Books, Tattoos & Other Inky Things

2. Maybe Stop Staring At My Penis In Horror, Okay?

A hookup in a studio apartment is hell on an insomniac.

Baz could never sleep in a bed with a stranger. No matter how pretty, or sweet, or intelligent, or reasonable, or amazing the stranger was. Nella seemed all those things, but the last girl he'd loved made sure he had trust issues.

So Baz lay as still as possible, with his artist's eye roving his surroundings. Browns, purples, and golds wove through all the fabrics, furniture, and decor, making Nella's white-walled loft homey yet dramatic.

However, he was most interested in the pictures on the walls. Opposite him was a large photograph of a sparsely forested mountain peak in grayscale. Struggling evergreens rose through thick fog in peril of being vanquished by the rising white sun. A stark landscape, but one not without optimism.

Why had Nella chosen that piece?  And what about the black and white photos of tree slices above her television? Someone had counted the rings and written the age of the trees on their glass frames. Had Nella done that? What did she see when she examined the three Rorschach images on the opposite wall?

Needing to know the answers to these questions was why he couldn't leave. He'd never had a hook-up like this. The kind that left him hungrier afterward. He couldn't slip out and leave this sweet-sleeping girl with the balefire heart that had trusted him in her bed.

He watched her sleeping, face planted in her pillow, rich chestnut hair sprawling, bare back lovely in the sunlight. Within him, a sense of pleasure in her slumber warred with envy. The resentment of her effortless sleep faded as he studied the lines of her shoulder blades and the curve of her spine.

Creamy virgin skin. Not a single tattoo.

She had asked him what kind of tattoo he would design for her, and now that he felt like he knew her a little, he longed to make her a unique piece of art. One she would love. One that was worthy of her. Honest ink she would let him plant beneath her skin. At the same time, he loathed the idea of changing her beautiful blank canvas.

Nella should not be permanently marked by a guy like him. A guy that could offer her nothing except complications and dubious connections. 

He shouldn't be messing around with a girl like this. A girl who trusted so easily. He saw the light in her the moment she walked into his shop. Within five minutes she had him acting out of character. He never turned down easy money from a client with a simple tattoo request, unless they were underage or obviously drunk. Nella had been neither when she slammed into his shop, asking for hastily conceived ink in an overexcited voice.

What was he thinking? He should have given her the tat and sent her on her way. She might have regretted it, but she might end up regretting him even more.

Yet watching her sleep now, he couldn't muster any regret. Only a slight anxiety. What would happen between them in the light of day? In his experience, fast love either sped away or crashed and burned. However, now was not the time for philosophizing, because Nella was waking.

She burrowed in her pillow, her body tensing, then relaxing into wakefulness. Her glossy dark hair covered all of her face, but he thought her eyes were still closed. Baz fought the urge to brush back her hair and kiss her cheek. Instead, he stroked her spine with two fingers and murmured, "Hey."

She freaked like a cat thrown into water, scrambling and springing in the same motion.

Well, maybe not exactly like a cat.

Unlike a cat, Nella didn't land on her feet.

She tumbled off her side of the bed and yelled, "Fuck!"