Mark Me (2 page)

He sighed. Even he could tell that the guy was educated and refined, and had impeccable manners. Dimitri shuddered. Why couldn’t he meet someone like that and fall in love?
Ah, no use thinking about
him now
.
I’ll probably never see him again
. He turned another corner and entered his tattoo parlor.

“Where have you been?” Greer Smith, the other tattoo artist on call, asked him. The waiting room was packed.

“On a break,” Dimitri told Greer. “Just let me wash my hands and I’ll be right with you,” he said to the customers. He walked into one of the rooms behind the counter, washed his hands, and then exited the room again. Just that fast he noticed that another group of people had arrived. His eyes landed on one of them. The young man he’d met earlier sat in the corner of the room fast asleep. Dimitri’s body stirred and he smiled.

“What’s wrong with you?” Greer asked him.

“Nothing,” Dimitri lied.

Greer followed his gaze. “Cute,” he said.

“Yeah,” Dimitri agreed.

“Do you know him?”

“Yeah, we met a couple of minutes ago,” Dimitri answered. He leaned toward Greer and whispered, “I think I love him.”

“No,” Greer said as if he didn’t believe him.

Dimitri nodded. “Yeah.”

* * * *

The alarm sounded. Eli’s eyes slid open. He tried to move but he got a sharp pain in the pit of his gut. He groaned, sitting up. His head throbbed unmercifully. He always felt like crap when he didn’t get at least eight hours sleep. Served him right for letting Trey and the others talk him into hanging out for most of the night. He rose from the bed and walked into the bathroom to pee. The acrid scent of his urine assaulted his nostrils. Eli sniffed at his arms. He reeked of sweat.

Eli finished pissing, walked over to the shower, and turned on the water. He looked in the mirror over the sink while he waited for the water to heat up. “Yuck,” he said as he gazed at his reflection.

Bloodshot eyes stared back at him and he had cotton mouth. He stripped out of the clothes he had worn since last night, tossed them into the hamper, and then stepped into the shower. He jumped.
Too
cold
. Eli adjusted the water to a warmer temperature and then washed his hair. He didn’t remember what time he got home this morning, but he suspected that it was before dawn. Henry’s older brother, Ross, had dropped them off after the graduation and came back for them and deposited him on his doorsteps.

Eli finished his shower. He wrapped a big towel around his head and stepped out the tub. He was just about to dry the rest of his body when he looked down and gasped. “No!” Right above his pubic hair he noticed a fresh tattoo. He couldn’t see it too clearly because the more he bent the more it disappeared into the folds of his skin. He found a hand mirror to examine it more closely. It was small, but obviously there. Had he fallen asleep again? His friends always teased him about his ability to sleep anywhere when he got tired. He sighed.

They usually played tricks on him, too, when this happened. The last thing he wanted was something tacky like a tattoo on his body. The image of a tattooed arm flashed in his mind. Eli shook the memory away. He didn’t want to think of that either. He looked down into the mirror again, trying to make out the word. “L-O-V-E-R,” he spelled out. Someone had branded him in ink. “I’m going to kill those guys.” Eli continued to dry off, examining his body, trying to find other tattoos. He didn’t find any on the front of his body, and he couldn’t see the back of his body without being a contortionist. He turned.

There was a full-length mirror on the closet door in his room. Eli dashed out of the bathroom and entered his bedroom. He opened the closet and turned his back to the mirror. He groaned. There was another one right at the base of his spine right above his behind. He tried to look at it with the hand mirror but couldn’t see it, so he moved the door close to his butt, tilted the hand mirror so it could reflect into the larger mirror. He groaned again looking at the little tiny heart with the name Dimitri spelled out.
Who the hell is Dimitri?
When he found out, he was going to strangle him.

“You came in pretty late,” Eli’s father said to him as he entered the kitchen.

I just graduated from high school. Doesn’t that mean anything
?

Eli sat down at the table and Emma, the cook, brought him his breakfast. She’d been with his family for years and knew what he liked. She’d arranged the eggs, bacon, and grits on his plate to form a happy face. Eli sighed. No one in his home thought of him as a grown-up. Fortunately, he’d be going off to college soon, and moving into his own apartment in two weeks. He supposed his mother would visit and put up curtains and bring casseroles Emma prepared for him.

