Becka asked, feigning casual interest while a voice in her head screamed for more details. In just a few short hours she’d get another glimpse of the man. The last few days had been rife with unexpected flashbacks. Every now and then she’d remember the saucy glint in those swampy eyes and she’d feel herself tickle with longing. Even now, her underwear was on the verge of getting quite moist, and she willed Jerome to go on, even as she chided herself. Obsessive was just not a good look. Be cool, you inner geek; just be cool.

  “Yeah, I know him. He works with Karen, right? Mick said something about their studio being overrun with coeds since he came on board. I’m not surprised: the guy is hotter than Ryan Gosling.”

  “I guess he’s popular?” Becka willed her voice not to shake.

  “Oh yeah, he’s popular alright! Not that his clients ever get a shot at him. He’s not into cuties so much nowadays. Some kind of weird kink or something. He’s into mature chicks, I heard.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “Barely! You know Wendy?”

  Of course, Becka knew Wendy. Everybody did. She was arrogant, conceited, and just plain nasty. But she also had a face like a Victoria Secret model and a body to match it: effortlessly charming and brutally conniving, with a serious taste for conquests.

  Becka shrugged, recalling all the times she’d snubbed Wendy’s invitations to ‘hang out’ simply out of sheer principle. That girl was a bitch. “What about her?”

  “Well, Wendy said Fitz told her a few months ago that he’s only into mature nowadays.”

  “That could mean anything though!”

  “I dunno, Becka. Wendy sounded preeeeetty convinced he’s a grave robber. He likes ‘em saggy and wrinkly. Makes him less self-conscious about his own impending mortality.”

  “Wendy said that?”

  Jerome winked and nodded vigorously, upsetting the bowl of pretzels balanced on his concave stomach. “Scandalous, right?”

  “Huh. Yeah, if it’s true. Could be just that he rejected Wendy and she cooked up the whole story herself.”

  “Becka, my sweet girl!” Jerome trilled as he dug the remote from between the cushions and started flicking through the channels at lightning speed. “Are you planning on seducing this poor lost hunk? Going to find him on a mountainside and bring him back to the herd t
o play among the lambs? Got your crook and staff all ready to go? Eh? Little bo peep?”

  Theater majors don’t shut up, Becka reminded herself, but I can. “I’m just getting a tattoo. I don’t need all that drama.” She held up another t-shirt against her chest and reflected on her inspection. Ugh. They all looked the same. Should she go collared, maybe? A button-down? Don’t be stupid, this is a tattoo, not a first date. And the t-shirt was coming off anyway, what did it matter about the shirt? Still though, always best to make a good impression.

  “Just a tattoo, huh? Sure, sure. Don’t forget your bonnet.”

  “I’m taking a shower. Guard the couch while I’m gone.”

  “SIR-YES-SIR!” Jerome barked through a mouthful of pretzels. Becka could still hear him laughing as she closed the bathroom door.

  Jerome was great, and one of the most sincere party boys Becka knew, in spite of his infuriating nonchalance. He had little regard for the privacy of others and never really acknowledged his own: he had no secrets whatsoever, even when his friends truly wished he’d just try having one, for once. Everyone at Lux knew when Jerome did something foul or slept around on his boyfriends or got himself arrested for public urination, and everyone knew Jerome would be the first to excuse his own behavior and expect everyone else to follow. Becka had club friends as close as brothers, with whom she’d never even dream of hooking up but was bound to by mutual affection. Jerome was now one of those brothers, having joined her at Lux after trying to get an acting gig for months—and failing. Since Lux was a huge establishment, with multiple floors and rooms, catering to all sorts of sexual orientations, her BFF was welcomed there with opened arms. Jerome defied description, but if one could be pinned to him, it would almost certainly contain some permutation of the word ‘slutty’.

  Jerome proclaimed club boyfriends didn’t count, and whether that title was bestowed on the conquest in his arms or the one left holding his coat was never really clear. Becka simply knew better than to get mixed up with Jerome lover-boy shenanigans. He had the mouth of a sailor and he knew how to use it, a phrase he used so often he had it inked in a snaking trail down his left hip, lost in the myriad of ink blots covering his military-grade lean muscles.

  Normally, it wouldn’t have surprised Becka to turn around in the shower and see him hovering at the bathroom door, ignoring her behind the foggy glass and urinating and chatting with her as if nothing was amiss. Today though, she was busy trying to expunge her lustful thoughts of Fitz before her appointment.

  But when the bathroom door swung open silently on its hinges to reveal Jerome with not a care in the world that Becka was showering, she was still startled.

  “Jerome, if you don’t mind, I’m kind of in a hurry? What do you need?”

  “I met a guy last night,” Jerome pouted, pointedly staring at Becka and ignoring her nakedness. “I just need your opinion.”

  For the next fifteen minutes, Becka showered and Jerome poured his heart out about yet another “true love” which they both knew would be forgotten the next day.

  But she couldn’t really be angry with her lackadaisical friend. After all, Jerome always knew when Becka needed to calm down, and just the right way to distract her. And right now, he knew that she was all wound up about going back to the tattoo shop. Once Jerome told her everything there was to know (and there wasn’t that much since the two destined-for-each-other lovers had only met), she finished her shower in relative peace, grateful for the distraction.

