A male hand waves at my face. Donny.
“What’s up?” I ask over the buzzing of my tattoo machine. I’m leaning over my client in the chair—not the best time to chat.
“Sorry to interrupt. I need to see you in my office when you’re done. It’s important.”
I stiffen. “All right. This is my last appointment.”
In my peripheral, he shoves his hands in his jeans, paces around my station, heaves out an exhale, and then leaves. My lips compress. Donny being out of his office is odd. He owns East Coast Ink & Gallery but prefers to stay upstairs while Harlee, his niece, manages the day-to-day downstairs.
I finish adding the green highlights to the leaves and set down my machine, dabbing at the tiny spots of blood on my client’s wrist.
“It’s beautiful!” Gianna gushes as she leans forward to take in the ring of daises intertwined with the infinity symbol around her wrist. Dressed in a pink Chanel dress, she’s a young twentysomething with a mane of blonde hair she loves to flick over her shoulder with long sharp pink nails. There’s a huge rock on her ring finger. A socialite with money, she’s our typical client on the Upper East Side.
“I can’t wait to show my fiancé!” she says.
I push up a smile even though my head is banging and my throat hurts. A cold hit me a couple of weeks ago and won’t go away. I swallow the cough drop in my mouth. “Hey, you never mentioned how you found me.”
“Hmm, a friend of mine. She actually bought one of your canvases in the front gallery.”
“Ah.” I average three to four sales a year from the gallery.
“She’s an artist and a collector—paintings, sculptures.” Hair flick. “Jewels.”
Ah,lotsof money, then. “Cool. Which one did she buy?”
“It’s an abstract of a house.”
Ah, the purple Victorian done in acrylics. My locket hangs from a tree in the front yard.
“It’s, um, interesting,” she says, choosing her words with care.
“You didn’t like it.”
She waves a hand around. “It’s a pretty house, but there was something off about it. It felt dark. I don’t know. It made me wonder who lived there.”
I did. Until I was kicked out.
“Meh. My art isn’t for everyone.”
“Well, I adoreyou, darling.” She bats her eyes at me. “And my tattoo is marvelous!”
I smile. She came in six months ago and asked for something unique. I worked on some designs for her; then we met at a coffee shop to go over the sketches. Since she had an extended trip to Europe planned, we scheduled today for the tattoo.
She squeals. “Oh my God, I almost forgot! You got married while I was gone and haven’t said a word! It’s been what, two months since the big day? How’s married life? Are you relieved the wedding hoopla is over?”
“Hmm.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “Hey, wait a minute. What’s going on? Your engagement ring is gone.” She glances over her shoulder at the workstation across from mine where Edward sketches, his lean frame bent over his desk. I follow her gaze, taking in his mahogany hair as it glints under the lights, the shimmer of his lip ring. As if he feels my eyes, he glances up at me, swallows thickly, and then turns away.
Every time I come to work, I tell myself this is the day it’s not gonna hurt when I see him, but it still cuts.
Especially when I have to see him—with her.
“What the hell is going on?” Gianna hisses as we watch Harlee rush over to Edward as if she has an alarm set for every time I look his way. Harlee slants a smug smile at me as she gives him a hug, her hands lingering on his shoulders like claws.
“They happened,” I mutter, and Gianna gasps.
With an hourglass figure and long platinum hair, Harlee’s a blonde bombshell in a red dress and Christian Louboutin heels. Of course, she’s also younger than me, twenty-two to my thirty. I’m ready for the nursing home next to her.