“Lola,” I whispered.
She bit the inside of her lip, looking up at me. She wasn’t usually shy about her work, but I could tell this was a vulnerable spot for her.
I swallowed the lump in my throat, and my voice was hoarse when I spoke. “I love it. Thank you. It’s beautiful, and it means so much to me that you thought of this. I’d be honored to have that on my body.”
She put her hand on my cheek, her thumb brushing over my lips. “I wish I could’ve met your mom. I’d thank her for raising such an incredible son.”
I had to blink away the tears. The grief was still close to the surface about my mom. I suspected it always would be, and I appreciated that Lola didn’t shy away from talking about her.
I leaned in and kissed her lightly.
“She would’ve loved you,” I told her.
“You think so?”
“I know so.”
She pressed her lips together and looked down, picking up the second stencil.
“Just in case you’re not sure, there’s this one too.”
It was a wolf’s head. The drawing was stunning.
“I love it.”
“You remind me of a wolf when you play.”
“You’re making this really hard to decide. How about tonight we do the flowers, and next time, the wolf?”
“How about you see how tonight goes?” She laughed. “This will take a lot more time than your numbers.”
The flowers were on my bicep, with some of the honeysuckle trailing higher up my shoulder. It took two and a half hours to do. Every minute of that time felt like foreplay. I studied every part of her that was in my view, and not being able to touch her was torture. The chair reclined almost flat, and when she finished, she leaned over me, pressing the cling wrap against my shoulder. When she started to straighten, I pulled her face to mine, and she gasped against my mouth.
The smell of ink immediately imprinted itself in my memory, along with the lamp throwing her shadow against the wall. She tugged my hair as we kissed, and my hands slid under her shirt and down to the buttons on her jeans. She pulled them off the rest of the way and got a condom out of my pocket, unzipped my jeans, and pulled me out before rolling the condom on.
She straddled me, and we kissed and kissed. My fingers slid under her panties to find her soaked, and she cried out. I pushed the fabric aside and rubbed her until she was close and then slid inside. When I gripped the back of her underwear tight and pulled it back and forth, her head fell back and she pulsed around me.
“Fuck, I’m not gonna last long,” I whispered against her neck, and we came together.
What happened in that tattoo chair was one of our hottest and most intimate experiences, and I have thought about it approximately three hundred times since.
I thought she was it. I was so certain. And somewhere in there, she’d already decided to go. I don’t know if I wasn’t paying close enough attention or if she never felt what I felt, and I was only ever in it by myself.
Cora finishes the outline and sits back to check her work. She holds a mirror up, and I twist to see my ribs. The clock looks like the aftermath of impact, like it got hit so hard that it stopped working.
That’s how I feel right now. Like I’m only half-functioning. But I’m determined not to stay frozen here forever. I know I’ve got to keep putting one foot in front of the other, but I don’t see myself loving anyone else. Ever.
“Nice,” Cora says simply.
She goes back in for shading. The needle finds a vicious groove between two ribs, and I breathe through my nose and try to think about game tape.
It doesn’t work. My thoughts go right back to Lola, like they always do.
CHAPTER THIRTY
MY MAP
TULLY