Is she sorry for knocking me in the shin or for leaving me this morning? “What did you do today?” I ask.
She makes a face and points toward her outfit. “Playing in the subway.”
“How did it go?”
She shrugs. “It was cold. My butt is still freezing,” she admits. I get an immediate and strong image of me helping to warm up her ass. I saw that perfect globe that is her ass cheek this very morning. “What?” she asks.
My thoughts must have played out on my face. “Nothing,” I say. But a grin tugs at the corners of my lips.
“What’s so funny?” she asks, her head tilting to the side.
I shake my head. “My mind was in the gutter if you must know,” I admit. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. Please go ahead.” I motion for her to keep talking using my hands.
“You were thinking about my butt,” she says. And now she’s grinning too.
Heat creeps up my cheeks. She’s so damn pretty.
The waitress comes to the table with menus, and lays one in front of each of us. “Welcome,” she says. “Do you want to know our specials?” She blinks at me, trying to catch my eyes. I make it a point not to look at her.
Kit nods in answer to her question. She rattles off some menu items and their prices, and I see Kit reach into her pocket and count her money beneath the table. There’s no f**king way I’m letting her buy dinner.
“What can I get for you to drink?”
Kit arches a brow at me and I motion from her to me and back so she’ll get me what she’s having. “Root beer?” she asks.
I nod. The waitress leaves us with the two menus. I open mine and she doesn’t. “Do you know what you want?” I ask.
“What are you having?” She smiles at me.
I open the other menu in front of her and point to the word at the top. “What do you see when you look at that?”
She scrunches up her nose. “I see someone who thinks he can teach me to read.” She closes the menu. “Believe me, better people than you have tried.”
“Who tried?” I ask.
She takes a sip of her root beer through a straw, her lips pursing around it. “A better question would be who didn’t try. I have been poked and prodded and put through special ed and been to therapists who thought they could unlock my brain. No one could.”
She doesn’t look upset by this. She just looks resigned to it. I open the menu back up, just because I’m curious. I point to the word at the top of the page again. “What does that say?” I ask.
She looks down at it and closes it. “I know words,” she says. She looks like she really wants to explain it to me, and I really want to hear it. “I can spell words. And I know what they mean. It’s just the way they lay on the page that’s hard for me.” She shrugs. “I don’t expect you to understand.” She’s looking everywhere but at me now, and I wish I hadn’t pushed it.
“So, you know the words, and how to spell them in your head?” That baffles me.
“Crazy, isn’t it?” She laughs, but there’s no smile on her face. “Dyslexia’s a bitch.”
The waitress reappears with a basket full of bread and places it in the center of the table. Kit reaches for a piece and I wonder if she ate today.
“Did you decide what you want?” the waitress asks. I point to the chicken parmigiana. She nods and looks at me funny. She’s catching on that something isn’t right. But apparently, she still finds me intriguing.
“What’s good?” Kit asks her. She did this same thing at the diner. It must be how she copes.
“The chicken parmigiana is amazing,” she says, smiling down at me. Kit’s not impressed. “But the alfredo is my favorite.”
I raise my brows at her in encouragement. She laughs. “Ok, but if I don’t like it, I’m taking your chicken,” she warns. I nod. “I’ll take the alfredo,” she says to the waitress.
Kit lifts a piece of bread to her lips and takes a bite. A crumb sticks to her lip and I want to reach over and catch it, and bring it to my lips. But I don’t dare. I have her at dinner with me. If I push her too hard, she’s going to run away.
“Did you eat today?” I blurt out.
Her face flushes and she nods. She’s lying. I’m sure of it.
I push the bread basket toward her and say, “Eat.” She takes another piece.
She chews silently for a minute and then she looks at me. Her face is soft when she says, “What you did for that woman in the shop, with the tattoos…” I nod when she stops. She’s referring to the nipple tats. “That was amazing and beautiful. Where did you learn to do that?”
I shrug. I don’t remember learning it. I just knew I could draw it. And if I can draw it, I can run a tat of it. “I think she was pleased.”
“Are you kidding?” She slaps the table. “She was ecstatic. And they really were beautiful. Like art. Can I see your tattoos?” she asks hesitantly.
I’m wearing my coat, so I have to shrug out of it to show her. I want to show her my art. I drew most of them, and my brothers put them on me. But I take my coat off and lay my hands face down on the table. She leans over, looking closely. I have full sleeves, which means I have tats from my neck all the way to my wrists.
She touches the lips on my forearm with a light finger. The hair on my arms stands up, but I pretend I don’t notice. “Why did you get this one?” she asks.
I smile. “That one goes with this one.” I point to my other arm. “It’s something my mother used to say.”
Her forehead crinkles as she looks at the cross on my other arm.
