Ink Is Thicker Than Water (20 page)

“Well, yeah. I’m not trying to push you or anything, just…”

“No, I know.” I think about how close we’d come back in May and how freaked out I’d been then. Of course I haven’t been scared again, not even once, but I’ve put up stopping points and kept him aware of those. And maybe that’s why it feels like I’ll never freak out again. What if our clothes all come off with sex firmly on the agenda and I’m still the same way? It’s bad enough I reacted like that then; if I start crying about
having sex with my boyfriend
in front of him,
I will likely never recover. Lately, I can’t exactly trust myself to contain my emotions. “Maybe I should go on birth control first or something.” Ooh, great idea, self. Buying time
and
preventing teen pregnancy in one fell swoop.

“Good plan,” he says, as he pulls up to my house. “Sorry I got you back late.”

“It’s one oh one.” I laugh and lean in to kiss him. “My mom’s not that strict.”

So we kiss for a while before I get out of the car and quietly let myself into the house. Mom is up in the living room watching TV, but she switches it off as I walk in the room. It’s weird that she’s up, but back before she had her own shop and a little kid to look after, Mom was always up late. So maybe she’s just reclaiming her old ways.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Your curfew’s one sharp, Kell-belle. That doesn’t mean a little after one.”

Since when? “I’m sorry, we just—”

“I don’t know when you girls decided curfew was flexible, but we need to get back to following it. Okay?”

Oh, there we go. Mom’s complaint list for my sister is growing by the minute, but I’m the one who’s here. “Okay. Sorry again, Mom.”

“Do you want to open the shop tomorrow?” Mom asks, her tone like an apology for yelling at me. “I have a couple errands I should run in the morning.”

“Sure,” I say as Mom gets up and hands me her Family Ink key. “Can I keep this?”

“Of course. I’ve got spares.” She kisses my forehead. “Get some sleep.”

I stop by Sara’s room on the way to mine. Totally empty. She’d better shape up soon, or Mom will go so crazy with rules I’ll never manage to have sex with Oliver.
If
I am going to have sex with Oliver. I’m not going to make that decision tonight.

Chapter Nineteen

Even though I don’t get to sleep in as late as usual, I’m excited to open the shop on Saturday. Keeping to Mom’s traditions, I stop off first for coffee and donuts, making sure to get some vegan ones for Russell. When I get to The Family Ink, I think about unloading Russell’s CDs from the stereo for mine, but the truth is when people are getting tattooed, they’re probably expecting to hear The Ramones or The Misfits or The Damned or that creaky old-timey piano music while that guy with the old-man voice drones on about the dregs of society, and not the happiest pop music in the history of the world.

Russell shows up before long, grinning when he sees the coffee and donuts. “You already accomplished the most important job of the day. Any calls?”

“Just people checking the hours, no appointments. You’re pretty booked today, though.”

He sits down at his station and opens up the newspaper. “Don’t know if your mom talked to you or not yet—”

“She did. I’ll be better about my curfew.”

“Not that. Sara’s at Camille’s for a few more nights. Just so you know.”

“She might as well move in with Camille.” I feel mean but not wrong. “I mean, obviously she’s going to.”

Russell sighs, not looking up from the paper. “Let’s hope not. It’s her decision, though, Kell, she is eighteen.”

“It’s so dumb. Like you turn eighteen and you magically make good decisions.”

“I didn’t say that. I’m saying she’s allowed to make those calls for herself.” He’s still looking at the paper and not me. “And you might want to keep in mind this isn’t exactly easy on your mom and give her a break.”

Of my parental units, Russell is definitely the least annoying. So clearly there’s a first time for everything.

I check my email instead of trying to talk any more with him, and luckily within a couple of minutes, both his first appointment and the freelance artist walk in, so I don’t have to anyway.

I spend my lunch eating pho and reading about Hume, and when I get back (completely on-time), Mom is at the front desk working on an elaborate floral design. She smiles at me like all is fine and I hadn’t gotten a ridiculous curfew lecture and Sara isn’t slowly leaving us. “Hey, baby. Good lunch?”