His mother entered, kissed him on the top of his head, and sat down across from him at the table. She wore a nice pink suit and pearls, which meant she’d be going to some type of society function later.

“I guess,” Eli said to his father. “We were having so much fun. I guess I forgot about the time.”

“You need to be a little more responsible, Son. Anything can happen to you out there,” his father said.

Like being tattooed
. Eli reached for the glass of freshly squeezed orange juice the cook put before him. “Yes, I know. We stayed in a well-lit area and we all came home together.”

“You have to be careful. There are some pretty shady characters in the French Quarter just looking to pounce on impressionable kids,” his father continued.

The smell of bacon distracted Eli from the conversation and then his mind wandered back to last night. Someone had called him cute.

Oh!
Now he remembered. Some guy tried to hit on him in a restroom.

Blond hair, blue eyes, tattoos up and down his arms, and a nice voice.

Eli shuddered. He didn’t even want to think about it.

“Are you listening?” his father asked, breaking the memory.

The cook placed a plate of food in front of his mother and walked out of the room. “Let the boy eat in peace,” his mother told his father.

“I’m sure it won’t happen again.”

Unlike his father, his mother only saw the good in him. He looked down at the stack of blueberry pancakes and his stomach growled.

“One time is all it takes,” his father said. “And I suppose you’d been drinking.”

“No,” Eli said. “I won’t be turning into an alcoholic anytime soon.”

His mother giggled but did not comment. She just added a sugar substitute to her grapefruit.

Eli couldn’t remember the last time he saw her eat anything else for breakfast in a long time. She was always on some diet, which she didn’t need.

“Make sure you don’t. One or two beers can turn into hard liquor real fast,” his father said as he buttered his wheat toast.

Eli loved his parents dearly, but his father preached too much and his mother just looked at everything through rose-colored glasses.

Sometimes he wondered what they were like as teens. Probably different than they were now since his mother was only nineteen years old when she had him. Apparently his parents had gotten busy sexually when they were his age. Why didn’t they want him to grow up and experience life before he got married and had kids? Eli cut into his pancakes and ate a piece.

“Do you have practice today?” his mother asked him.

Eli swallowed the food. He’d been taking violin lessons from Mr.

Dubisson every Saturday since he was five. “Yes, and I have swimming practice, and I have an appointment to get a haircut.”

Nope, nothing had changed except he now had two tattoos that his parents would never see.

His mother stopped eating and looked over at him. “I don’t understand why you want to get your haircut. I think you look cute with all those curls.”

He would scream if another person called him cute. “I just want something different.” Eli broke his bacon into tiny pieces and sprinkled it on his grits. “I need a more adult hairstyle. I can’t go off to college with curls.”

His father chuckled from behind his newspaper. “No, that just won’t do. I have to agree with him on this one, honey. Eli needs a more masculine cut.”

His mother pouted. “The women in my book club think he’s adorable.”

Eli frowned. He didn’t want old ladies admiring him.

“He’s eighteen going on nineteen,” his father said, lowering the newspaper. “He needs something that says,
look at me I’m a college
student,
not
hey, look at me, and squeeze my cheeks
.” Eli nearly choked on his food. His father rarely made jokes anymore. He supposed it had something to do with being a judge.

“And he’ll have plenty of time to date older women once he graduates from college and lands a job with an orchestra.”
So never going to happen
. Older women didn’t do a thing for him.

Eli finished his breakfast. He wanted to get an early start to his day and he wanted to ask the guys about last night.

“Drive safely,” his mother said. “And wear your seatbelt.” Eli kissed her on the head. “I will.” He waved good-bye to his parents and left through the back door. The gardener waved to him from atop the riding lawn mower. Eli waved back and walked to his car. Moments later he drove his BMW out of the front gate past the security guard shack.

* * * *

Dimitri got out of bed and headed to the bathroom to relieve his full bladder. He and Greer had worked until three in the morning and they had people scheduled to come in at eleven for tattoos. The other tattoo artist, Jose, wasn’t scheduled in until noon.