“From your lips to God’s ears,” I explain. “In my case, I have a lot of distance between my lips and God’s ears. That’s why they’re on different arms.”
“Do you see your mother often?” she asks. She’s still eating bread, and that’s good. I want to keep talking to her so she’ll keep eating. I know she hasn’t eaten today.
I shake my head. “She died a few years ago.”
“Oh.” Her mouth stops moving, and she swallows hard. “I’m so sorry.”
I shrug. It was a freak accident.
“And your dad?” she asks.
“He left after Mom died,” I explain. This part is always difficult. “There were just too many of us, I think.” I laugh. But it’s not funny.
“So, it’s just you and your brothers?” she asks.
I nod. “Paul took responsibility for everyone when our dad left. He had to so we wouldn’t all be split up.”
“Wow.” That’s all she says. Just wow. She looks baffled.
“We make do,” I explain. I don’t want her to feel sorry for me. “How about you? Where’s your family?” I wait, like a kid in a candy store.
But she shakes her head. “No,” she says.
“That’s not fair,” I say.
She holds up a finger, just like I do to her all the time. “I know it’s not fair,” she says. “But it’s better if you don’t know.”
“Better for who?” I ask. I’m a bit irked that she’s keeping secrets. She has a right to them. But I don’t have to like it.
“My situation is difficult,” she begins. “And I can’t explain it to you.”
She looks back down at my tats. Her eyes play across them. There are too many to count. But I need to show her the one that’s hers. “I want to show you something,” I say. “But I’m afraid you’re going to be angry at me.”
She’s suddenly on guard. “Why? What is it?”
I turn my wrist over and point to her tattoo on my inner wrist. It’s a bare spot I’d been saving for something special. She leans toward it and all of her breath rushes from her body. I can feel it across my hand when she exhales. “That’s my tat,” she says.
She takes my hand in hers and lifts it toward her face. “Are you angry?” I ask.
She looks up at me briefly and then back down at the tattoo. She’s taking in every facet of it. Her hand trembles as she holds tightly to mine. “You changed it.”
“I felt like you needed a way out.”
I put it on my wrist because I was intrigued by the secrets inside. It’s art. And I appreciate art in all its forms.
She swallows. Hard. Then her eyes start to fill with tears. She blinks them back for as long as she can. And then she gets up and runs toward the bathroom.
Shit. Now I f**ked up. I made her cry. She runs by the waitress, who startles. The waitress starts in my direction, a sway in her hips. I get up and follow Kit. I stop outside the door to the ladies’ room and press my hand against it. I don’t know what I’m waiting for. She’s in there crying and I can’t hear her through the door to be sure she’s all right. Fuck it. I’m not leaving her in there upset. I push through the door and I don’t see any feet in the stalls when I bend over.
Where the f**k did she go? I push doors open, but the last one is locked. I stand up on my tiptoes and look over the top. She’s standing there with her forearms pressed against the wall, her head down between her arms, and her back is shaking. She’s crying.
I knock on the stall door and say, “Let me in, Kit.” She doesn’t say anything. I wouldn’t be able to hear her if she did. I step back onto my tiptoes and look over. She’s still crying. “Let me in,” I repeat. She doesn’t move, so I walk into the stall next to hers and stand up on the toilet. I rock the partition between the stalls gently. It might hold my weight. There’s only one way to find out. I hoist myself up and over the wall, bringing my legs over the top slowly and carefully, and then I hop down.
Before I can reach for her, she’s in my arms, her arms sliding around my neck. She’s still sobbing, and her body shakes against mine. I tilt her face up to mine because I can’t see her lips to tell if she’s saying anything to me or not. I need to apologize. I didn’t expect her to get so upset. I’ll have it covered up with something else if it bothers her this much.
My heart twists inside my chest. I really f**ked up. “I’m sorry,” I tell her, looking down into her face. Her face is soaked with tears and she freezes, looking up at me. I can feel her like a heartbeat in my chest. She steps on the toes of my boots, and then rocks onto her tiptoes. She pulls my head down with a hand at the back of my neck.
Her brown eyes are smoldering, and black shit is running down her cheeks, but I don’t care. She’s never looked more beautiful to me. I hold her face in my hands and wipe beneath her eyes with my thumbs. Her breath tickles my lips and she leans over even closer. She’s standing on my f**king boots, and I don’t care. She can do whatever it takes to get her closer to me.
“Why did you do it?” she asks, moving back enough that I can see her lips.
I already told her. I thought she needed a way out. All I added to the tattoo was a keyhole right in the center of the guitar. It’s a simple design really. “I don’t know,” I say. I want to explain it to her, but I can’t. Not right now. Her breath is blowing across my lips and she smells like yeast from the bread and root beer. And I’ve never wanted to kiss a girl so much in my life. But she was f**king crying. I can’t take advantage of her.