“I guess. So is it okay if I go to a movie with Oliver tonight?” He’d texted me during lunch, and despite our sex conversation and my lack of love for most new movies, it sounds like a good way to spend my night.

Mom frowns. “Normally of course I’d say yes, but Russell and I both need to stay until closing, and Russell’s mom had Finn since this morning.”

“Mom, I babysat like almost every night this week,” I say, not bringing up the fact that I’d basically taken over Sara’s one measly night, too. “What about his sitter?”

“She’s busy, and this isn’t up for debate.”

Russell looks up from the drama masks he’s inking and shoots us both a look. I can practically read his mind:
No domestic drama in the shop
. So I step out front, and Mom follows.

“It’s not fair if—”

“No, it isn’t fair, but that’s what being part of a family is, it’s pitching in and helping when you’re needed. And you’re needed.”

“You’re ruining my social life,” I say and cringe, like who am I to say something straight out of a teen movie?

“I highly doubt that.” She ruffles my hair. “I’ll make this up to you, okay?”

“With time travel to give me the night off later? It’s fine, I’ll do it. I mean, I don’t have any choice. It’s not like it’s Finn’s fault.”

“You’re the best, Kell-belle,” she says, but I don’t want to hear it, just want to get inside and break the news to Oliver. I feel like a bad girlfriend
and
a bad sister for being disappointed at spending the evening with Finn.

It hits me that Mom probably feels guilty enough about my canceled plans to let me have company. I text Oliver to see if he wants to come over instead (and he does) before ambushing Mom in the back room between appointments.

“So would it be okay if Oliver came over tonight?” I ask. Probably this is a little riskier, one night after The Conversation, but it’s not like I would have had time to go on birth control in the past twenty-four hours or anything. “I won’t neglect Finn or anything, I just thought maybe because I can’t go out…” Guilt trips aren’t really respectable, but the thing is, when used in moderation, they work.

“Sure, baby.” She cups my chin with one of her hands. “Are you two having sex yet?”

Yet?
Add my mother to the list of those who think it’s a foregone conclusion. “Mom—”

“I was sixteen once, you know. If you need to go talk to a doctor about birth control, I’d be more than happy to take you.”

Obviously, I do need to go talk to
someone
about birth control, but I have this unsettled feeling somewhere between my heart and my brain about Mom, like that she would be so, so proud of this beautiful, shining moment where I go to see her gynecologist and she gets to be the cool, open-minded mom.

And right now I just don’t want to give her that.

“We’re not, Mom, and I’m fine.”

What a lame way to make a point. Now I have to figure out how to do this without Mom’s help or else totally backpedal later.

“Well, either way, of course Oliver’s welcome to come over tonight,” she says and kisses my cheek while I stand there, completely unprotected. And it’s all my own fault.

Oliver apparently has a ton of homework, so once he arrives and says hi to Finn and me, he plunks down at the kitchen table with his laptop and a bunch of books about Nietzsche. Rocking Saturday night. Finn and I play catch in the backyard, with a ball I’d painted in zebra stripes for him, while I try not to think about how much fun I’d be having out with Oliver, where he’d get to ignore his homework in favor of me for awhile.

After I give Finn a bath and read him three stories of his choosing and one that I make up about Marvin vs. a pack of wild pirates (obviously, the pirates are no match for Marvin), he’s finally ready to sleep. I don’t want to say I’m anxious to spend time with my boyfriend because that probably makes me both a bad sibling and babysitter, but honestly, I’m anxious to spend time with Oliver. And I’d just seen him the day before. And from the next room all evening. I am in some Serious Like with him.

“He’s asleep,” I say, walking into the living room, where Oliver is flipping through the channels.

“It’s a lot of work,” Oliver says. “I would have killed my parents if they had a kid four years ago.”

“Yeah, that’s probably the normal reaction, but I was just really excited. I figured my mom couldn’t have more kids because I was a miracle or whatever.”

Oliver brushes my hair back from my face and grins, the special Oliver grin reserved just for me. “You were a miracle?”

