Drawn Together (7 page)

“Not much. I’m getting a tattoo on my back. The wolf idea we talked about before you left.”

“Really? Good. Grandmother is going to freak. Please wait to share it with her until I get back so I can see it in person.” She broke into giggles and he snorted.

“Your grandmother thinks you’re such a proper young woman. I won’t spoil it for her just yet. I miss you.”

“I miss you too. I’m used to telling you everything every single night when you get home from work. Now I have to e-mail you everything. I went out on a date.” She laughed again, most likely at the look on his face. “He’s in the program here with me. He’s nice, Dad.”

It was really, really hard letting go. He knew he’d raised her right. With a sense of herself and her limits. He knew she’d make mistakes. Everyone did, especially when they were young. But still.

“Be aware I’ll have to have anyone who hurts you killed.” He shrugged. “I know people.”

Carrie’s delighted laugh soothed his suspicion of the phantom boy.

“Mom is going to be in Milan next month. She had her people contact me to see if I’d like to go to lunch and do some shopping.”

He blew out a breath, trying to take cues from Carrie on how to react. He hoped his suspicion and derision didn’t show. Most likely Charlotte wanted an all-expense-paid weekend and would use their daughter to get that. But god knew he wasn’t going to let that occur to Carrie if he could help it.

“All right. I can add money to your account and get you a ticket and arrange a hotel.” That way he could control it somewhat.

“It’s all right. I have a museum trip that weekend. I don’t want to miss it.”

He didn’t know how to make it better. It tore him up.

“Tell me what you need.”

“She walked away. I wish she hadn’t. But she did. And I have you and everyone else at home. Maybe when I’m older I can do lunch with her and it’ll be okay. But not now. Not for a while. Not here.”

“You don’t have to not see her because you’re worried about how I’ll feel. I want you to have a relationship with your mother, Carrie. She loves you.”

“In her way. But it’s all about her. And right now, here it’s about me. She probably wants to see me to get you to give her more money anyway.”

He scrubbed his hands over his face. That bitch he’d married had no right to manipulate their child to get more of anything from him. But she did it and he believed part of it was that she wanted to poke at him, knowing how much he hated it.

“I’m sorry you get put in the middle.”

“I’m a big girl. Anyway, I don’t want you to feel bad. I only told you in case you heard about it otherwise. I didn’t want you to think I was hiding it. Let’s change the subject now. Are
you
dating?”

“There’s someone interesting. I don’t know yet. Not dating. More like getting to know her first. If she’s dating material, I’ll tell you more.”

“I’m not harboring any fantasies that you’re going to get back with Mom or anything. You’re a man in the prime of his life. I want you out there.”

“I promise I’m not withering up and dying. I take my personal life seriously. I have a family and I’m not just going to bring random people into it. Not because I think you can’t handle it. But because I respect my life and my daughter enough to make the right choices.”

“You’re so awesome. By the way, since I’m buttering you up and all, can I take a side trip to Paris with some of the other kids after Halloween? Just for four days. There’ll be chaperones even.”

“Hm. I want to hear from your program assistant about it. If it looks safe, yes. As long as you’re home for Thanksgiving.”

“Thanks, Dad. And yes, I’ll definitely be home! I got the ticket and everything.”

Things were changing. More than they had in a really long time. Since the divorce, when all the change had been positive but came from an extremely negative process.

But it was five years later. Seven, really, since things had deteriorated so badly between him and the ex. Carrie had blossomed as a teenager. Her grades had improved when Charlotte had left for New York and exited Carrie’s life.

Carrie was moving on to the next step. Going to college in the fall. He missed that little girl he’d taught how to sail. But he knew she’d be a wonderful woman. Knew she was strong and intelligent and would succeed. He was proud of that. Proud of her.

And now he had time to think about himself again. Not as a father. Not as a son or a partner at work. But as a man.

Change was good.

6

“So let’s try you sitting first. I’m going to get the outline started.”

Raven had shown up with her hair tied away from her face, in an ages’-old Bikini Kill T-shirt and faded jeans. She was just as beautiful as she was more dressed up.

“How long will it take, do you think?”

“All told? A full back piece can take several sessions. This is mainly black and gray work, but there’ll be lots of shading. That sort of detail is more time consuming than the larger sections of black.” She shrugged. “It’s not going to be a quick one.”

Not like he was going to complain at getting her in his house one on one.

“Okay then. Dinner after?”

She gave him a raised brow. “You’re not going to feel like making me dinner after I work on you for two hours.”

“I know how to dial a phone. And I promised martinis.”

She shrugged. “All right then.”

He turned music on before pulling his shirt off and sitting, straddling the back of the chair as she rolled a nearby stool over.

“Step one is that I’m going to do a transfer of sorts of my design to your back. Mainly so you can see the position to be sure you like the placement. The detail I do as I go along. I like that part. It’s organic. We gonna be all right with that?”

“Whatever are you trying to say?”

