Under His Skin (10 page)

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Brian ducked under an awning and hugged the side of a storefront to stay out of the rain. It was great to be home again. He hadn’t slept through a full night since leaving after the convention, and now it was time to pick up where he’d left off with Pandora.

He paused under an umbrella in front of a sandwich shop, sent a quick text to his accomplice and waited. Glancing down, he did a double take at the brightly painted tabletop. Running his hands over the waterlogged wood, he traced the swirling lines done by a hand he’d studied.

A bell clanged. Looking up, he frowned at a woman with hair the hue of a pink treasure troll. She caught sight of him and waved wildly.

He ran the last few steps in front of So Inked and sidestepped Autumn.

“That’s some hair,” he said, wiping rain water off his face.

She pushed square-rimmed glasses farther up her nose and smiled. “Thanks. Pandora’s in the back.”

Two other women he recognized as Mary and Kellie were both hard at work on tattoos but stopped to glance at him. He gave them a little wave and leaned against a display case separating the stations from the general public. He smothered the excited grin he’d been sporting most of the morning. He’d thought about sending Pandora flowers or something while he was gone, but he’d stalled out trying to pick something she’d like.

He’d never been in her shop before, though he’d seen plenty of tattoo parlors in his day. This one was a long rectangle. The client area was separated from the stations by an L-shaped glass display case. He watched Mary tattoo an older Hispanic man with swirling script in black ink, the display and a few feet all that separated them. The shop wasn’t as girly as he’d anticipated. In fact, except for the fragrance of some flowery air freshener, it wasn’t any different.

The door chimed, heralding more customers. He turned and watched a group of young twenty-somethings slide into the shop. Water dampened their clothing and ran down their faces in rivulets. Laughing, they pushed and shoved one another toward the walls adorned with flash. They had style bought from a department store and entitlement wrapped around their skulls, probably by their parents.

“I’ll be with you guys in one second,” Autumn said. She turned and cupped her mouth. “Hey, Pandora, your eight o’ clock is here.” Giggling like a hyena, she scuttled to the far end of the counter and engaged with the browsers.

Brian turned and gripped the edge of the display case. The muscles in his chest constricted and his pulse kicked up a bit.

“God, can you be any louder?” Pandora stepped around the corner, scowling and looking as adorable as the last time he’d seen her, when he’d learned the hard way that she was not a morning person. She froze when her gaze landed on him, her mouth forming an ”O”. She looked as tired as he felt. Instead of the pin-up style she’d sported at the convention, she wore flip-flops, jeans and a tunic t-shirt in sky blue.

“Hey, Pandy,” he said though his gut clenched. He’d hoped for a smile at least.

“Paaaaaaandy?” Kellie cooed, craning her head around to wink at him.

“Shut it, you.” Pandora jabbed a finger in her direction and walked to him. She rubbed the palms of her hands on her thighs. He went to stand across from her, a little apart from the other girls for some privacy. She pitched her voice low. “What are you doing here?”

Not the reaction he’d anticipated.

“Um, it wasn’t supposed to rain, and I was going to surprise you, but I got in late and you know the rest.” He tried for a charming smile and failed, if her expression was anything to go by. He leaned over the case and focused on her.

She ducked her head. He’d called her and they’d talked about nothing at all until the early morning hours. “This is my fault then?”

“No, I’m not good at surprises. I have something for you in my Jeep, but I’m guessing you’d rather me not make a scene.” Had he misunderstood? Usually when girls had sex and spent hours talking to a guy, he thought he could safely assume the best.

She rubbed her temples. “Okay, you’re here to what?”

Clearing his throat, he straightened and tapped his side. “Touch ups.”

“Oh.” She nodded and waved him to the swag chain that served as the doorway to her world.

Stepping over the barrier, he followed her to a station that was clearly hers. Set back into the corner, there was a detailed mural of a cemetery overrun with zombies on the back wall. At one end, a zombie rockabilly band played coffin-shaped instruments to a thrashing crowd of flesh eaters. Her shelves were green and chrome and the chair black and clean. Stone weeping angels stood sentinel on either side of her equipment, each at least three feet tall. Framed pictures of tattoos and a few shots of the four girls and a teenage boy were hung on the adjacent wall over her stuff.

