Friday
I’ve been working on a particularly tricky tat for a client, and I can’t quite get it right. I motion Logan over to take a look.
“What do you think?” I glance up at him. He pinches his lips together and shakes his head. “What?” I ask, throwing up my hands. “Use your words.”
Instead, he takes my pencil and spins the paper toward him. He draws on it for a second and then shoves it toward me. He hands my pencil back and grins.
“I hate you,” I say, when I see that he just added two lines and made my drawing perfect.
“I love you, too,” he says. He leans over quickly and kisses my forehead. I squeeze my eyes closed and let him.
He makes a noise and goes over to the bulletin board. He starts to draw little hearts around the edges of a posting. I tap his shoulder so he’ll look up. “What are you doing?”
“Adding hearts,” he says, like I should have guessed.
I tap him again so he’ll look at me. “Why are you doing that?”
He shrugs. “It needed hearts.”
“What needed hearts?” I ask. I lean closer so I can read the paper.
My own heart thuds. “It doesn’t need hearts,” I say. It needs condoms. Well, that is, if I’m not already pregnant. I look up at Logan. “He doesn’t know what he’s doing, does he?” I ask.
He squeezes my shoulder. “Go easy on him, will you?”
“Why?”
“He quit Kelly for you, Friday.” He glares at me. “Like, cold turkey. He quit her. He’s been f*cking Kelly for years. And he broke things off with her.”
“How do you know all this?” I ask.
“We talk.” He gestures toward his brothers, who are all draped around the room like furniture. Really big, good-looking furniture.
“Of course, you do,” I say. I pull the thumbtack from the ad and take a deep breath.
“Go easy on him,” he says again.
“F*ck that,” I reply.
He grins and shrugs. “I can’t say I didn’t try.” He takes my shoulders and turns me toward Paul’s office. “Go Friday on his ass.” He slaps me on the butt while Pete and Sam snicker and high-five one another.
I walk to the back of the shop and knock on Paul’s office door since it’s closed. That usually means he wants to be left alone. “What?” he calls.
I open the door and stick my head in. “Do you always answer the door like that?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says. He has the phone balanced between his shoulder and his ear. “What do you want?”
“Are you on the phone?”
“On hold, Friday. What do you want?”
I slap the paper down on his desk and hold my flat palm over it. “What the f*ck is this?”
He looks down at it. “That was a perfectly good invitation, until somebody f*cked it up with hearts,” he growls.
I look down at it. “I kind of like the hearts,” I admit.
“Next time, I’ll use hearts,” he says. He smiles.
“You’re looking for a roommate?” I ask. I toy with my lip piercing until his gaze lands there, and then I force myself to stop. “Since when?”
“Since I found out you’re homeless,” he says.
“I’m not homeless,” I protest.
“Where are you living after today?” he asks.
I’m not at all sure about that, but he doesn’t need to know it. “Shut up,” I say instead.
He pushes the paper toward me. “I have an extra room. You need a place to stay. Let’s not make it more than it is, okay?”
“That’s all you’d expect?” I ask, hating how quiet my voice suddenly gets.
“You could be pregnant, Friday,” he says. “What else would I want from you?”
My breath catches. He is so right. I have been looking at this like it’s all about us, but it’s not. It’s all about this baby I have to protect for nine months, a baby he’s now fully aware of, even if he’s not aware of the details.
“How much?” I ask.
“How much can you afford?” he asks.
He knows full well how much money I make; he pays me. But he isn’t aware of the money I make doing commissioned portraits and other artwork.
He waves a hand in the air. “Don’t worry about what it costs,” he says. “Pay me whatever you can. The room is just sitting there empty. And if you live with me, I won’t have to worry about you being homeless.”
I snort. “Like you’d worry anyway.”
His brow rises. “I worry. I worry about you all the f*cking time. But if you live with me, I won’t have to. So take pity on me and just take the f*cking room, dammit.”
“Okay.”
He looks surprised. “Okay?”
“Yes.”
He grins. “Okay.”
“Can I come over tonight?” I ask.
He nods and brings the phone back to his mouth and starts to speak. I close his door.
Reagan’s parents are coming tonight. I was going to go to Logan and Emily’s, but I’d rather not have to hear their bed thumping against the wall all night. Emily is almost nine months pregnant and those two still go at it like rabbits.
Wait. Will I have to hear Paul’s bed thumping against the wall? Shit. I didn’t even think about that.