Under Locke (25 page)

I glanced down to make sure that my boobs weren't hanging out for everyone to see, and they weren't. My shirt was racerback tank, the scooped front hit clearly above my bra-line for the friggin' record. I opened my mouth to argue with him, and then closed it. The last thing I wanted was to argue with him back and forth, then have Shane assume that that was... foreplay or something ridiculous.

I buttoned up the length of tiny buttons, looking everywhere but in front of me. Dex was talking to Shane in a low voice. His lips were moving but I couldn't hear what was being said between the two of them.

After a minute, Shane inclined his head and took off in the direction of his booth. I'd walked past it a couple of times already and I knew exactly where it was.

When he turned around, Dex glared at me. It was immature but I was irritated by what he'd said though I really would prefer not getting hit on by drunk strangers. The look I gave him in return was scathing. Well, as scathing as I was capable of.

~ * ~ *

There were a great many things that I learned in the three days we spent in Houston. Some things were more informative than others. Some things I would
ha
ve rather not learned. And, a fraction were inevitable in this path called life.

I learned more about tattooing techniques than I could
ever have
imagine
d
. With Slim and even Dex leading me around to different booths on Saturday and Sunday, they showed me the best and unfortunately, the worst too. The best: creativity. The worst: inexperience. The inexperience was spelled out with sloppy letters and terrible outlines. Another big thing I learned that seemed essential: Pins was well-known. There was a constant stream of people looking at the binders we’d brought and asking to see who was available. I was surprised by the pride nipping at my chest when I saw how respected they were.

I also learned that there were a lot of exhibitionists into body art. A lot. I hadn’t seen that many half-naked women in my life and that included the time I spent trolling porn websites when I was itching to relieve some tension. I also learned that there was no inch of flesh on a body that couldn’t be tattooed. For example, an armpit. A penis. Balls. Palate. Tongue. The inside of a lip. Downtown lips! Face! I mentally made a decision that if I ever did get a tattoo, it wouldn't be in any of those places. I'd leave that to the souls that were way more brave than I
could ever be
.

Lastly, the thing that was slapped in my face over and over again was that Dex was a vagina magnet. I already knew that from the conversation I’d overheard with Shane, but I swallowed it and shoved away. He didn’t stop to speak to any of the women who dropped by our booth, and I wasn’t sure how to take that, so I didn’t. Back in Austin he'd kept that part of his life private at least since I'd run into him at the body shop. I refused to waste a minute wondering what his numbers were like.

It wasn't any of my business but
lord
knows I would
ha
ve paid for his ass if he wasn’t my boss and I wasn’t confused with the way I felt about him.

After an exhausting Saturday, where we spent more than thirteen hours at the Expo, we ate dinner at some Chinese restaurant nearby and then promptly passed out watching Rush Hour in the hotel room with Slim narrating the entire movie perfectly.

Sunday was just as hectic. It seemed like every other person who had bought a ticket to the convention wanted Dex or Slim to tattoo them, so I had to balance out the requests as well as I could while also taking advantage of watching them work. It’d always seemed weird to me when we were at Pins to look at them but in Houston our proximity was so close and it was different circumstances, that it felt fine. If you were shy then you wouldn’t exactly get tattooed in the middle of an expo, right?

Just
before we started taking our stuff down, Slim let me tattoo the tiniest heart in existence onto his wrist bone in celebration of our successful visit to Houston.

“But what if I mess up?” I’d asked him in a panic, holding the gun somehow without shaking.

Dex was sitting next to him, wrapping a client’s new inner bicep tattoo.

Slim grinned. “Iris, it’s a little thing. I’ll fix it if you mess up or Dex will. It’s not a big deal.”

My mouth curled down into a grimace. “I’m scared.”

“Just try it,” he insisted.

I shot a glance over at Dex who was looking at me in amusement. “Can you fix it if I mess up?” I asked him in a whisper.

He gave me the most indulgent smile in the world. “Course I will, babe.”

“You’re sure?” I asked Slim, who waved me forward. I blew out a deep breath and nodded. “All right.” A few minutes later, I’d somehow managed to hold down the right amount of pressure, follow the outline better than I expected, and then I thrust the gun at Slim. “You finish it, I can’t do it.”

He blew out a raspberry, shaking his head. “You can finish it another day. Deal?”

“Maybe,” I offered him.

He winked. “Deal.”

Dex leaned over to inspect my job as he plucked the gloves off his hands. “Nice work.”

These guys did the most intricate, multicolored pieces I’d ever seen and they were complimenting me on a simple heart shape? Guh. I think I was kind of growing fond of them and that only made me feel worse about putting in my notice when we got back home.

We packed up our crap, hauling it back and forth from the convention hall to the truck in what seemed like a million trips. After the last one, Dex waved me into the front seat while he got into the driver side. “Ritz, you can sit in the front since you aren’t gonna sleep.”

