Rainer walked over to give Jake a high five, and then he and Finley were out on the street where a light drizzle had started to fall.
They walked a few doors down to the plain storefront that Rainer was renting. Called simply Hollows Ink, it was his tattoo shop. Not surprisingly, Finley was one of just a few clients—The Hollows wasn’t exactly a tattoo kind of crowd. But an investor friend had fronted him some money, enough to buy top-of-the-line equipment and get a sign for the window, cover nearly a year of rent. Rainer figured he could make the shop work inside that amount of time. He had a blog with lots of followers, a Pinterest page where he posted his best work. A wealthy couple that had found him online had come in from the city recently, promising to send friends his way. In the meantime, he was working at Jake’s to pay the bills. Rainer looked like a total slacker, but he could be industrious as hell when he wasn’t high. And he didn’t give up—on anything.
Inside, Finley shivered as she stripped off her shirt, her exposed skin tingling in the cold.
“Is the heat on?” she asked.
Rainer was watching her in the floor-to-ceiling mirror that dominated the far wall. When their eyes met, he smiled. Then he turned on the ultrasonic and its hum filled the shop.
“I’ll turn it up,” he said. He rubbed his hands together, his breath coming out in white puffs. “Trying to keep costs low so I’m turning it all the way off when I’m not here.”
He walked over to the thermostat and a few seconds later warm air blew through the vents above Finley. She stayed where she could feel the heat, rubbing at her skin. She hated the cold; it hurt, made her feel vulnerable and lonely.
The walls were fresh-painted black, and Rainer had placed two tattoo chairs and a table, some armrests against the mirrored wall. An impressive rainbow of ink colors—blood red, fuchsia, electric lavender, cerulean, sunshine yellow—stood sentry on a floor-to-ceiling rack. Through the curtain that covered the door to the back room, she could see his mattress on the floor, the sheets a rumpled mess.
“It looks good in here,” she said. He’d hung some pictures, too. Nicely framed images of some of his best work, much of it from Finley’s body.
“I’m getting there,” he said. His smile told her he was feeling good about things. “I have an appointment tomorrow, and another one the day after that.”
“Who’s coming in?” she said. Frankly, she was a tiny bit shocked that he was making this work, that he seemed sober enough even though he was tending bar, and that the shop didn’t smell like weed.
“A kid from the college wants his girlfriend’s name on his arm—big mistake. But I’m not going to tell him that.”
Finley looked down at her nails. Was that a dig? Rainer had Finley’s name tattooed on his arm—a design around his right wrist that looked like a tribal band. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t let go. Once it’s written in ink on your skin, it’s forever. You can laser it off—if you don’t mind the scar.
“Oh!” he went on, as he readied the equipment on a tray. Like a doctor preparing for surgery, he washed his hands vigorously in the small sink, then dried them. “Guess who followed me on Twitter? Ari Ash. You know—from Miami Tats? His work kills.”
“That’s—great,” she said. The night she’d told him she was leaving—him, Seattle, her family, everyone—he’d cried. They’d been alone in his parents’ house, sitting at the dining room table, lights off, the dim light of dusk washing in through the windows. Things had not been good between them, and she really hadn’t had any idea that it would come as a shock. But she couldn’t forget the look on his face—the sad wiggle of his eyebrows, the drop of his lower lip. In her heart, she didn’t really think he loved her, not the way she loved him. She was surprised to see that she’d been wrong.
“Please, Fin,” he’d said. “Don’t do this. I’m sorry. I’ll do better.”
He’d actually dropped to his knees from the chair where he’d been sitting.
“It’s okay,” she said, dropping down with him. “It’s not forever. I just need to get away from things here—my parents, our friends, all the mess.”
“Me?”
No, she thought, the “me” I am when I’m with you. With Rainer she was jealous, possessive. She drank too much, smoked too much pot. She was lazy, neglected her studies, fought all the time with her parents about him. When they were out with their friends, there were fights, high drama. The other stuff—Finley’s visitors, her dreams—it was all reaching a crescendo. When Eloise told her about Sacred Heart College and suggested that she apply and come live here so that Eloise could help Finley understand what she was, she agreed.