He slipped down to his knees in front of her. The theater masks—one smiling and one crying—had a reddish brown tone against Thea’s dark skin. “It’s beautiful! What made you think of this?” he asked as his finger came out to trace the neat lines.
Thea caught his hand before he could caress her raw flesh. “You’re not supposed to touch it,” she said. “Tony says we’ve got to let it heal for a couple of days to avoid the risk of infection.”
Nick frowned ever so slightly and he looked up from the tattoo to meet her eyes. “Who’s Tony?”
“The owner of the tattoo shop,” Thea told him. It occurred to her that she was seeing jealousy on Nick’s face, and the realization sent a further surge of excitement through her body.
“And he’s the one who did this?” Nick asked with a gesture toward her new tattoo.
“No, he did Liz and Kara’s,” Thea told him. “His assistant—”
“Kara and Liz got tattoos too?” Nick interrupted. His eyes had widened in shock, but before Thea could answer, he picked up his original thread of conversation. “And who’s this assistant? I don’t want any guy but me touching you down here!”
Thea began to realize she was in over her head. Nick was now pulling other peoples’ secrets out of her and this new found wave of jealousy was suddenly looking a lot less exciting. “You can’t tell anyone else about Kara and Liz’s tattoos!” she told him. “They want to surprise Ron and Travis!”
Nick could not be distracted from his principle concern. “I don’t care about that,” he said. “Was it a guy who drew this on you?”
Thea felt her own spirits rising. “Of course it was a guy!” she said. “What the hell is your problem? I was getting a tattoo, not having an affair!”
“But you got it on your pussy!” Nick protested.
“That’s because I thought you’d like it more down there!” Thea shouted at him.
Suddenly the office door burst open and Jim peered in. “Hey, Nick, how much longer are you going to— Oh, damn!”
Nick leapt to his feet, whirling around to block Jim’s view of Thea. “Get the hell out of here, Jim!” he shouted.
Thea got a good look at Jim’s shocked face as he hurried to pull the door closed between himself and Nick and Thea. Normally she would have been hugely embarrassed by what had just happened, but right now it just made her even more pissed at Nick.
Her boyfriend turned back to face her. “What’s wrong with that guy?” he wondered.
“No, Nick!” Thea said, sticking her finger in his chest. She still had her pants half down but right now that wasn’t what was bothering her. “What’s wrong with you? I just did something exciting and really nice as a surprise for you and you’re giving me shit about the tattoo artist being a guy? What the hell do you think really happened tonight? And did you forget that Kara and Liz were there chaperoning me?”
Nick’s angry frown cracked as he considered her words. Another thirty seconds and he’d probably be apologizing, but Thea didn’t feel like waiting around for it. She stood up off the desk, pulled up her pants, and stormed toward the office door.
“Wait a minute, Thea,” Nick said. “You’re right, of course. I’m not—”
“Save it!” Thea snapped. “You’ve spoiled the mood tonight!”
Chapter Eight
Lunch
Kara
“Okay, what’s wrong?” Liz asked from across the lunch table at Chili’s. They had chips and salsa to enjoy with their drinks but were still waiting on their meals. “When I insisted you both come to lunch today, it was because I expected to hear stories of expert teasing, not to hear myself talk about my own conquests.”
Kara reached for a tortilla chip to give herself an excuse not to answer her sister. The only thing worse than not having had fun teasing Ron last night was to have listen to Liz’s too-detailed stories of her own success. Still, she really didn’t want to listen to Liz tell her I told you so over getting Ron’s name tattooed on her flesh so she’d have to think up a good lie rather than admit that she hadn’t teased Ron at all about her new adornments.
As she crunched her chip between her teeth, Thea volunteered her own unique problem. “Nick and I had a fight about it,” she confessed.
Kara was so surprised by what Thea had said that she didn’t feel relieved that Liz’s attention had been redirected toward their cousin. “A fight?” she asked through mouthful of chips.
“Yes, he started asking all of these questions about who did the actual art and when he found out John is a man, he got mad,” Thea explained.
“How dare he!” Liz snapped.
When Kara and Thea both turned to look at her she continued. “Who does he think he is? That’s your body, Thea. You can put whatever you want on it!”
“He didn’t really complain about the tattoo,” Thea said.
“I realize that,” Liz snapped. Her irritation seemed to transfer from Nick to Thea. “But he also doesn’t have the right to tell you who can touch your body!”
Kara couldn’t keep her own mouth shut. “I don’t know about that, Liz,” she said. “While I agree that Thea did nothing wrong in getting a tattoo, I do think our boyfriends have the right to expect us not to let other men get their hands on us. I mean, we expect them not to cheat on us, don’t we?”
Liz turned the full force of her annoyance on Kara. “You know that’s not what I’m talking about!” she told her sister. “I mean who the hell does he think he is telling her she can’t let a guy give her a tattoo?”
“He really got mad,” Thea explained. “I mean, at first he looked really happy with it, but then I could see him start to think about how the tattoo got down there and his whole demeanor changed.”
“That just makes me so angry!” Liz started up again.
Kara tried to preempt her. “So what happened?” she asked Thea.