She pumped hand sanitizer into her palm from a bottle sitting on her shelves and turned back to him. “Let’s see it.”

Whisking off his damp t-shirt, he shivered in the relative coolness of the shop and let her come to him. She grabbed his arm and inspected the tattoo with clinical interest. Her fingers ran over his skin with more care than any other tattoo artist had ever paid him. He liked to think it was because she liked him, but he couldn’t tell right now.

“That’s some good work, Pandy.” Autumn dared to come close enough to peek. She winked at him from behind Pandora.

Pandora glared at her over her shoulder and stepped back. If he didn’t know better, he’d say she wasn’t happy to see him. “Okay, let me get set up and we can do this. There’s not a lot to do, but some spots faded and I’d like to go over your hip again. How’d that feel healing?”

He perched on the client chair and watched her lay out the tools of her trade. “I can’t feel, remember?”

She turned and leveled a glare at him. “Dude, you have eyes. How did it look healing? Did it scab a lot? Did your clothes rub it too much?”

Leaning back, he slid his hand over the scar tissue, now inked to look like frothy waves. “Nah. I took care of it, promise, Mom.”

Rolling her eyes, she swatted his arm. The lines bracketing her mouth twitched with a suppressed laugh he’d grown to love hearing. “Jerk,” she muttered. “Scar tissue can be weird to tattoo, and I’m still iffy on if you were healed up enough to do it in the first place. If I’d had my head screwed on straight that day, I would have tried to talk you out of it, at least until later.”

“I would have told you to do it.” He clenched his jaw and ran his palm over the ship. The newly healed skin was still softer to the touch. The tattoo had hurt like a bitch, and when the scab started sloughing off, the itching had nearly driven him insane, but he didn’t regret it.

Her hand brushed his. He turned his face toward her and was sucked deep into her gray gaze. The gesture spoke volumes, filling in all those meaningful pauses in conversation they’d shared over the weeks since he’d last seen her. Her quiet acceptance of his grief, her willingness to let him wade through the tough times in his own way and still support him meant a lot.

Squeezing his hand, she let go of him and turned back to select inks and get her things set up. He cleared his throat and glanced around. The other girls were conspicuously busy.

“Um, excuse me?” a nasal female voice called out.

Pandora glanced over her shoulder. “Can I help you with something?”

“No, not you. Him. Hey.”

The skin between his shoulder blades prickled. Lead weights might as well have been attached to his feet for how slowly he turned to face the young woman. Her clothing said she tried too hard to look rock and roll, from the triple-studded belts overlaying her hips to her artfully worn jeans and stud-encrusted tank top.

“Do I know you?” He always asked that, on the off chance someone had a valid reason for forgetting his name.

“Are you…?” She paused and tilted her head to the side. “Are you Brian Adler?”

Dread soured his stomach but he mustered a smile as he was expected to for the fans. Wiping his hand on his pants, he crossed to the display case and held it out. “That’s me. And you are?”

“Oh. My. God. But, what happened to your hair?” She ignored his hand and lowered her gaze to his pants. “And where’s your kilt?” Her exuberant display drew the attention of her friends, who wandered over.

“Kilt was mostly for the stage. Nowhere to put your wallet.” He let his arm drop. His attempt at levity fell on deaf ears, not a soul chuckled. Couldn’t he be normal?

A guy with hair that slashed across his face draped an arm around the girl’s shoulders. “Wait, who are you?”

She elbowed her companion and glared at him. “He’s Brian Adler, from Sucker Punch Sunday.”

“That’s the band that died, isn’t it?” He glanced at Brian. “What happened to you?”

The girl squealed. “Oh, can we see your scars?”

Brian’s vision narrowed to the people in front of him and his hands clenched. Did people have no sense of propriety? His scars burned in remembered pain and his chest felt hollow, as if part of him was gone. In a way, he had died that day. “No, sorry,” he managed to get out.

“Ike was my favorite. I had posters of him in my locker in high school. Sucks that he splattered on the side of a mountain. Did you, like, see them die?”

“That’s brutal,” her friend chimed in.

