“What?”
“Join us tonight. It will be good.”
“No, it won’t.”
Silence from outside the booth. I draw my stool close and drop on it, staring at the tools of my trade. I love inking skin, love my job. Love art. It’s the one thing that got me through other dark times. So why can’t I find any joy in it right now?
“Dakota will be there,” Tyler says quietly from the opening of the booth, and I freeze.
She will? An image of her flashes through my mind—straight dark hair brushing her slender neck and bangs in her eyes, her lips wrapped around an ice cream cone—and my reaction is the same as every time: I get hard. And we’re not talking just a semi-erection, my dick showing cautious interest. No, my dick is one hundred percent set on her, going diamond hard and aching like a bitch in an instant, as if it hasn’t seen action in years.
“But, of course, you don’t care about that,” Tyler says smugly, the bastard, and leaves me alone to return to the reception desk.
I toy with the tattoo gun. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to drop by. Distractions are always welcome, and Dakota is a major distraction. She has a great ass and small, pert tits. With those big blue eyes and soft mouth, she looks like a manga character—and as my throbbing dick informs me, a goddamn sexy one.
Add to that the fact she keeps pushing me, teasing me with that ridiculous request to have a dragon tattoo, and I’m hooked. It sure takes my mind off other, less pleasant things.
She has no reason to get such a tattoo. I know, ’cuz I asked about her. I asked Audrey, who is good friends with her, and she said Dakota has a great family, no scars anywhere on her body she can see and doesn’t seem to have a dark past.
So I know she’s just teasing me about the tattoo. That she won’t drag me down. And if she wants to hook up with me… Then all bets are off.
Because right now, I need that distraction like never before. Without it, I feel like I’m gonna sink so low nobody will be able to drag me out of the pits again.
The party is held at the house of a friend of Dylan’s. Or so Tyler informs me as he gives me directions over the phone. He doesn’t seem so sure himself.
We’ll probably end up at an unknown house and burn it down. Stranger things have happened. Like the time Rafe, Dylan and I were so drunk off our asses we entered the wrong building at three in the morning and banged on everyone’s door for a long time, before the police were called, and we were firmly ushered out.
I decide to take the bus. If nobody can drive me home, I’ll call a cab. Although I intend to drink myself stupid, I sure as hell don’t wanna kill anyone along the way.
The evening is warm, the east bathed in blood-red clouds. I shiver in my T-shirt and close my eyes. The rumbling of the engine is calming, and of course I manage to doze off on a crowded, hot bus when I can’t sleep at night in my bed, almost missing my stop. The sound of people shouting and laughing wakes me up, and I step off.
The house is by Lake Mendota, an expensive area, judging by the tall mansions and the gazillion dollar cars parked in their driveways. You make such friends at college? Wow.
The door is wide open, and loud Latin music and voices drift on the warm breeze. I wander inside, looking for familiar faces—one spunky girl in particular—and the beer cooler. Or anything stronger, if possible. Beer just ain’t cutting it lately.
My steps take me through an airy, tall-ceilinged hall with rooms branching off either side. The music and voices get louder as I step outside onto a covered terrace. People mill about, drinking what looks like cocktails in tall glasses with those ridiculous paper umbrellas. Three wide steps lead to the garden. Holy shit, it really is on the edge of the water, perfectly manicured lawns surrounded by rosebushes in bloom and a sailboat moored right outside the hedge, its masts swaying and creaking.
I shake my head and grin. Because of course, with this sort of money, you’d have a yacht or a sailboat at your doorstep, in case you get hit by the urgent need to go out onto the lake at some inconvenient hour. Makes perfect sense to someone like me who owns nothing more than an old car, some clothes and his drawings. Right… So not.
I spot a cooler on a table and head that way. Grabbing a beer, I straighten, looking into the night, the scent of cool water filling the air.
“Hey.” A hand lands on my shoulder, and I jerk, spilling my beer as I spin around.
Dylan looks at me as if I’ve sprouted horns. “Hey, Zen-man, you—?”
“Okay, yeah, I’m okay.” I scowl at my suddenly half-empty beer. “Peachy.”
“Were you having a Zen moment?” He grins.
“Har har. Very funny, Dylan.” I gulp down the rest of my beer. “Just arrived?”
“No, we’ve been here a while.” He points at a group on the other side of the garden. “The guys are there.”
I nod but stall, giving him a once over. Now might be a good time to get him to talk. I’ve known Dylan since we were thirteen, and he’s been a good friend, if a little pigheaded sometimes. He always has my back, no matter what. When his mother left and his father began sliding, he found himself in charge of the household and his two brothers.
“So how are things at home?”
He shoves his hands into his pockets and avoids looking at me. He starts walking, and I fall in step with him. “Same shit.”