She snorted. “You’re a control freak. This is my design.
I
make the choices. I’m quite bossy about that.”

“I’m not sure you know me well enough yet to say I’m a control freak. Though you’re right. There are areas I’m willing to cede to you. How the tattoo evolves is one of them. I’ve seen enough of your work to know you have a great aesthetic and one I click with.”

“Hm.”

She settled in behind him, touching him matter-of-factly for several moments before rolling back and putting a mirror in his hand. “Go look to be sure it’s where you want it.”

He did, liking where she’d put it.

“Good.”

“It’ll dominate your back, but in a good way.”

He smiled her way and liked her startled response. Liked shaking her up for some reason. He felt like a predator around her.

“Sit down so I can get started.”

He got back into position and so did she. He watched in the corner of his vision as she got her ink and stuff set up on a low table next to her stool. It wasn’t long before the buzz of the needle machine filled the air and she got closer and began the outline.

Tattooing was a ritual for her. Some people lit candles or prayed. She loved the hum of the needle. Loved the feel of the skin under her hands and the beginning of a new design.

He was muscled. Not in a bodybuilder sense, but he was fit and he had wide shoulders and a strong back. The tat would look sexy on him and he was certainly bold enough to carry off a full back piece.

“Why did you decide to do tattoos?”

“It was a way to get away from sweeping up hair and doing shitty perms at the salon I worked at when I came out to L.A.”

“Did you apprentice or go to school for it?”

“I got a job at a tattoo shop, cleaning up after hours. So I scrubbed toilets, and oh my god, let me say that was enough to get up the nerve to ask the owner if I could do ink work instead. He was a good guy and around my scrubbing and sweeping, he started to train me.”

He’d been good to her. It had been hard for a good year not to suspect that he would use that kindness to get her into bed. But he never betrayed her that way. It had been the first real positive in years. A step into her new life. Where she was in control.

“The money was decent. I had benefits. The better I got and the better my reputation, the easier it was for me to move around and work here and there. Did you always want to be a lawyer?”

He lifted his shoulders. “It’s the family business. My dad and his brother took over the firm their father started.”

“Don’t shrug.”

“Sorry. You’re bossy.”

“I am about my ink.”

“I have to say the pain and the hum of the needle sort of puts me in a trance. Having your hands on me isn’t bad either.”

“I’m the same way when I’m getting work done. I think it’s fairly common. As for having my hands on you—it’s not like you have to get a tattoo for that to happen.”

“True.”

“Back to the subject of the law. Do you like it? Or do you do it because you were expected to?”

“Do you just say whatever pops into your head?”

“Sometimes. If that was rude though, you’ll have to explain why, because I can’t see it.”

“Not rude. Just . . . blunt, I guess. Most people don’t say stuff like, ‘Do you like your job or do you do it because your parents told you to?’”

“Well, one, I’m not most people, and two, I didn’t say exactly that. Lots of people do things because they’re expected to do them. Very few people do things because they love to do them.”

She leaned around him to grab some tissues and that’s when he saw the glasses she had to wear when she worked.

“You wear glasses?”

“When I’m doing close-up work, yes.”

“I like them.”

“Hm.”

“I went to college because it was expected. I never had any intention of doing anything else. I’m the oldest, it’s my duty. But I don’t resent that. My family values education and it’s absolutely true that my education has served me well, presented me with opportunities I’d never have had otherwise. As for law school? For a while I considered urban planning. I still love it, though I do it from a different angle.”

“What about urban planning appeals to you so much?”

She liked to listen to him talk. Liked the easy way he had. So sure of himself, cocky, arrogant even, but not in a douchey way. He liked who he was.

“As you point out, I grew up with a lot. My parents raised us with the knowledge that we had a duty to give back because not everyone had what we did. My father and grandfather before him have always been involved in city planning issues. My grandfather is a master at getting people to pony up money and other resources to social services, for instance. My father and I sit on a committee of public and private representatives to deal with the scarcity of services for the homeless in the county.”

“And how does planning affect that?”

“For instance, there are shelters, but the people in them can’t come in until after six at night and must be out by seven in the morning. They don’t always have the sort of facilities you’d need to land and then keep a job. So how do you then transition from homelessness to getting an apartment if you can’t wash your clothes? If you have no ability to shower?”

You took shitty baths in sinks at gas stations. Your clothes smelled. She got that.

“So we helped raise money and get the neighborhood involved in the planning of a day center. There’s a laundry where people can wash their clothing and their blankets if they stay on the streets. There are showers with donated soap. A few days a week we’ve got nurse practitioners who come in. It took a lot of people from a huge array of perspectives and interested groups to make it happen. Took us seven years from the first talks about ideas to getting it up and running.”

“Wow. Congratulations, it sounds like a much-needed service.” And it was a prime example of what she’d meant about how he was an asshole, but not an entitled one. He took his skills and his connections and he used them for good. “But you went into law instead of planning?”

