“Don’t bother,” Samantha DaSilva said in her lovely, throaty voice. “Frank’s got his car parked around the corner. I’ll call the cops. Thanks for trying to help, though. Is your phone okay?”
Scott opened his mouth to say something, felt a hundred stuttering words rise up like a wave and then closed it again. Revulsion and longing churned inside him and Dear God he was sixteen, again.
Samantha squinted at him. “Are you okay? You look a bit pale. Want to come inside and have a cup of tea?”
“Y-y-you don’t recognise me, do you?” Scott blurted out, because he was a fucking idiot. For a moment, everything was still, then Samantha’s eyes grew wide. “Fuck me… Scott?”
“I…yes. It’s me,” he said, enouncing his words with the kind of care that made him sound mentally impaired, while mentally repeating the mantra;I will not stutter, I will not stutter, I will not stutter.
Samantha let go of his arm. “Woah, what…what are you doing here?”
He wasn’t sure what made him lie. Her beauty or the fact that he’d just allowed someone who’d robbed her to escape. “Just a visit. Thought I’d swing by and see the old place.”
“I…sure.”
His former neighbor eyed him up and down, giving Scott tacit permission to do the same. What he saw made his heart hammer against his ribs. Her tight clothes and the sheer volume of ink on her skin should have looked gaudy or at the very least, punk-rock, but it only added to her loveliness, like a sharp black border around one of Monet’s watercolors. He looked at her hands and saw cherry blossom petals, scattered from the tattooed buds on her arms, but no wedding band, no engagement ring. It shouldn’t matter, but it did. Of course it did. “What, uh, happened with that guy?”
“He’s a client. He had three hours’ work done, then ran out the door when Gil was packing away the ink.”
“That’s…unfortunate.”
“Yeah. You’re taller than you were when you left.” Her voice was accusing, as though he’d done it on purpose to trick her.
“Post adolescent growth spurt. Happens, sometimes. Or so I’m told.”
“And you’re bigger.” She held her arms away from her body to indicate muscle mass.
“I was on a rowing team in London.Amon a rowing team,” he corrected, remembering his earlier lie.
Her lovely mouth curved into a smile. “Your voice has gone all posh again.”
“Living in England for ten years will do that.”
“It hasn’t been ten years.”
“It has. I left just after graduation, remember?”
Sam’s brow wrinkled. “I…yeah. I remember you leaving. I just can’t believe it’s been so long, Gala—”
Scott had the pleasure of seeing a blush spread over her cheeks.
“Galahad?” he finished, lighter than he’d felt in an eternity. “You didn’t recognise me, you forgot it’s been ten years since I left, but you still remember Galahad?”
She opened her mouth, but before she could talk, the door to Silver Daughters Ink slammed open again and a bear-like man emerged. “Everything okay, Sammy?”
Scott’s heart sank. She had a boyfriend. Of course, she did. And of course, it was this guy. She’d always liked them big and dumb and full of muscles. Guys who played AFL and were forever kissing her neck and shoving a palm into her back pocket of her jeans. Exploding hot pockets of semen he alternately loathed and envied, like an Ouroboros of shame.
“I’m fine,” Sam said. “Scott helped me out. He’s my old neighbor from way back. Scott, this is Noah Newcomb, my best tattoo artist.”
Tattoo artist? So not a boyfriend?
The big man extended a hand toward him. “Thanks for helping.”
“I don’t know how much help I was, considering the guy got away,” Scott said as they shook hands.
“We’ll call the cops. So, you’re the Sanderson guy?”
“Y-yes,” Scott said, astonished. “How did you—”