He winked and pushed out of the car. “That’s only the one part.” The back door opened and he retrieved her bag.
What the hell was happening to her life? Charlie missing and maybe taken. Chased from her home. Now, taking shelter in a run-down warehouse in a not-great part of town. “Good to know, I guess,” she murmured. Grabbing her pillow and her purse, she opened her door and stepped out. And almost walked right into Nick, who’d apparently come around to open her door. Warmth filled her chest, though she couldn’t say why the polite gesture should affect her after everything else he’d done for her tonight. “Sorry,” she murmured.
He placed his hand at the small of her back, and his heat seeped into her skin through the thin shirt. “This way.” She wasn’t a small woman, but he almost made her feel it walking next to him. And it wasn’t just his height, though he had a good seven or eight inches on her five-foot-seven-inch frame. It was the breadth of his shoulders, the almost defensive way he moved next to her, his general presence.
On the brick by the back door, he flipped up a metal covering and entered a code into a backlit panel. The door disengaged with a snap and a low buzz. He opened it and gestured for her to go first.
The inside was pretty much what she’d expected. Brick walls, gray-painted cement steps, and a gray, metal railing. A wall-mounted light with grating over the bulb cast a dull illumination over the entryway, as did another at the bottom of the steps.
“Hard Ink’s through there,” Nick said, pointing at a door adjacent to the staircase. “In fact—” He tugged the door open and stepped through, holding it for her to follow. She braced it with her back but didn’t enter. She was holding a pillow, for God’s sake. Wouldn’t whoever was here think that was weird? “Hey,” he said to someone inside. He waved her in.
Oh, what the hell. Maybe it was good that someone else knew she was here. Though, truly, no part of her thought the sense of safety she felt around him was misplaced. Was that because he’d known and fought with her father? Or because he’d shown up to help exactly when she’d needed him? She propped the pillow against the wall and rounded the corner to join him.
The room was large and airy, surrounded on three sides by warm brick walls. On the longest wall, a large graffiti-like painting read, “Bleed with me and you will forever be my brother.” It was a striking design, a jagged cursive with reds and grays and blacks blending through the words.
Nick’s brother, Jeremy, sat at a round table in the middle working on an intricate abstract drawing, a sketch pad, printed pictures, and a book on modern art in front of him. “Hey,” he said, glancing up. He did a double take, shook his hair out of his eyes, and straightened in his chair. “Oh, hey. Uh, uh . . .”
“Becca,” she and Nick said at the same time. Yeah, this wasn’t awkward at all.
“Hi, Becca. Good to see you again.” Smiling, he glanced from her to Nick and back again.
“What are you working on?” Nick asked, ignoring Jeremy’s unasked but obvious questions.
The younger Rixey glanced down at the drawing. “Oh, an abstract tat I have to start tomorrow.”
Nick walked over to the table. “That’s a monster.”
“Guy already has ink, but I’ve never worked on him before. This is easily four or five hours’ work. Might take two sittings. Speaking of which . . .” He flipped to another page in his pad. “This dude came in right before closing and asked for a design along these lines, about this size.”
Curious, Becca stepped closer. Jeremy had black letters in a block font on the backs of each of his fingers, but she couldn’t make out what they read.
Nick glanced to the page and frowned. “And?”
“This one’s totally yours, man.” He smiled up at his brother, clearly undeterred by the volume with which hell no radiated off Nick’s body and expression. Becca couldn’t help but compare the two men. Though they shared the same dark hair and light green eyes, Jeremy was lean where Nick had bulk, and he had tattoos everywhere she could see, except for his face. And it wasn’t just their appearances that differed. Jeremy seemed to have an inherent playfulness that was so different from Nick’s hard-edged seriousness.
“I’m busy,” Nick said.
Wait, Nick did tattoos?
Jeremy laughed. “You don’t even know when I want you to do it.”
Uh, apparently. Well, that was . . . unexpected.
Becca got about a hundred times more curious to see someone get a tattoo. His big hands creating art on skin. What would that be like? She imagined the skin was hers, and her stomach did this completely maddening flippy thing. “You’re a tattoo artist?” The question was out of her mouth before she thought to voice it.
Both men looked at her. “Yes,” Jeremy said at the same time Nick said, “Not really.”