“I did. I like the law. Levi and I are good at it. We have different practice areas of course, but it’s a family business and I found my place in it. I do have a brother who is an architect, so clearly that runs in our genes too. I interned at my family’s firm during the summers and realized that’s what I wanted to do. I like the courtroom and not everyone does.”

“So you’re like one of those TV lawyers?”

He laughed as she smiled at her desired result. Of course she knew television lawyer shows were like the bane of actual lawyers, but she liked it when he laughed.

“Not so much. I do a lot of trial work. Appellate. I don’t know if I’d love it as much if my practice was mainly motions and briefs. I like the people I deal with. Most of the time I like my clients.”

“Appellate is what?”

“State supreme courts, United States Supreme Court, U.S. appellate courts.”

She had him pegged as a mover and a shaker and he clearly was. She wasn’t an expert on the legal system, but she knew enough to understand that if you argued before those courts you were a hotshot.

“I’m impressed.”

“No, you’re not.”

Annoyance rankled her. She was being serious and he blew that off. “Don’t tell me what I am or am not.”

He turned his head, careful to keep his body in place. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“It’s pretty difficult to offend me. But telling me what I think or feel is a way. I don’t say things I don’t mean. And if I’m wrong, I’ll say so.”

“I apologize. And thank you for the compliment.”

“Apology accepted.” She paused a moment and got back to work. “So tell me about your daughter.”

“It’s your turn to tell me something. I know you were in foster care. Do you have any biological family at all?”

“Some.”

“Are you in contact with them?”

She had one aunt who sent her Christmas cards. She used to never even open them. But a few years back she started to. They never said much and she wasn’t sure if she was relieved or not.

“Not really, no.”

“Ah.”

Ah? Like he knew? She was touchy when it came to this subject, which is why she so frequently steered far in the other direction from it.

“How did you meet your ex-wife?”

“We’re still talking about you. Why did you leave Arkansas?”

“Have you ever been to Happy Bend?”

He chuckled.

“But there are a lot of states between Arkansas and California.”

“Sure, and that was part of the appeal.” Not that anyone really would have looked for her by that point anyway. “Los Angeles had lots of opportunity. Or I thought it did anyway.”

“It didn’t?”

“It was harder than I thought it would be. I was homeless for a while when I first arrived. That sucked.” Not as much as the place she lived back in Happy Bend though. “But in a few months I had enough saved for a shitty little apartment. I had a few jobs. It got better.”

“You were how old?”

“Seventeen.”

“Christ. That’s young.”

“I was never young.” She kept working, working to keep herself detached from the details. It was her life; she wasn’t ashamed. She didn’t necessarily hide it. But she didn’t go into it with much depth with many people. With most people, she supposed.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Not much to tell really. Shitty childhood. It’s not a unique story. My adulthood is better. I overcame it and I prefer to keep it that way. My past doesn’t hinder me, it serves as a reminder that there’s better out there for me and it wasn’t in Arkansas.”

“I’m sorry. Abuse?”

“Here and there.”

“While in foster care?”

“Not always.”

He sucked in a breath. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s long done. Be glad your daughter has a bright future and a wonderful past to look back on.”

“I am. Her mother, my ex, well, Carrie will probably have stuff to deal with, but she seems to be handling it fine.”

“She’s got a parent who loves her. She’s got a great future. If she can’t make something of herself with that, she’s not the kid you talk about.”

“She and I went to counseling for a while. Did you ever go?”

She laughed but then cringed because there was nothing but loathing in the sound.

“No.”

“Don’t believe in it?”

“Look, there was no money for that stuff. There wasn’t anything. I made it through. That’s what counts.”

It was easier to talk about it to his back.

She outlined, wiped the ink away, outlined, wiped the blood away. It was what she did. She created new things and didn’t think about the old. Looking back slowed you down.

He sighed. “I don’t know what to say.”

“There’s nothing to say. Not really. It was a shitty childhood. It made me into who I am today. I survived it. Lots of people didn’t. So, let’s talk about you again.”

“No, I want to keep talking about you.”

“For fuck’s sake, why? I’m not a project like a hygiene center.”

“I don’t think that. I’m trying to know you.”

This is why she kept things light. “Don’t. I’m sure you’ve heard. I know you asked about me. I’m not worth knowing. Just fuck me and enjoy it and then move on.”

“That’s not who I am. And that’s not who you are.”

She snorted. “That’s totally who I am, Jonah. I’m a bitch. I’m a whore. I like to fuck. Lots of people.”

He turned then, grabbing her wrist, his eyes ablaze. She didn’t even have a moment to be angry at how he could have just made her ink a line across his back if she’d had the needle down.

“You’re
not
a whore. I’ve touched you. I’ve seen you. Stop.”

“Don’t make me into something I’m not. I’ll break your heart if you expect more.”

“I expect all of you. You should know that going in.”

Her heart pounded so hard and fast she was a little light-headed. He tore her defenses down. She barely knew him and he had this much power to affect her. What would it be like if they continued?