Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 47176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 236(@200wpm)___ 189(@250wpm)___ 157(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 236(@200wpm)___ 189(@250wpm)___ 157(@300wpm)
That’s another reason I’m sure she must’ve cared about Jamie more than anybody else. She never talked about him, as though what they shared was too special to spread around.
Turning away, I rub at my wrist, at the spot where I’m thinking about getting the tattoo.
“Ready to take the plunge?” Kelly calls after me.
I turn back and find her smiling a little wider. If we’re not talking about Jamie – or steering the conversation close to him – she seems way more like her regular self.
“How could you tell?”
“You’re fondling your wrist. It’s hard to miss.”
I laugh, shaking my head. “Fondling. That’s one way to put it.”
She arches her eyebrow, saying nothing. It’s the face she’s given me for as long as I can remember whenever she thought I was holding back on something.
It brings to mind the time she caught me smoking half a cigarette my friend gave me, which I hated anyway. But also further back to when I stole a cookie from Mom’s plate.
That memory’s vague but cherished.
She picks up her mug and gently blows on it. “I think you should do it.”
“But what about....”
“When you’re a teacher. Okay. Number one, I’m pretty sure teachers are allowed tattoos. Remember Mrs. Jablinsky? Number two, you can always wear a watch if you don’t want anybody seeing it.”
“Damn, Kelly,” I grin. “You just solved all my problems. How am I going to complain now?”
“Where will you go?” she asks.
“If I go,” I tell her, “I guess I’ll go to the same place you did.”
She winces. “What – Jamie?”
“No,” I say quickly. “I meant where you got the butterfly.”
“Ah, right,” she says, nodding. “Yeah, they’re good.”
Better than Jamie? I want to ask, but then Kelly gives me a look, letting me know she wants me to leave her alone. One of those brief, wordless sister communications makes me feel closer to her.
Which just makes it worse.
The second I leave her room, closing the door behind me, my thoughts are right back on her ex.
I’m an awful sister.
CHAPTER
TWO
Jamie
I stand at my office window, looking down two floors onto the street below. There was a dealer at the corner, some little prick trying his luck, but he’s gone now.
I had a talk with him, but nothing violent or threatening.
Just a talk, letting him know he couldn’t deal here, not near my business.
The sludge of the city. The sickness of it.
My jaw is clenched so tight my teeth hurt.
At least it’s all over with Kelly. That whole thing was a drain on my money and my attention. But I wouldn’t change anything and wouldn’t take it back.
Those two months were necessary, maybe more for her than for me.
From the adjacent room, I can hear Charley, one of my employees, talking with a customer as the tattoo gun buzzes in the background. I’ve got a full-back piece in fifteen minutes, a biker I’ve been working with for a few months now.
Turning into my office, I catch sight of myself in the tall mirror.
I blink – reality flits – and there she is. As if by magic.
It’s wrong. I know I should stop.
Kelly said she never wanted to see me again. She wanted me out of her life. And I understand why.
But still…
I imagine Jennifer standing with me, Kelly’s little sister, in the reflection.
I imagine her with her shoulder-length hair, pale brown, wavy, and messy in the best way. I think of her full smile and wide innocent eyes, her twenty-year-old curvy body screaming at me to grab her hips, to massage her ass…and her lips, so kissable and mine.
Laughing, I stalk out of the room.
I can’t start with that stuff again. The mine stuff.
The thoughts about Jennifer that never seem to stop.
This should be a good thing, never having to see Kelly again. It means I can forget Jennifer.
As if I ever could.
I remember the first time we met. It was at a party at a friend’s bar. I wasn’t in a bad mood, but I preferred to be at home, working out, reading, or walking Benny and Lucifer.
But it had to be done.
“Oh, here she is. Jamie…meet my baby sister, Jennifer."
She stood there in a checkered dress with a collar and the hem of her dress below her knees. She was wearing tights, and her hair was tied back in an untidy bun.
To everybody else, maybe she looked like any other twenty-year-old woman.
As I gazed at her, I kept waiting for the party to pause, for people to stop and turn to drink her in.
Something was whelming in me, like a primal need to conquer, claim, take.
I had to remind myself Kelly was my girlfriend. We were together. But I already wanted her sister so much more.
When she offered her hand and a shy “hello,” I focused on not pulling her toward me. Her palm was warm, her hand trembling a little.