Soft jazz music filtered into his apartment as he fixed himself some coffee and toast a few minutes later. Hearing music in the morning was just one of the perks of living in the Quarter. Dimitri hummed along to the familiar song as he buttered his toast. Another song followed as he fixed his coffee. This one had a big band sound to it. Dimitri did a little dance and then he sat down at the table to eat.

He’d grown up in the heart of New Orleans and doubted if he’d enjoy living anywhere else. The place was in his blood, like beignets and chicory. And where in the world could he go to hear such a wide variety of music? Nowhere. When he died he wanted a jazz funeral complete with a second line procession. He wanted the mourners to celebrate and drink White Russians in remembrance of him.

The door to the tattoo parlor opened downstairs, which meant Greer had arrived. Greer lived in an apartment a couple of blocks away.

Dimitri finished up his breakfast, poured the remainder of his coffee into a travel mug, and went downstairs to greet his partner.

“I didn’t expect to see you so early,” Greer said as he prepared coffee in a maker in the tiny rest area of the shop. Greer had pulled his long brown hair back in a ponytail and wore a pair of blue jeans that rode low on his slim hips. He topped it off with a dark-blue polo shirt.

“We have people coming in an hour,” Dimitri said. “Why wouldn’t I be up?”

Greer walked away from the coffeemaker and over to him in the work area. He hopped up into one of the chairs. “I thought you’d be entertaining.”

Dimitri sat down in a chair next to him. “Who? We worked until three.”

“That little hazel-eyed cutie from last night.”

“Him? No. His friends carted him out of here right after you left.

He was still asleep. He never woke up while I worked on him.” Greer shook his head. “You passed up a pretty good opportunity.”

“For what? To go to jail? He was so out of it. I bet that was the first time he’d been up so late.”

“You think he’ll remember getting those tattoos?” Dimitri doubted it. But he probably noticed them as soon as he undressed. The kid had a nice ass. He’d snuck a look at it while he slept. And he had baby-soft skin. Just the thought made Dimitri’s body harden with desire. “Anyway, the tattoos aren’t very large and no one will see them unless they get up close and personal with him.” Greer laughed. “Those rich kids are crazy. His friend with the blond hair wanted this big assed skull and crossbones on his arm, but I talked him into getting a smaller one. How did he think he’d be able to explain something like that to his future employer?” Dimitri chuckled. “Even the girl wanted something radical above her butt. I gave her a small tiger paw. She’ll thank me later because it’s so cute.”

The coffeemaker beeped. Greer got out of the chair and walked over to the pot and poured himself a cup. “Do you think you’ll ever see him again?”

“What’s with the questions?” Dimitri asked.

“I don’t know. I just have the feeling that you liked him.”

“I did and I doubt it,” Dimitri answered as he sipped his coffee.

“From what I gathered from their conversation, they had just graduated from high school and they were celebrating. What other reason would he have to come here?”

Greer walked back over to him and sat down. “Maybe he might want another tattoo. Or maybe he’d come to see you.”

Dimitri shook his head, remembering the conversation between them in the restroom of the arcade. He didn’t have that kind of luck.

A rich kid would never give him a second thought, not even a drunk one. “Don’t hold your breath. He’s probably going to be a doctor or a Supreme Court Justice.”

“You should have asked him his name.”

“His name is Eli,” Dimitri said. “I heard one of the guys call him that.”

“Cute name,” Greer said. “Biblical. It fits him.” Dimitri rose and began taking out his tools and organizing them in his area. Greer finally finished his coffee and did the same. The doorbell rang about an hour later, putting an end to their conversation.

For now he would only think of Eli as the one who got away. Who knew? Maybe the two of them might see each other again in another life.

* * * *

Eli and the other violinist, Randall Watkins, got out of Mr.

Dubisson’s van and followed their teacher into the French Quarter café. Mr. Dubisson had arranged for them to play for the lunchtime crowd. The café owner was Mr. Dubisson’s childhood friend. The café had just opened its doors for the day and had tourists lined up outside waiting to enter. Mr. Dubisson’s friend was very glad to meet them. He showed the young men where to set up. They had a prime spot, outside in the courtyard, facing the street traffic.