Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 63282 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 316(@200wpm)___ 253(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63282 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 316(@200wpm)___ 253(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
Sarah blinks and wills herself to smile. “Hey, don’t look so gloomy. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?”
“Right. You’re a strong young woman, Sarah.”
Her eyes brighten at my words, even if only for a moment. “My dad told me not to pay attention to what people think of me, but it’s always nice to hear a compliment. My dad said he only married my mom because everybody had told him it was the right thing to do and he was a deadbeat asshole if he didn’t do it. He said it was a mistake, though. ‘Everybody’ was wrong. He should’ve listened to himself.”
“That sounds like something Peter would say, too.”
I’m not surprised. Peter resembled his dad a lot. They also used to spend a ton of time working together at the clinic.
“Oh, by the way, the reason my mom ‘disowned’ me? It was because she found out about us—as in, you and me. She told me I was going to get pregnant and ruin my life. I was so mad at you.”
“At me?” I frown, holding the piece of microwaved frozen steak I just cut off in the air. What do I have to do with that mess?
“Yeah. You must’ve told someone who blabbed all over town. Now, I know you didn’t understand how fragile 18-year-old girls’ reputations were, but—”
“Hang on. I didn’t tell anyone. Why would I?”
“I don’t know.” Sarah shrugs. “I didn’t tell anyone.”
Realization hits me.
“I know who it was,” I say. “It must’ve been my neighbor. There was this hair salon next to my tattoo parlor. They must’ve heard something, or saw something.”
“Ah, mystery solved,” Sarah says. “In any case, it felt devastating for a while. I was eighteen, remember? Everything was life-and-death. But after a while, I started wondering why I didn’t get my mom to disown me sooner. Without her in my life, I was much happier.” Sarah takes a deep breath, and her lips curl up to form a smile.
My heart skips a beat at the sight. I should stay away from this girl.
But how can I, when she’s pouring her heart out and I told her I wanted to help her get over her grief? It’s not just small talk and flirting tonight.
Sarah turns to gaze at me across the table. “Tell me your secrets, Luca. It’s your turn.”
Sarah
Luca insists on us finishing dinner and cleaning up first before we continue talking.
“Fine,” I say, even though inwardly I’m cheering just because he’s not pushing me away. That, and I find it sexy when he tells me what to do.
A few minutes later, we settle down side by side on his two-seater couch in the living room.
“What do you want to know?” Luca looks concerned.
“Let’s start with something easy. Tell me about your job.”
“What’s there to tell? You’ve seen me at work,” he says.
“Tell me . . . about the client who irritated you the most.”
Luca pauses to think, his thick eyebrows pulled down in concentration. “Hmm . . . There are some very strong contenders for that title. I’ve had some real annoying assholes in my shop.”
I giggle. “Maybe they were just acting up because they were scared of the needle.”
“Not necessarily . . . although there was this one girl who was so scared that the moment the tattoo machine touched her skin, she passed out and pissed herself on my chair.”
“I never see that on Miami Ink.”
“I bet you don’t.” Luca laughs. “I was annoyed, but it also wasn’t her fault.”
“Wait, how did you clean it up?”
“Don't even ask.”
I give him a sympathetic grimace.
“There are worse people out there, though,” Luca says. “Like the time-wasters who come into the shop not knowing what tattoos they want and asking me what they should get.”
“What, don’t these people care what gets etched into their skin permanently, for the rest of their lives?”
Even at eighteen, I knew exactly what I wanted when I walked into Luca’s tattoo shop five years ago: a tattoo of a cat’s silhouette and Luca. I got both, so I was a happy customer.
“Exactly,” Luca says. “But on the other end of the spectrum, I get people coming in with their friends’ drawings and they want tattoos of those chicken-scratch drawings. I don’t want to do a shit tattoo, but I also hate having to tell some bro-dude that his friend’s drawing sucks.”
“Do you tell them?” I can’t imagine Luca approaching something like that delicately, and it tickles me to imagine how his clients react to his bluntness.
“I used to. But then one day, this guy came in with some really ugly handwriting. I asked him if he wanted me to make it look nice . . . and he said it was his mom’s signature from the last letter she ever wrote him before she died. She had Parkinson’s, and that’s why the lines were all shaky. I still feel bad about that,” Luca says with a pained expression.