“Yeah, Mom and Dad thought they couldn’t have kids, that’s why Sara’s adopted, but then I happened, to everyone’s shock. So I guess Dad was the problem, because no one seemed that surprised when Mom got pregnant with Finn. Sara was totally horrified at first, but I figured it’d be cool, and it is.”

“Except for when you get stuck home on a Saturday.”

I shrug. “Sort of, sure. Maybe this makes me a huge loser, but I still had fun.”

He turns that into a joke about how much fun we
could
be having, so of course we start making out. Everything in my head has sort of turned into a pro/con list regarding sex with Oliver, except I can’t actually think of anything to put on the con side. I mean, am
I will be someone who’s had sex
really a con? My brain just can’t really wrap around it, like here is this major life step I can totally take, but it would change this fundamental thing about me.

Though, really, is lack of sex a fundamental thing?

“Have you had sex with a lot of girls?” I ask him when we pause for air. Also I want to get my lip balm from my purse. “I don’t care, I just wondered.”

“Not a lot,” he says. “Unless you think two is a lot.”

“Two is definitely not a lot. Was one of them Sophie?”

“Well, yeah,” he says, like, duh, who wouldn’t sleep with Sophie? I’d probably at least seriously consider it if it was an option. “Is that a problem?”

“No, I’m just nosy.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?” I remember the time we made out in his room, and I told him I didn’t normally freak out about sex. Of course that would catch up with me. “No girls at all.”

“You’re hilarious.” He smiles, though. “And you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. People are allowed to have privacy.”

There are definitely two choices right in front of me: tell the truth and look like an idiot or lie and therefore, look like one later when I have sex with Oliver. I hate both of these choices.

“Hey, kids,” Mom calls to us as she walks inside. “I didn’t get a chance to eat dinner, so I brought home Vietnamese.”

I’d eaten when Finn had, but just soup and a sandwich, so I’m thrilled to take a summer roll and a big serving of lemongrass chicken. Also, obviously, thrilled that I’ve managed to escape further discussion or distortion of truths regarding my virginity. Oliver watches me loading up my plate but doesn’t say anything until Mom dashes upstairs to peek in on Finn.

“Your mom’s cool with me being here?”

“I told you.”

“I thought she’d be out later. My parents really wouldn’t have been cool with me hanging out alone with a girl back when I was sixteen.”

“Right, back in the olden days. Mom doesn’t think it’s the end of the world if people have sex, so what else is she worried we’ll do? The liquor cabinet’s had a lock on it ever since Finn helped himself to whatever that purple stuff is.”

“Oh gosh.” Mom laughs as she walks back into the room. “I’d forgotten about that. How long did it take us to clean that purple puke out of the carpet, baby?”

“Let’s not talk about that while we’re eating, Mom.”

“I think I’m going to head out,” Oliver says.

“I hope I didn’t scare you off with the puke talk,” Mom says, but Oliver assures her she didn’t, gathers his books into his backpack, and walks to the door. I jump up and walk him outside to his car.

“You really don’t have to go because my mom’s home.”

“No, I know, but it’s like your family time, and…I don’t know.” He shoves his hands into his pockets. “I don’t do that well with moms. If she only gets little doses of me, she’ll still think I’m good enough for you.”

“Oh, right, like Mom would ever think you’re good enough for me.” I laugh and wrap my arms around him, rising up into Tall Enough to Kiss mode.

Okay, we accidentally kiss for like ten minutes, but Mom doesn’t even tease me when I walk back inside. Maybe that’s why my resolve goes down and we have a conversation like: Me:
Maybe I should go on—
Mom:
Oh! Did—
Me:
No, but—
Mom:
We can go to the doctor next week
.

But then the previous week’s events kick in. “Can I just go on my own?”

“Oh,” she says, like she’d never even heard of people going anywhere on their own, much less a totally personal sort of doctor’s visit. “Sure, Kell-belle. If that’s what you want.”

What I want is to be out of the house tonight and to have had more hours at the shop that week and for Sara to be home or at least on her way. I just have to settle for Tuesday afternoon at the gynecologist.