  Chapter Four

  She was early, damn it: her internal clock was off. Becka lingered around the corner for a few minutes, absently scrolling through her Instagram pictures from the night before. Wednesdays were always big at the club. She mentally ticked off the faces she’d flirted with and the ones she planned to, bolstering her confidence with the echoing proclamations and promises she’d elicited. She told herself the pitter-patter in her chest was anticipation of the inking needles, or a by-product of her hangover; anything except the chiseled face of the man about to lay her out on a table and… She stopped herself from thinking any further along that tantalizing line. She forced herself to think about her job, and the crumbs Jerome left all over the couch when Becka finally emerged from the bathroom after applying her make-up, to find him gone with the front door ajar.

  Reminding herself of her best friend’s most irritating habits seemed to do the trick, and by the time she was ready to descend the seedy steps, she was as relaxed as she’d been all week.

  When she walked through the door, she couldn’t detect Karen’s skulking presence behind the desk, and only one lamp beside the beaded curtain glowed to light the room. Becka wondered for a moment if she’d come in on the wrong day, but the unlocked door and the faint thrum of guitar-based rock trickling out of an unseen radio assured her someone was definitely home.

  “Hi… Karen?” Becka’s voice wavered into the empty store-front.

  “She’s not here, I’m afraid,” Fitz’s voice wafted out from the curtain, followed shortly by the man himself. He wore the same tattered jeans as before, the flanks dotted with ink stains to match his calloused hands. “You know Mick, don’t you? It’s something with his niece, or whatever. Doesn’t matter. Anyway, come on through!” Fitz was chattier than on their last meeting.

  Becka wasn’t sure if she imagined a nervousness in the guy, who seemed almost giddy in comparison to the cool dude of a few days before. Becka liked it.

  “So I want to show you the design, of course, I mean in case you don’t like it. Or want to change it or something,” Fitz mumbled as he ruffled through sheaves of cartridge paper littered with sketches. Every scribble looked like a masterpiece to Becka, but when Fitz, blushing adorably, extracted one piece and smoothed it out on the padded table, she knew this was definitely for her.

  It was a circle, precise and exact, with tangents striking out from its edges like a fan. This hard black fringe somehow bent and extended inwards into the circle, refracting and connecting beams to support a kaleidoscope of stained glass. Angles and line segments interacted to form an endless series of shapes, undulating across the paper’s surface, and at their very center, where the magic of these lines should have created a point, there was instead a pulsing red heart, carved from the blankness by glorious ink.

  Becka was speechless. She bit her pouting lower lip and nodded slowly, vowels escaping her mouth, undefined by consonants, “Ohhhooeeeeuuuaaaahhh…”

  “Can I take that as a yes?” Fitz asked, his composure returned in the face of such overwhelming approval.

  “Yes! I love it. You’re amazing— It’s amazing. The design, I mean. And you, the designer of the design. Oh wow. Shut up, Becka.”

  “I’ll take the compliment!” Fitz laughed, throwing his hands up before turning around to busy himself with his inks and machinery, mussing up his gorgeous hair, the square lines of his jaw teasing her beside the curves of his neck. “Where do you want it?”

  “Umm, I was thinking on my rib cage, off to the side… but this design, it should probably go right in the center, do you think?”

  “Yeah, I’d have to agree. Right below your… umm… bra line, in the middle.”

  Becka was pretty sure she’d seen her tattoo artist’s blush deepen before this hurried about-face, and once again, the tug of distant recognition returned. Why did he look so familiar? She was grateful when Fitz waved a hand behind him for her to lie down on the table. His eyes remained studiously averted as Becka pulled off the plain navy tank top she’d finally selected, but she could see the guy glancing in his peripheral vision. She was glad she wore a sexy little lacy bra underneath. The idea of being scoped out by this supposedly unattainable man made Becka horny enough to squeeze her legs together as she lay down, desperate to relieve the tingling. This was ridiculous. The air in the room felt hot, heavy with expectation. Yet it gave her goosebumps as she wrapped the towel he handed to her under her bra, to cover it up. She cursed mentally at this necessity—now he won’t appreci
ate her lacy number that covered her perfect perky breasts.

  “So, today I’m just going to do the outlines: only black, and then you’ll need to come back for the next session. After something like this, most people need a week to recover. Are you ready?” Every word from Fitz’s mouth sounded laden with sexual promise to Becka, and it wasn’t until the needle started buzzing that she finally felt the humming between her legs go down.

  “Okay, so quick note: this shouldn’t really hurt, but you’re going to want to wriggle. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT wriggle. Grip the table sides if you have to but keep your back straight and stay still. Let me know if you need a break, okay?”

  Becka nodded and closed her eyes tight. The bench she was on was somewhere between a dentist’s chair and a massage table, padded with soft leather and smelling faintly of disinfectant, and the earthier tone of sweat beneath it. She thought about how many bodies had pressed into this seat, faces ringed with sweat and blushed with anticipation, how many girls lusted for Fitz’s touch as he drafted out the outlines, pressing cool sheets of transfer paper against the feverish skin of her body. She wondered how many of those girls had wanted to unzip those tattered jeans and put the advantages of this table to good use. A moan escaped from deep in her chest before she had a chance to stop it. When she heard Fitz chuckle, “I haven’t even started yet,” it was almost too much for her to bear. She couldn’t be left in silence here, or her imagination would get the better of her.

  “Are we allowed to talk during?”

  “We can, as long as you don’t wriggle. Or laugh. And try not to breathe too much.” His tone was teasing, but it made Becka want to do all three at once. Maybe if she just rolled onto her side, and kind of, you know… Oh stop it, let the man do his job, the angel on her shoulder said snippily. He probably gets this all the time.

  “That’s okay, you can do most of the talking,” Becka said, and was surprised to hear a lengthy pause, punctuated only by the insistent buzzing of Fitz’s pen.

  “I could put the radio on if you think you’ll be bored?”