“Hey.” Pandora gripped his arm and stepped in front of him. Her touch anchored him, brought him back into the moment. Her skin was flushed and her eyes flashed. “Where do you get off asking him shit like that?”

“Pandy, it’s okay.” He grabbed her hand but it was she who clutched him tightly.

“Um, excuse me, tattooed tramp, but he’s the one that left the band. If it wasn’t for him, there was going to be a tribute tour. It’s all his fault I didn’t get to see Dropkick Murphys and Flogging Molly on the same stage.”

Autumn hurried to Pandora’s side, her smile firmly in place. “Hey, guys, did you pick anything out?”

The guy jostled his girlfriend. “No, we were going to look around a little more.”

Pandora’s words were clipped. “If you’re going to get something, you’ll have to come back another time. We’re booked up for the rest of the night and you’re eating up my time.”

The girl leaned over the counter, her finger pointing at him.

“Think real hard about what you’re about to say,” Pandora warned.

The guy tugged on her arm. “I think we’ll come back later.”

His girlfriend scowled at him over her shoulder. “But…”

Pandora crossed her arms under her breasts and gave them a hard glare. “That’s a good idea.”

The shop was eerily quiet as the group shuffled back out into the rain. The tattoo machines had stopped their hum and no one spoke until the doorbell silenced. All the joy and excitement he’d sailed into the shop on was gone.

“Dude, where the fuck did that come from?” Autumn elbowed Pandora, her eyes huge behind her glasses. “I thought you were going to jump all over her.”

She muttered something and turned toward him. Pandora had defended him. He still wasn’t used to the rabid fans who blamed him for any number of things he had no control over.

Kellie laughed, a loud, boisterous sound that broke the tension. “Pandora, I think you need to go hit the bags with me sometime.”

“No thanks.” She squeezed his hand and let him go. “I need a minute.”

She turned on her heel and marched down the hallway, disappearing around the bend. Autumn glanced at him.

“I’m going to check on her. Hang out here, okay?”

He nodded and turned in a circle, wanting to do something. This was not how he’d pictured this night going.

Chapter Seven

Sailor, Traditional, Americana or Sailor Jerry: Style of tattoos dating back from the turn of the century to the 1950s, traditionally inked on sailors. Done in ports like Amsterdam, San Francisco and Coney Island. Refers to both the style of drawing and subject matter such as ships, anchors, pin-ups and sparrows.

Pandora stood in the alley, the fragrance of rotting sandwich meat in the dumpster wafting toward her on a gentle breeze. The rain had stopped, but that meant humidity wrapped around her lungs like a wet blanket. Behind her, the back door to the shop clanged open.

“Hey.” Autumn’s voice was hesitant, subdued for her.

She pivoted and looked at her. “Any chance you have a cigarette?”

Autumn closed the door behind her and shoved her hands into her pockets. “We quit, remember?”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t indulge every now and then. God, I want a cigarette.”

“No, you don’t. You’re just angry. Those were some fucked-up people. Who says that crap to someone?”

She clenched her fists until she felt the bite of her nails on her palm. “He said people say shit like that to him all the time but I didn’t believe him. I wanted to punch that bitch so bad.”

Autumn chuckled. “That would have been sweet if you had. But we’d probably have to bail you out if that happened. I’m sure your boyfriend appreciated it though.”

Pandora bit her lip. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“What? Pandora, be serious.”Autumn smacked her arm lightly.

“I am. We aren’t dating.”

“Well, why not?”

She looked away from Autumn. “You know how there are guys that will go out with you, and it might be fun, but you know it’s not going anywhere? It’s not going anywhere between us. We’re too different.”

Autumn didn’t say anything for a moment. “You never know if you don’t give it a try.”

Sighing, she looked back at Autumn, her pink hair gleaming from the light filtering around the back door. Her mother had loved her father, but it hadn’t been enough. He’d still left her, and wanted nothing to do with his daughter. “It’s not that easy.”

“Sure it is. You just open your heart and go for it.” Autumn shrugged. “You’re going to do whatever you’ve made up your mind to do, but I think you should give him a chance. He’s a good guy. You deserve someone like that. I need to go. You going to be okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

“Give me a hug.” Autumn walked forward and enfolded Pandora in her arms for a brief embrace before pulling away. “You coming in?”