“Sure. She’s classy, elegant, made of sturdy stuff, expensive as hell to keep running and keep pretty. She’s only good to me if I’m good to her, so obviously she’s a girl.”
I rolled my eyes and then wiped my hands on the outside of my pants when I finished off my own dinner. Briefly I thought my dad would be horrified at the action but I shoved that thought down and instead focused on Zeb and only Zeb, “How long did it take you to restore her?”
He shrugged, got to his feet, and moved to pry open the massive bucket of white primer he had been using as a chair. “My buddy Wheeler sold the body to me for next to nothing when I got out of prison. We went to high school together and I think he knew I needed something to keep me busy because the only kind of work I could find right after being released was shit work for shit pay. Every week I would give him a few bucks here or there and he would find me a part or a piece of the motor and we slowly but surely got her all together. It was one of the reasons I knew I had to find a long-term way to support myself. Just because I had a record didn’t mean I wasn’t a valuable employee or a hard worker. I got really sick of being treated like a second-class citizen because of one mistake.”
His eyes cut to mine and all I could do was nod in sympathy as he poured the liquid into trays and fished a couple of roller brushes out of a plastic bag.
“I actually met Rowdy through Wheeler. He had done a bunch of Wheeler’s tattoo work, and when I told Wheeler I wanted something to remind me not to do stupid things that would cost me years of my life again, he recommended Rowdy and the Marked shop. Rowdy was the one that recommended me to the guys that own the tattoo shop when they decided to open and renovate the new location downtown. It all seemed very meant to be, ya know?”
I did know. Everything was tied together with thin threads of fate, and when one loosened or tightened it was surprising how impactful it could be. Kind of like how I had ended up here with Zeb now.
He motioned me over to the wall and showed me how to roll the primer onto the surface in a wide W pattern and then how to go back and fill in the spots. I must have looked as clueless as I felt because he was patient and calm while he went over his careful instructions with me a second time. After I felt like I got the hang of it all, I asked him, “So what tattoo did Rowdy give you to remind you to think first and act second?”
He held an arm out and pointed with the roller to a broken hourglass that covered the entirety of his forearm and hand, all the sand pouring out of it and falling into bricks that built up a wall that circled his wrist all in a seamless flow. He flipped his arm over and showed me the tipped-over birdcage on the back of his hand and the swarm of black crows that were lined up on a barren tree all inked in black on the opposite side. “All kinds of reminders of how hard it is to be locked up while life moves on for everyone else without you. He did a great job.”
I nodded and turned my attention back to the wall. “He’s very talented. I’m proud of him. I think it’s amazing that he found a way to make a living off of something he really loves. It’s amazing the way he gets to leave his mark on people for the better.”
He made a soft noise. “It must run in the family.”
That was one of the nicest things anyone had ever said to me, and if he wasn’t careful I was going to drop the roller and jump him. I muttered a soft thank-you but refused to take my attention off the task at hand. My resolve was already paper-thin . . . throw in his kindness and it became nonexistent.
We spent the next hour or so in silence steadily working our way across one wall and onto the next. The repetitive motion and the sound of the roller across the wall was surprisingly soothing, as was whatever music was coming from Zeb’s phone. It wasn’t quite country and not quite rock, but something that was the best of something in-between, and I really liked it. We worked mostly in silence, just muttering a question here or there, and then there was the point where Zeb asked me if I cared if he took his shirt off. It was hotter than hell in the old house with no working air-conditioning even if it was late fall, so of course I told him it wouldn’t bother me. I was lying.
It bothered me . . . in the best way possible.
When he crossed his arms and peeled the cotton of his shirt over the seemingly endless amount of rippling muscles that adorned his chest and stomach, it made my mouth go dry. It felt like he was moving in slow motion, revealing more skin, more ink, inch by inch just so he could tease me with hints of his work-hewed body. I wanted to lick my lips and then lick him but that would let him know I was watching like a greedy voyeur. He was hard and colorful everywhere. I was having a hell of a time keeping my gaze off of all that decorated and defined muscle, so eventually I gave up and kept checking him out whenever he wasn’t looking in my direction.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the wings of the big firebird he had inked across his rib cage flex and move as he worked toward the top of the wall. I was also trying not to watch the way the pinup girl seductively sitting on a hammer taunted me with the words “hit it hard” every time his massive biceps flexed. There was ink and color everywhere on him and I wanted to soak every single inch of it in. I was so absorbed in trying to covertly check him out instead of what I should be doing that I missed that spot where I thought I had left the paint tray and ended up tripping over the stupid thing, which, of course, made a huge mess and had white primer oozing all over me and the floor. To make matters worse, the noise startled me so much that I lost my grip on the roller, which went flying like a weapon where it ended up hitting that pinup girl on his arm right in her smug face.