“I pulled up my pants and walked out,” Thea explained.
It surprised Kara that Thea didn’t look more embarrassed when she said it. Sure it was obvious that Thea would have had to have her pants down for Nick to see the tattoo, but still, this was Thea they were talking to. And Thea had always been so shy and demure.
“And he just let you go?” Liz asked.
“Well, no,” Thea admitted. “He tried to apologize and he tried to follow after me, but I wouldn’t let him.”
“Good for you!” Liz said.
“It wasn’t like he could have followed that far anyway,” Thea said. “He always has to run his bar and Jim’s the next damn thing to worthless even when it’s not snowing.”
“Speaking of snow,” Kara interjected in what was probably a blatant attempt to change the topic of conversation, “I heard this morning that they’re predicting more Thursday night.” She hoped it wouldn’t interfere with Ron’s flight. She wanted to get him home again. With this company in the east trying to recruit him, she really wanted him back in Michigan with her, safe from temptation.
Liz turned away from Thea to glare at Kara.
“What?” Kara asked.
“We’re talking about Thea and Nick!” Liz reminded her.
“I know that,” Kara said, “but let’s face it. While it’s unfortunate they had a fight, she just admitted he’s already apologized. That doesn’t sound like their relationship is going to break up over this, is it Thea?”
“No,” Thea agreed, “I don’t suppose it is. But it did disappoint me.”
“You can turn this into a good thing,” Liz told her. “Nick sounds like a basically good guy. He’s going to feel guilty over starting a fight with you over something you did to excite him. You can turn this to your advantage. It ought to get you flowers at the office at the very least.”
“I don’t know, Liz,” Thea said. “That sounds kind of crass—maybe even Machiavellian.”
Liz smirked. “It’s only Machiavellian if he figures out what you’re doing.”
Kara was absolutely certain that that statement had a few hundred thi
ngs wrong with it, but before she could press the issue, Thea turned the conversation away from her problems and back to Kara. “So what happened with you and Ron, Kara?”
“What?”
“How did the teasing go?” Thea clarified.
Kara squirmed, trying to figure out what to say. She didn’t like lying and wasn’t very good at it, so she had to go with something that was basically true. “I decided not to tease him.” Kara said.
“Why not?” Liz cut in. Her smirk was gone and her suddenly serious expression suggested her lawyer’s cross-examining instincts were cutting in. “We were all pretty excited about it when we parted last night. What changed your plans?”
Kara squirmed some more.
“Kara!” Liz prodded her.
“We got side-tracked,” Kara said.
Liz kept up the pressure. “How?”
“Ron got a job offer out in Washington,” Kara confessed.
“Oh, no!” Thea said.
Liz cursed. “Shit! I told you not to get his fucking name put on your flesh. It’s the kiss of death!”
“He didn’t say he was taking it,” Kara protested. “Actually, he sort of said he wasn’t interested in it.”
“Sort of?” Liz pressed her. “How can he be sort of not interested in it? Was the money not right? Was the offer serious?”
Kara reached for another chip, but Liz pulled the basket away from her. “Just focus on the questions for a minute,” she said.
Kara was having a little trouble doing that, so she reached for her strawberry lemonade and took a sip. The cold liquid helped calm her, but the delay increased Liz’s agitation.
By the time she put the glass down again, Liz was drumming her fingers on the table. “Well?”
“I’m really not sure. The money sounded like a lot to me, but Ron said it was actually not enough to compensate for the higher cost of living. I had begun to think he really wasn’t interested until he started talking about seeing how high they would go.”
Liz stopped drumming her fingers and thought for a few moments.
Kara felt like she had to defend Ron. “He was talking about the job like we would both be moving out there if he took it.”
“Without asking you?” Liz asked. She still looked very pissed off. “Are you telling me he was assuming you’d just move out there with him?”
Now Kara wished she hadn’t tried to defend Ron. That was sort of the way it had felt to her when Ron had said it last night. “I’m not sure,” she prevaricated. “Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t. Since he wasn’t interested in accepting this offer, it really was a moot point.”
“This is bad, Kara,” Liz told her. “Ron’s still a pretty young guy. Moving across the country probably seems like an adventure to him. Plus he works for defense contractors and Washington D.C. is the Mecca of defense contractors. That’s where all the money is and Ron’s got that magic combination of talent, knowledge, and personality that could rake in tens of millions of dollars in contracts for his company. I’ve always thought his current firm is underutilizing him. This offer is a big deal. What are you going to do about it?”
Kara felt herself growing more and more apprehensive the longer Liz spoke, but her final question confused her. “What do you mean, what am I going to do about it?”
Her question clearly irritated Liz. “How are you going to head him off? You don’t want to move to Washington, do you?”
“I think,” Thea interrupted, “that what Liz is really saying is that we wouldn’t want to see you go to Washington. But we love you, Kara, and we want you to be happy. Is moving out east something you’re really thinking about?”
Kara wondered when Thea and Liz had begun holding a different conversation than the one she thought they were having. “No, I’m not thinking about moving out to Washington,” she said. “Didn’t I say Ron hadn’t accepted the job?”
