Surprisingly, a laugh burst from me. My dad had been staying in my house, right under my nose for days and the only thing I’d been able to offer in his regard was my hospitality, yet now out of nowhere, he was pushing on a wall I didn’t even know was already cracking. And we were laughing together?
“Only the people I have locked in the basement,” I said, which won me a horrified expression. Pushing off the doorframe I joined him at the desk. “Nah, I’m only playing around with these. Can’t quite get it to stop sparking. Or jamming or falling apart completely.”
“Hmm,” he grunted, bringing the little prototype for my newest tattoo machineI’d been working on periodically at nightup to his eye to get a closer look at the open face.
“But…” I said as I reached down and turned the key at the bottom of my desk. Pulling out the very first completed prototypes to my official tattoo machine series, I set them on the surface in front of him. They were boxed up even though the official models in production were much nicer. I liked to keep the raw models as a reminder of something I’d made out of nothing. Being able to set the boxes in front of my dad—the man who taught me everything I know—I felt something weird go through my chest. “There’s no going back with these babies.”
Dad’s eyes lit as he took in the old tattoo machines. They were unique in that they were self-inking. Depending on the model, the pen could be attached to a tube that fed into a large ink well or hold up to three ink cartridges within the pen itself. Both had their own kinks, but the ink payoffs were controlled by a squeeze pad located around the grip, making the machine more like an actual pen than any other I’d ever used before.
“You made these?” he asked.
I could tell he wanted to open it up. It was his thing,ourthing, really. He’d always loved machines big and small and had passed that love down to me in turn. Which is probably why that expression on his face was so strange.
“Yeah, nothing too special. Easy designs and simple electrical,” I said.
His eyes ran over the label in the front. A little harp label I drew myself. Then his gaze went to the framed blueprints above my workstation of the three completed machines I had in production.
My dad huffed. “Simple, huh?” He leaned in, “How are you getting such large output with only?—”
“Ah, ah.” I raised a hand and blocked his view. “No cheating, old man. We don’t fraternize with competition around here.”
He laughed. I noticed his laugh wasn’t as hearty as it used to be, but still a version of the same one I’d grown up with. When he looked at me again, it was serious. His head bobbed in a strong movement I couldn’t help but think it was in approval.
“You did good, son,” he said, then looked down at the tool in his hand. “Real good. I just wish I would’ve known.”
That weird thing in my chest from earlier, yeah, that was pride. Stupid, childish pride like I was some kid hearing that my dad was proud of me for the first time. It didn’t feel anything like I thought it would feel after all this time. It hurt like a bitch, bringing a stinging surge to my eyes and replacing the overwhelming pressure around my heart.
And yet… it wasn’t totally unwelcome. Uncomfortable, but not unbearable. New, yet so old.
Right.
Now it was morning and as the pounding steps I’d been waiting out in the ball shriveling cold for got closer, my mind was spiraling around that word again.
Right.
I watched the figure jog closer to me, with a numb sense of longing. Her cheeks were rosy, her skin not losing a bit of color from the cold winter months and she was in entirely too little clothing for it to be somewhere under twenty degrees this morning as she went on her run.
She’s been running by daily.But she wasn’tjustrunning by the shop in the mornings. It was much more than that. She’d been messaging me and leaving me voicemails too. Bringing me food and drawing me little notes and pictures that made me smile when I didn’t want to. She was checking in on me both physically and mentally. She was being a friend and a partner in all the ways that mattered and looking at her running straight for me, all I wanted to do was scoop her up in my arms.
Right.
“Oh,” she startled as she came to a stop in front of the shop door I was waiting outside of. “You’re here.”
I wasn’t surprised by her reaction. I’d been avoiding her, mainly because I was avoidingallof my feelings lately. But I wanted to see her suddenly.
Conflicting feelings peppered my brain as my first thought was to lean down and press my lips to hers, but my next was to leave her out here to freeze her ass off like she clearly wanted to in nothing but that thin top and leggings.
I did neither. Instead, my hands moved to pull my sweatshirt over my head. I handed it over with a frown intact. Still, her big eyes reacted to the movement in their normal innocent observation, following the sweatshirt and my hands as they traveled the distance between us.
She flicked her gaze quickly up to me. Her eyes scanning my none too happy expression and weighing it against the outstretched shirt? “For me?”
“Who else?” I huffed, offering the shirt higher.
She tucked her lips into her mouth and slipped her arm around the offering. And right there in front of me, she brought it up to her nose and breathed. Humming and letting the smallest smile flutter over her face as she snuggled it into her chest.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
You would think it was a strip tease the way my eyes glued to the motion. You would think it was a love confession, the way my heart fluttered around like it was a bird in a cage.
