And when that happens, there’s only one way for me to get my head on back straight: my art. I head back to Damage Control as quickly as my legs can carry me, even break into a run at some point, which earns me a coughing fit, and thank God Ev is not there to witness it. I catch my breath and hurry into the shop, wash my hands, pull on my gloves and grab my tattoo gun.
Ready for my next customer. Ready to blank out my mind.
Zane nods in greeting from the back of the shop, and I nod back. His eyes narrow at me and I turn away. The guy can see right through me. I’ll never forget the day he found me leaning against the fence outside my last foster home, drawing with a piece of chalk on the wooden planks. All but the first foster home I’ve had were hellish, and this one was no exception, but at least nobody really cared where I was at any time. Zane talked to me, looked at my pitiful etchings and offered a tattoo apprenticeship.
I didn’t even have to think twice about it. I apprenticed with him for almost a year before I ran away from that foster family for good and was taken into to the residential facility where I got sick. Is it any wonder Zane is my god? Kinda distant, but there, my lifeline in the last two years.
When I next look around, he’s gone, probably back in his booth, working.
My customers file in, one after another. As I work on a guy’s arm, and then a woman’s back, today replays in my mind. Ev at my door, on my sofa, in my shower, in my bed. Beneath me, naked and gorgeous. Sipping coffee on the bench. Her wide eyes when I stopped to talk to Ben in the alley, the fear that began to fade. Her determination to do something good.
How can I not fall for her? Truth is, I fell for her long ago, when she checked on me on the streets. When she saved my life. The unbearable happiness I feel now has as much to do with being with her as with the fact that she may be getting over her new, mysterious fear of the homeless, meaning I may be able to open up to her soon. Tell her the truth that weighs on my shoulders like a sin.
I barely hear my last customer thanking me as I consider this.
Why haven’t I told her yet?
Easy. I’m afraid to lose her before I even really have her in my life. She’s a ray of sunshine in the gray. She makes me breathe harder, live sharper. She brings everything into focus, brings back the colors and the light.
Fuck. If she goes…
I run my hands through my short hair and close my eyes for a long moment. This is why I don’t do feelings, why I don’t fall for anyone. Why I don’t trust.
Because if I’ve learned one lesson in my life, it’s that sooner or later everyone goes, and I’m left behind.
***
My good work at keeping my mind blank through work gets ruined on the way back home. When I stop to talk to my usual people, checking on them and offering some money for food, not thinking about Ev becomes even harder. So much so that, by the time I enter my building, I’m shaking with nerves.
I stand in the living room, unzipping my jacket, wondering if she’ll come. Seth is at the bar, working, and the apartment is quiet. Too quiet, letting my thoughts become too loud. I wish for something to dull the ache in my chest, the memories and the worry, but Seth’s rule for living with me is that we keep no alcohol in the apartment. I don’t know what he heard about me. I’m not a drunkard, but I agreed to his terms, and now there’s nothing I can use as a crutch.
Time passes, minutes ticking by, stretching into half an hour.
She’s not coming. I pushed her too far. Fucked her against the wall when she only came by to check if I’m okay. Forced her to follow me into an alley when she wasn’t sure she wanted to do that anymore. Maybe she really changed in these past few months, and I’m clinging to who she was. To who I thought she was. I never really knew her.
I don’t really know her now. I have no idea why she changed her ways, what is scaring her, and what she will do with me, but I’m in her hands.
Goddammit.
I shed my jacket and tear off my sweater and T-shirt. It’s cold in here. I need a hot shower. I stumble into the bathroom and turn on the water, then kick off my boots and pants, tug down my underwear and step under the spray.
My back is so tense it hurts. I press my fingers into the back of my neck, and it’s like pressing into stone. I let the water beat down on me, feeling the muscles uncoil little by little. I cough a little with the vapor rising around me, but it’s nowhere near as bad as it was a month ago. Damn sickness is hard to shake off, but I’ve beaten it.
I lean back against the tiled wall, and memories of Ev moving against me, around me, flood my mind. My dick hardens and I reach for it, hissing as I wrap my hand around it.
A sound breaks through the beating of blood in my ears and the shower. A ring?
A tune. My cell phone.
With a groan, I tug a few times on my cock, consider ignoring the call, then change my mind. What if it’s something important?
I grab a towel, wrap it around my waist and step out of the bathroom. The cell is still ringing when I dig it out of my jacket. A name flashes on the screen:
Ev.
Fuck. A thousand bad scenarios play out in my head. “Ev? You okay? Where are you?”
“Can’t get inside your building,” her sweet voice answers. “I rang the intercom many times, but I guess it’s broken?”