Drawn Together

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 begi

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 pla

“What about urban pla

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 pla

“And how does pla

“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 pla

“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 co

“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.”

A

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.