Black Hearts (Sins Duet #1)

I blink and try to focus. For some reason the hairs at the back of my neck are standing up and I’ve got chills, but I’ll get worse than that if I don’t start paying attention to Ginny.

She came out only last year and jokingly refers to herself as the longest closeted queer in San Francisco, even though she’s just a few years older than me. She’s been going kind of wild in the dating scene but recently fell in love with Tamara, a trans woman who’s also a stand-up comic in the Castro. She’s hilarious and sweet, though I think Ginny has fallen for her faster than the other way around. Hence why Ginny’s putting a lot of thought into a zebra-print bra.

“You know, I’d gladly give you advice on what makes your tits look great if only you’d get out there and actually go on a date with someone,” Ginny says, throwing the bra over her shoulder and going back to sorting through the messy rack of lingerie.

“And you know it’s not like I’m not trying. This city sucks for dating,” I remind her. “There’s no one…eligible in class.”

“So then look outside the class.”

I open my mouth to say something but she cuts me off. “Just because it’s art school and we’re in San Francisco doesn’t mean every guy there is gay. Trust me.” Her attention is quickly captured by a turquoise satin bra that matches the streaks in her shaggy blonde hair. “Oooh, I need this one too.”

When I don’t say anything, she adjusts her camera bag and lets out a long sigh. “What about Ben? He has to have hot older friends. He’s pretty hot himself, you know. I’ve learned that hot guys tend to have hot friends.”

I scrunch up my nose. “He does. But they have girlfriends. And they live in Santa Cruz, so even if one of them were single, and I happened to be attracted to them, and it wasn’t weird for Ben, and they happened to be attracted to me, it would be long distance. And there’s the whole fact that I’d be dating one of my brother’s friends and that’s bound to be a problem and a half.”

“He still overprotective?” she asks. “He knows by now you can defend yourself, right?”

I let out a soft laugh. “Honestly, I think he would be more worried for his friends.” I had way too much fun being the teasing, bratty younger sister to Ben while growing up.

Though he’s just four years older, Ben has always been overprotective of me, even though our father had us both in martial arts from an early age, who knows why. We were so young when we started karate and judo that it just became our thing. As we got older and were able to make our own decisions about sports and extracurricular activities, we decided to stick with it, albeit in different ways. I did some Capoeira during high school and still do kickboxing. Ben got into MMA when he was a teen and he’s still training, even competing in state fights.

I’m grateful for it though. While my friends were all forced to play the piano or football, my brother and I were out there after school, learning to kick ass. My dad’s in really good shape but when we press him about whether he did anything like MMA or some kind of fighting when he was younger, he says he was always a lover, not a fighter.

“It’s a good skill to have,” he would always say. “You never know when you’ll need to defend yourself.”

And he’s been right, unfortunately. It was only last year that I was attacked walking up our street, just around Buena Vista Park. It was some sketchy dude, high as a kite, trying to take my backpack, but I managed to deliver a kick to his face before I ran all the way home. At first I was too terrified to walk anywhere alone after that, but then I threw myself back into kickboxing and even had Ben train me in some MMA stuff. Now I feel ready for a fight, even though I hope the opportunity never arises again. It’s just good to feel confident that you can protect yourself.

“Well, maybe we should stop hanging out in the Castro,” Ginny muses, now moving on to babydoll lace camisoles and teddies. “You’re never gonna meet a straight guy at drag queen bingo.”

“Honestly, I’m fine being single,” I tell her, wanting to drop the subject. “I’ll live vicariously through you and Tamara.”

Ginny raises her brows to the heavens. “Like hell you will. Look at you, girl. You’re twenty, you’re stupidly pretty, you have amazing hair, and your thighs and booty make anyone with a pulse want to give them a good ol’ smack. You can have anyone you want. You just have to meet them. And you have to want them.”

“Suddenly I have the urge to get back outside and take some pictures,” I tell her. This sort of talk makes me uncomfortable.

But after Ginny is done with her shopping, she heads out to her apartment in Emeryville and I get on the bus heading home, my mind flipping back and forth between the idea of absolution and thought of never finding the right guy, two entirely different trains of thought that somehow feel the same.

I get off the bus on Haight, just before Ashbury, and my world is back to damp fog. I take my fringe scarf out of my messenger bag and quickly wrap it around my neck as I make my way toward my father’s tattoo parlor.

Sins & Needles is the reason we moved down from Gualala to the city back when I was twelve. My father used to have a successful shop by the same name in Palm Valley in SoCal, before I was born. I imagine he must have sold it for a pretty penny back then and let the stocks grow, because sometimes I wonder how on earth my parents could afford to not only buy a business on upper Haight but a house around the corner. San Francisco housing prices have been the highest in the country for decades now and I know my parents do okay for themselves with their businesses, but they’re still artists, not traders or lawyers.