“Oh, wow, that looks great.” I’d finished with the rose and my customer was beaming down appreciatively at her cleavage. The skin was red and puffy around the outline of the rose, but it’d come out as good as you could expect something like that to look. As I taped a gauze pad to her, I gave her the spiel about the “dos” and “don’ts” of caring for her new tattoo.
“I’m going to tell all my friends about you,” she said. “I hope you’re ready for an onslaught of business.”
She reached out and touched my arm, letting her fingers linger there just a few seconds too long. Long enough for me to know I could suggest we take a detour to the back room and she’d be on her back in two seconds flat.
But ... no. I didn’t find her that attractive, and there was some part of me that had begun to suspect my feelings of ill ease were stemming from all the sleeping around I’d been doing. I hadn’t really investigated these feelings any further, mostly because I wasn’t the sort to sit around analyzing my moods and shit, but it was getting a bit harder to ignore. It was like an annoying, yappy dog, or a mosquito that kept buzzing by your ear: you’d try to ignore it, tune it out, but it was right there, demanding that you pay attention.
I didn’t want to have to think about any of that, though, and I’d put it off for as long as I could, the hope being that eventually the feeling would just disappear. Things were good right now—as good as I could really expect them to be—and I planned to do whatever I could to make sure it stayed that way.
*****
I was just adding some black power lines to one of my regular customer’s latest—an elongated koi fish devouring its own tail—when Todd showed up. He gave me a mock salute when he saw I was with a customer and sat down in one of the lounge chairs up front to wait for me to finish.
“You up for a ride tomorrow?” he asked once we were alone in the shop. “I’m thinking 20, 25 miles.”
“Sure,” I said, though it hadn’t been on my agenda. Todd and I were somewhat unlikely pals, at least looks-wise: he was your typical, clean-cut jock, a category 1 mountain bike racer. Maybe more surprisingly, I was also a cat 1 mountain bike racer, though I wasn’t affiliated with any club and I sure as shit didn’t wear a spandex kit. I ran flat pedals and a rode an all-mountain, full-suspension bike, which pissed off a lot of the cross-country racers who actually took the racing circuit seriously. Todd, though, found it more amusing than anything else, and for that reason, we hung out and went riding together fairly often.
“Cool. Oh, and if you’re not working tomorrow night, Amanda said she wanted to hang out. I’m supposed to forward her number to you.” Todd gave me an expectant look when I didn’t reply. “Amanda? Remember? Tall, blonde chick? Legs for days? Those tits that look fake but aren’t?”
I stifled a laugh. “Wait—you’re trying to hook me up with a girl you’ve already been with?”
“Who says I’ve been with her?”
“Uh ... you just did, if you’re telling me her tits look fake but aren’t.”
“We’ve never hooked up, though not because I haven’t tried. I just know I’m not her type. She likes the bearded tattooed guys. Know anyone who fits that description?”
“So, how do you know her tits are real?”
“I can just tell. But if you want ... you can verify it for me.” He pulled his phone out of pocket. “Here, let me send you her number.”
I didn’t say anything as he started tapping on the screen. I’d let him send me the number, but I probably wouldn’t call her, amazing tits or not.
“She’ll be expecting a call from you,” he said.
“You told her this? You want to be my personal assistant or something?”
He grinned. “I’m far too busy to be anyone’s personal assistant. But I’m always happy to help a bro get laid.”
“I don’t actually need any help in that area.”
“I know. But I figured after all the shit with Danielle, you at least deserved to sleep with someone who wasn’t a total head case.”
The thing was, I’d already slept with a few girls since Danielle. The sex itself had been great, but the other stuff ... not so much. One of them had a boyfriend, who somehow found out and had come down to the shop ready to fight, but once he got sight of me, he’d quickly changed his mind. The other girl had a 4-year-old son, and while I certainly didn’t have anything against kids, I sure as hell didn’t want to be the stepfather she was so obviously looking for. And the third girl had just been whiny and clingy and completely insecure, in spite of having supermodel looks.
I wouldn’t be able to properly explain it to Todd—and we didn’t
talk about that shit really, anyway—but I wasn’t going to call Amanda, because I wanted a breather from all the bullshit. This was why, I suspected, that people got divorced after 35 years of marriage: at some point, you just got fed up with all the shit that some people brought to the table. I’d never been in a long-term relationship, but even the most casual of relationships could still come with strings attached.
So, what if, just for this summer, I took a break from all that? It’s not like I wouldn’t have plenty to do, with it being the shop’s busy season and the height of the mountain bike racing season. It would be like one of those 30-day challenges that people are always posting about on Facebook—except instead of having firmer abs or being able to do a plank for two minutes, by the end of the summer, I might have some sort of peace of mind, which, after all the shit I’d been through, didn’t sound too bad at all.
Chapter Two
Chloe
I swear, Tara had some sort of psychic abilities or something.
She had texted me a few days ago about when I planned to get to my parents’ summer house, and I’d written back something sort of noncommittal: Not sure, still have some packing to do and other stuff to take care of. I’ll text you when I get there.