"This won't take long," he promised, fishing a laptop out of a locked drawer and laying it on the table. "I've been working on something for awhile that I think you'll like." He paused for a moment and I was certain he was going to add something, but instead he just sat down and started drawing. I let my eyes drift closed against the bright lights above me and tried to breathe. It wasn't the actual act of getting a tattoo that was freaking me out. Obviously, I was no stranger to the art. It was something else that was bothering me, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Of course, it probably had something to do with my stepbrother. Whenever I had a feeling I couldn't quite shake, butterflies in my stomach, or a perpetual shiver that clung to my spine, it always had to do with him. He's such an asshole.
I kept my eyes closed for a while, the smell of antiseptic burning my nostrils as I waited for Florian to work his magic. A few minutes later, he told me he was sending something to the printer and left. When he came back, he had a digital painting in his hand.
"I want you to take a look at this and let me know what you think," he said, drawing my eyes open and focusing my attention on the art held out for my inspection. When I sat up and reached out to take it, a strange look passed over Flor's face, almost like he was unsure. I blinked and it was gone, replaced with that cocky self-assuredness that I was always so used to seeing.
My fingers curled around the page and pulled it towards me, an image of a white stag greeting me with dark eyes and an enigmatic expression that somehow, strangely, reminded me of Florian. Its majestic form was silhouetted against a dark sky and a gray-yellow moon obscured by clouds. It was both so like and unlike my stepbrother that I wasn't sure what to say.
"If you don't like it," he told me, dragging a box of cigarettes out of his pocket and putting one between his lips, "you can tell me. I'm a big boy, I can take it." He winked at me and sighed, slipping the fingers of his right hand into his pocket and leaning against the wall, centered between two of his paintings.
I blinked up at him.
"Oh, God, Flor. No, no, I love it. It's so … simple but so powerful." He watched me as I spoke, eyes roving my face, like he was trying to discern if I was really telling the truth or not. For a second there, I actually felt like we might have a moment, but then Flor had to go and do one of his usual shrugs, standing up and moving towards the door.
"Think about it. Make sure it's what you want, what you really, really want." I swallowed hard and pulled the page closer to my chest. Somehow, I wasn't sure he was talking only about the tattoo. "I'm gonna go have a smoke."
I watched Flor walk out of the room and then dug my phone from my pocket. As I'd expected, there were already several texts from Addi. Rather than read them all, I simply called her back.
"Hey bitch," I said, trying to sound casual. I felt anything but. The second he graduated high school, Flor moved out of the house and I barely saw him. Then, a few months back, he started making appearances at family dinners and get-togethers again. I was finally starting to feel like we were becoming friends again. It was just … weird. I couldn't quite get a feel on his emotions and in turn, I couldn't quite get a feel on mine either.
I knew Addison could tell the moment she heard my voice over the phone.
"You better not be doing anything stupid," she told me and I gawped, leaning forward and curling over the printout protectively.
"I'm not," I said, knowing I sounded defensive. I held the phone with my right hand and set the paper down in my lap. "I'm just maybe, sort of, kind of getting a tattoo?" It came out as a question. I'd always been a little bit of a wimp when it came to Addison. I swear, I could hear her pursing her lips at me.
"Without me? You slut. I want to see you get inked. Where are you? I'm coming over there."
"You are not," I said, glad that she hadn't quite put two and two together yet. The second she discovered that Flor was the one who was going to be tattooing me, she'd freak. "You are going to stay with your Irish soul mate and his parents and convince him to move his butt here and marry you, so I can have the apartment all to myself."
"Hah! A week into this and you're already getting cold feet? Well, you don't need to worry. As soon as Patrick told his parents he was thinking of moving here, they freaked out and left the restaurant. He's in their hotel room with them now and I'm standing alone in the lobby. So, spill it. Where are you?"
I bit my lower lip hard enough that I winced.
My silence was worth a thousand words. Well, one word anyway.
Florian.
"Goddamn it, Abigail Ingram Sharp. Are you letting him tattoo you? Really?"
"He's talented, Addi."
"I know he's talented, Abigail, but you want to fuck him. He's your brother. And an asshole. And a player."
"Stepbrother," I inserted, knowing she wasn't finished with me yet.
"Foulmouthed. Arrogant. Rude. He scared the shit out of Dorian. Pretty sure he doesn't like me either. Abigail, listen. It's not that I think there's anything morally wrong with your feelings or your attraction to Florian, but what do you think would happen if you did sleep together? Awkward family dinners? More hurt feelings? What would your dad do if he ever found out?"
I cringed and a cold chill crept into my blood, stealing some of that rabid heat that Florian always managed to instill in me.
"Florian … he's not exactly a relationship sort of a guy. I mean, even if you could figure out someway to work this whole fiasco into a livable sort of situation, he wouldn't go for it. He'd fuck you and leave you, just like he's done to dozens of other girls."
"Okay, okay, okay." I held up my hand, even though she wasn't there to see it. I took a deep breath and focused on the painting directly in front of me. There was a girl halfway through her transformation into a swan, only it wasn't a pleasant looking sort of a transformation. Her face was twisted into a grimace of pain and her arms were wrapped tightly around her midsection, fingers digging into her pale flesh. "I get it. Nothing's going to happen between us, Addi." The snort she responded with told me she didn't believe me, not one bit. "I'm probably going to be here for a few hours. Come see me later; I'll text you the address."
I hung up before she could respond and jumped when the door opened.
"You ready?" Flor asked me again, and I nodded, watching as he set a fresh printout on the drafting table to the right of the stainless steel counter. The smell of cigarette smoke hung around him, but managed to do absolutely nothing to obscure his usual scent. Florian was masculine without being vulgar, sharp and spicy and sweet all at the same time. Damn him. "You sure you wouldn't be more comfortable with a butterfly or a flower or some shit?" He glanced over at me and I noticed that his shirt was a little rumpled and on his neck, there was a perfect lip print in pastel pink. One of the groupies had gotten to him.
My stomach twisted up in knots and a rush of disappointment surged through me. My brain tried to promise me that there was no way he'd had enough time to go out there and sleep with someone yet my heart was utterly convinced he had. Either way, it shouldn't have mattered to me. He was my brother for fuck's sake.
I shook my head violently, brown curls sliding over my shoulders.
"No, of course not. You should know me better than that, Flor," I said, even though I wasn't sure that he really did. For having known the guy for thirteen years, it always seemed he knew surprisingly little about me when I, pathetically, seemed to know everything about him. Well, everything he'd let me know, that is. I was working under the suspicion that there was a lot under the surface that Flor was hiding. "I don't want a fucking butterfly or a flower. I want that design right there. Let's do this."
His eyebrows raised, but he didn't say a thing, straightening out his shirt and sitting down to flick on the switch for the light box. He put a piece of what looked like tracing paper over the table and proceeded to copy his art onto it. For a while he didn't speak and I started to wonder if I'd somehow done something to piss him off. Flor's tattooed hand moved across the page in a blur of color, his fingers strong and sure, guiding the pencil with an expertise that I could only envy. As far as I knew, I didn't have any passions or special talents. I mean, I was good at school, but what did that really mean if I couldn't decide on a major?