I shrugged, thinking that made total sense. Slim didn’t argue or bat an eyelash as he got into the backseat. They talked about the things they’d liked the most, the people they had seen, and chatted about how popular fluorescent tattoos had gotten and how they might have to look into the ink needed for them.

“Rainbow-Ris, did you have a good time?” Slim asked, adding in the nickname he’d picked up from a client on Saturday.

Shifting in the seat to look at him from around the headrest, I nodded, smiling because he’d been the one that went out of his way to make sure I
did.
  “A lot of fun even though you snore.” I tilted my head in Dex’s direction, waggling my
e
yebrows at Slim, “and this guy's gas could fuel my car.”

"
I don’t snore,
" Slim a
rgued
, but I was too busy looking at Dex over my shoulder while trying to hold back a laugh. Dex smirked, keeping his attention straight forward.  

“Thanks for bringing me, guys.” I told them shyly after a few minutes of traveling. Settling back into the front passenger seat, I glanced at Dex, who had his eyes on the road.

Dark eyes slicked over to mine for a split second before he resumed his focus on the highway in front. Slim rattled on about random things for a while before falling asleep, leaving only old Pantera playing faintly in the background.

“I swear I won’t fall asleep,” Dex muttered some time later.

“I believe you,” I told him, taking in his silhouette. “But I’m too paranoid to sleep. Sorry.”

His fingers drummed on the steering wheel. “You’re not flippin’ out as much,” he noted.

That was true. I wasn’t. “You don’t drive like an idiot so it doesn’t make me as nervous, I guess.” Was that rude? “No offen
se,
” I added.

Dex chuckled, smiling just barely. Those eyes darted in my direction again. “You're a vegetarian?” he asked out of the blue.

I did that whole creepy side-glance thing at his comment. How the heck did he know? "Yeah." I paused. "How'd you know?"

He made a little noise with his tongue. "Never seen you eat meat, and then I saw the way you looked when we brought you that hot dog. I thought you were gonna puke."

He did notice. How about that. "I threw up in my mouth a little bit."

"That's pretty fuckin' disgustin', babe." What was funny was that he laughed instead of making a face.

I snorted. "Sorry." But I wasn't sorry. It was true. That hot dog had looked like an old turd.

"Don't be sorry," he grunted, cutting me another glance. "You don't eat meat, you don't eat meat. Next time just tell us so I don't have to see you lookin' like shit."

Looking like shit? I turned to look at him and made an ugly
scoffing
noise in my throat. "Jesus, that's rude."

"You know what I mean."

Yeah, I did know what he meant. He thought I looked even worse than usual. Dick face. "Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say."

He didn't say anything else but he did shake his head in response. "I
got two good eyes, Ritz.
You
’re fine. You should already know
I don't mean half the shit that comes outta my mouth."

He had. At least half a dozen times, so I should know better than to take too much of his verbal crap to heart. Plus, why should I care? It wasn't like I was planning on being best friends with him. Right?

"I know," I sighed, turning my attention to look out the window.

Neither one of us said anything else for the longest. I sat there and thought about telling Dex that I was quitting and the guilt swamped me. God, I felt like a jackass when I had no reason to. It wasn't like I was a
special
employee. The work was pretty easy, he could find a hundred other peo
ple
to fill the position.

Still, it sucked.

I felt like my father. A coward.

A coward that had come into town and asked his long-lost son for money.

And a coward that had disappeared as quickly as he'd popped up. Which speaking of, I hadn't brought up to Sonny again after he'd been so pissed off over the situation. Dex might know more and he'd be a more reasonable person to talk to since he wasn't emotionally attached to the situation.

"Hey, Dex?"

The smartass that had somehow popped up over the course of the last three days replied, "Hey, Ritz."

Oh lord.

"By any chance, did you see Sonny's dad when he was here?" I asked him as casually as possible.

Keeping his eyes straight ahead, his mouth twitched. "Nope."

Nope? That was all I was going to get out of him?

"But I did hear about it," he thankfully kept going. His eyes flickered over in my direction. "Why?"

"I'm just curious." Extremely curious but he didn't need to know that.

"I know he asked for a loan," he offered in a gentle voice that made me wary. "And I know Luther didn't give it to him."

"Oh." I paused, redirecting my eyes to the window. "Huh."

I wanted to know what the money was for. And even though I didn't want to, I wanted to know what he'd been doing the last eight years. Why he hadn't bothered coming to see Will—to see me.

The
questions
sank to the pit of my stomach like lead, dragging my mood down with it. Until I thought about what it was like to go through a million and a half things without my father.

I didn't need him.

I didn't. Not today. Not tomorrow. Never.

"Trip told me the shit he pulled on you and your ma," Dex spoke suddenly.

My muscles tensed up.

"I remember hearin' about him movin' away when I was a kid," he explained. "I didn't know he left y'all though."