Herself.
Part of her wanted to ask Tina if she looked all right, but she knew she looked okay. She looked normal—not beautiful, not pretty, but normal. Not ugly or scary, but just her usual self.
She could hear her psych prof in her head saying something about self-sabotage, but she refused to believe that. And, deep down, she realized that maybe she didn’t want to put a lot of effort into the whole ordeal, because then, when he said no, she could blame it on the fact that she hadn’t done much to win his affections.
She knew she could live with that.
Tina parked in a space that was fairly close to the shop and then looked at Kory. “All set?”
Kory nodded. “Yeah.”
“Nervous?”
“Hell, yes.”
Tina smiled. “You be okay?”
“Yep. I can do this.”
“Good luck. Remember, he might actually say yes.”
Kory shook her head, hardly able to believe she was doing it, but it was like she’d told herself earlier that day: the worst he could do would be to say no. And what would that hurt? It wouldn’t hurt anything. It wasn’t like she’d invested herself into a relationship or as though she’d spent countless hours fantasizing about him.
Well, maybe she had…but this might be the perfect way to get over him.
Shit or get off the pot. She’d had an aunt who used to say that. She could barely remember that woman, only that she had been missing one of her canine teeth and she would say that stupid phrase a lot.
Of course, Kory might have been misremembering. It had been far too long since she’d seen the woman, and her memory might have been faulty.
She shook her head, trying to focus. “Okay, see you in a bit.” She smiled at Tina and got out of the car. Once she stood, she ran her hands along the front of her t-shirt, smoothing it out, and then she took another deep breath.
It was still warm outside, even though the sun had disappeared behind the mountain a while ago. She walked the few feet to the front of The Iron Maiden and pulled on the glass door. She felt the cool air rush out of the building as she walked in and her eyes adjusted to the semi-dark of the huge front area of the shop.
Richie was at the counter, cleaning the glass top with a window cleaner. He looked up when he heard the tinkle of the bell that indicated he had a customer. She could see the look on his face. Oh. Her again. But then he forced a smile as Kory made her way toward the cash register. “Hi. What can I do for you?” He shook his head to the side to force his long black bangs out of his eyes.
Kory tried to smile at Richie. He acted like he expected her to buy some new jewelry, which wouldn’t have been unusual, but she knew he knew better. She’d been in this shop no fewer than seven times since Christmas, and only once was that to buy jewelry. The other times were for a piercing. What would make this time odd, though, would be that she’d just been there the week before. And that fact registered with him, because he then said, “Having problems with your newest site?”
She shook her head. “Oh, no. I just, uh, wondered if I could talk to Stone.”
There was that look on his face again. “He’s with a customer.”
“Right. But after?”
Richie almost sighed out loud, and that made Kory realize that Stone probably had lots of women who came in just “to talk.” She wondered if she should make something up about wanting to ask him about a career in tattooing or maybe about a new place to pierce on her body, but before she could, Richie said, “Yeah, I guess. Have a seat, and I’ll let him know you’re here.”
She peeked in the rear of the shop and saw that he was tattooing some guy’s back. It looked like he was doing an outline, so it could take a while. She got on her phone and texted Tina. Looks like he’s busy. Could be a while. Want to do this some other time?
She chewed on her bottom lip, feeling nervous. She had so much pent-up energy and she just wanted to get this over with. It wasn’t like she could march in there and ask Stone if he could take a break for a few minutes so she could chat with him.
Tina answered her back. No. I will gladly wait. Ur just nervous. Want me to come in there and wait with you?
Kory felt her blood pressure rise. Hell, NOOOOO!!!
Okay, just checking. She followed it up with a smiley face emoticon.
Kory sat on the couch another five minutes and texted Tina again. If you wanted to hang somewhere, I can let you know when I’m done.
She heard the door swing open, because the music got louder. She was almost afraid to look, because she felt out of place. Oh, she looked like she belonged, but she was sure her eyes would be a dead giveaway. She was nervous as hell.
But she did look—couldn’t help herself. Stone was walking the guy out and he approached the counter. She couldn’t hear all of the conversation, but she gathered that the guy was going to be coming back several times—at least once for more outlining and then for color, but the guy was a busy man.