The waitress finally arrived with their soup and salads, but neither Liz nor Thea made any move to start their meals.
“Kara, you have to take this very seriously! Think through what you want to do, and what you’re willing to do. And remember, in its own way, moving away with Ron is as serious a decision as deciding to get his name tattooed on your pussy,” Liz said.
“I’ll think about it,” Kara told them, trying to end the conversation.
“Kara!” Liz snapped.
“You know, it’s not like I haven’t been through this before,” Kara said. “Bobby pulled something like this on me when he moved out to New York City a few years back. I can handle myself if Ron decides to take this job. But let’s not create a problem where there isn’t one yet.”
To make the point that she wanted to end the conversation, she scooped up a forkful of salad and stuffed it into her mouth.
Chapter Nine
Flowers
Thea
When Thea got back to the receptionist’s desk in Dr. Salem’s dentist office, a beautiful bouquet of a dozen roses sat waiting for her, without her having to play any of Liz’s Machiavellian games. Any lingering frustration she felt over Nick’s spurt of jealousy last night immediately evaporated as she reached for the card.
Calista, one of the dental hygienists, came hurrying into the office to greet her. “They’re beautiful, aren’t they!” she said. “You’re lucky I got back from lunch early or there would have been no one here to sign for them.”
“Thanks,” Thea told her as she opened the card. The words I’m sorry greeted her with no signature, but then there really was only one person who could have sent these.
“What’s the occasion?” Calista asked “Is this like the third month anniversary of your first date?”
Thea stuck the card back in the envelope. “Not quite,” she told Calista. And then because she didn’t want to have to explain about the tattoo and how it had sparked their little fight, she said, “I’ll have to call him to find out what’s up.”
Calista continued to hover while Thea slipped off her coat, laid it across her desk, sat down and dialed Nick’s number.
He answered it on the second ring. “Church Key!”
“They’re beautiful, Nick,” Thea told him. “You didn’t have to do that, but thank you.”
“Oh, I was being an idiot last night,” Nick said. “I don’t know why it made me so mad. I guess I just don’t like the idea of other guys getting close to you.”
“You do realize that isn’t what happened,” Thea told him.
“Of course I do,” Nick said. “But you still have to admit that that’s pretty close and personal.”
Thea had to agree with that, and a small part of her was flattered by the moment of jealousy.
“Look,” Nick said, “there’s no snow in the immediate forecast so Jim should still be running the bar tonight. Instead of us watching a movie on cable, why don’t we do something special? You know I’m not much of a dancer, but I grilled my clientele last night and there’s a club that does Country Tuesdays and offers lessons in line dancing. They tell me even an idiot like me should be able to pick up a step or two.”
“Country?” Thea asked. “Do you even like country?”
She could picture him shrugging on the other end of the line. “Some of it—Brad Paisley, Reba McIntyre, that Gretchen what’s-her-name.”
“Taylor Swift,” Thea added without having to think about it. She didn’t know country music very well, but line dancing sounded like fun.
“So what do you say?” Nick asked her. “Forgive me?”
“Of course,” Thea told him.
“And what about tonight?” he asked.
“Let’s give it a try,” Thea decided.
Chapter Ten
Voice Mail
Kara
When Kara got out of her two o’clock meeting she found a message from Ron on her cell phone voicemail. “Hey, beautiful,” he said, “they raised the offer ten grand, added an interest free loan for a house and put some sweet looking stock options on the table.”
Her heart sank. She’d felt in her gut that the old numbers were shockingly large. These new numbers were even more so, and it was early yet, it seemed to her, for Ron’s prospective new employers to have already upped the ante. It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours yet.
“The pressure’s going up,” Ron said. “The east coast is looking at a nor’easter tomorrow afternoon, so they want me to meet with the president tonight before Washington finds itself paralyzed under twelve to fifteen inches of the fluffy white stuff. I’m sorry but this storm could screw up my Thursday night flight out of here, especially as the storm will move west toward you.”
He paused for a moment as Kara waged an internal struggle against another wave of disappointment. Not only was Ron being recruited to move a thousand miles away, but now he might not even get home on time for him to discover her new tattoo and piercing this weekend. Life certainly was being unfair this week.
“I really want to talk to you before dinner tonight!” Ron said. “I’d like to get your opinion on all of this. But unfortunately, I have a really busy afternoon ahead of me and I don’t know when I’m going to be able to call again. Don’t wait up for me tonight! I’ll call if I can get away at a decent hour. Otherwise, get a good night’s sleep and we’ll talk in the morning. I love you!”
The voicemail ended leaving Kara more disappointed than ever. Now they might not even get to speak tonight? She didn’t like what was happening between them. Ron seemed much too excited about this meeting with the CEO for Kara’s level of comfort. What if he agreed to take the new job without talking to her? Would he do that? Was she wrong to want him not to?
She considered calling him right back, but he’d said he was going into meetings. She could leave him a message, of course, but what exactly should she say? If she came down against him taking the job, she’d sound like a bitch holding him back. But if she shared in his excitement wouldn’t she be encouraging him to push for everything he could get and take the new position?
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