Jack
“Before you stepone more foot through that door, I’m going to warn you that I have a very bad temper when it comes to assholes who hurt the most important woman in my life.” Giselle leans forward on the front desk of her shop. I knew I wasn’t going to be greeted with open arms, but I probably underestimated the fact that she’s a wild card.
“I deserve that, but I need to talk to you.” I push the rest of the way into the shop.
“You need to talk to Everly, not me, Mister Disappointment. Figure your shit out without me getting involved. I’m serious. My loyalty is always with her, so if you think you’ll get anything other than an aching set of balls after they meet my steel-toed boots, then you’re dumber than I thought.”
“I need to know if she’s moved on. If she’s happier without me.”
Giselle stares at me as if two heads just sprang from my stomach. “Like I said, not happening.”
“I know what I want to happen. I know I’ve made a huge mistake, but I need to know from you, and only you, if she’s happy where she is right now. If she’s moving on and not looking back.”
She crosses her arms over her chest, the intricate designs of her flowery tattoos that run the length of her arms glaring at me somehow too. I knew coming in here was a long-shot, but I mean what I say, if Everly is better off with us in the past, then I’ll leave it. Leave her. Let her move on. Giselle is not a person to sugarcoat anything, and she’ll know if her best friend wants to leave what we had in the past.
“I had such high hopes for you, ya know? I didn’t think you were such a pansy penis to come and look for a way out of fighting for the woman that we all know you’re being stupid about.”
I give her a nod. But an out for myself isn’t why I’m here. If I was selfish, I would have rushed her storefront when I was in New York and told her how much of a mistake I’ve made, but this isn’t something I’m dumb enough to take so lightly. Everly needs to see what I want from her and not just hear it.I know her.Words only mean so much; they only get you so far before you have to make the big moves. Do the big scary things that could leave you more broken. But she’s worth it.
“Giselle! For fuck’s sake, please? You don’t owe me anything. You’re right. I can’t imagine having a person like you in my corner. Everly is so lucky to have you, but I need you to tell me if she’s going to be better off without me. And before you say anything else,Iwon’t be. I won’t be better off without her. I already know that. I want to be everything to her, but I don’t want to hurt her any more than I have.”
She looks at me, studying if I’m bullshitting her right now. I’m not.
“I’m not…” I shake my head and choke back the emotion in my throat. “I hurt her, and I have to live with the fact that I hurt the woman who means more to me than I thought possible.”
She raises her eyebrow and then turns to walk to the back of her shop near her tools and inks. She nods at the seat for me to sit.
“I’m going to add to your tattoo. That ending line needs to be better finished off, and it's been bugging me ever since I met you.” She starts to pull black latex gloves on and sits down on her roller stool to my right.
I roll my sleeve up my forearm and she starts prepping. She wipes the area with an alcohol cloth and then shaves around my arm, since the lines she’s referring to run around its entire circumference.
After a few minutes, she gets to work. Silently, she pulls the skin taut and dips her micro-thin needle into the black ink. I sit calmly and know that this is a good sign. I hope. There’s a fifty-fifty shot that I come out of here with an angry dick drawn on my arm, but it’s a chance I’m willing to take.
“I came to this town a decade ago, after a lot of shit went down, and it was hard not to fall for it. It’s a small town, which, I’ll be honest, I thought I’d be highly allergic to after a while. But turns out it was where I was meant to be. It’s home. The longer I’m here, I kind of think it was always meant to be.”
“How did you find it?” I ask.
She looks up from her work and shifts to grab another small cloth to rub away the excess ink. “I have a pretty good memory, so when I was researching places that I’d like to try out and that would also be a good place for me to open a shop, I stumbled across Strutt’s Peak on a map, it seemed like a sign.”
I let her continue. “Strutt’s Peak is named after a scientist, mathematician, actually, but not because he found the place or anything like that. It’s a bit more poetic, to be honest.” She looks up at me. “I’m about to blow your mind, so keep up, okay, Deacon.”
“I’m listening,” I say with a smile.
She looks back down and continues the tattoo while talking. “John William Strutt was a British mathematician, like mucho brilliant, but the most interesting thing he did, in my opinion, wasn't what he was most known for. You keeping up with me here?” She looks up for a second to make sure I’m paying attention. I nod. “Strutt was also referred to as Lord Baron Rayleigh. I don’t understand how people get these titles, being rich or born into a family that thinks very highly of themselves and the land they oversee…I don’t fully comprehend it, but that’s not the point. My point is, Rayleigh’s Scattering is the theory or explanation of why the sky is blue. How we see the way the light scatters and why we see it as blue, or at certain times of day dark blue or pink or orange.”
She dips the needle again and continues. “I picked this place because of what it promised. If there was a place that existed that was named after the person who could finally explain why the sky was blue or why we could see certain colors at certain times of day, then fuck yeah, I was taking that as a sign. My world was very dark for a while, and I needed something more than light. I needed to find a way to add color to it again.”
She looks up and smiles. I believe in making things happen, not the idea that everything is destined to happen without being able to do anything about it. But I also believe there can be parts of life that are unexplained, coincidences, even a bit of magic. Call it whatever you’d like, but Giselle telling me this is hitting me in the gut. “Then everything kept falling into place. I found a tattoo shop owner that was ready to retire, and one night I met Everly. That night it was it. I knew I was home.”
I raise my brow. The loudmouth best friend is quickly becoming one of my favorite people with this and I think I see where she’s going here, but instead of interjecting I let her keep talking and tattooing.
“And you’re telling me this so I’ll stay here?”
“I’m telling you this, because from one artist to another, you don’t leave a place that paints your life with color. You listen to the signs that are thrown in your face. You stay. You figure it out.”
She wipes the last of the lines, and I give it a turn to look at her work. She is good. “Came out nice. Thank you,” I tell her.
“She’s sad. She’s put on her badass heels and is doing great out there, but I know she’s not eating much, which for her is very out of character. The girl loves food.” She looks over to me, leveling what she’s going to say next. “She’s not over you. Yet. But I wouldn’t waste too much more time. She’s a fucking catch.”
I smile. “I know.” I got what I came for, or rather, hoped for. A sign that I’m doing the right thing here, not just for me or what I want, but for her.
“How did you know that, by the way? About Strutt’s Peak?” I ask.
“Like I said, really good memory.” She taps the side of her head. “It was a question I fucked up for my physics final my senior year. It’s the grade that held me back as the salutatorian and not valedictorian. Pissed me off, so it was hard to forget.”
Before I turn to leave, I have to ask her to do one more thing for me. She’s not going to like it. “Please keep this between us. I know that’s asking a lot, but I’m promising you that I’m going to make this right for her. I just need a little more time.”
“I can’t promise that. If she asks, then I’ll tell her you came to talk to me. So, don’t make me regret this, Jack. Do you hear me? I have no problem drugging you and tattooing a dick on your face. Just putting that out there.”
And with those words of encouragement, I pick up my phone and make a call. Time to go big, because I’m not going home.