Page 105 of Hitting the Gap

Embarrassed, she ducked her head. “I didn’t mean to stare. I saw all your tattoos and I instantly started thinking about a lecture I could do on body art and the wheels were spinning.”

“A lecture on body art?” Kia laughed. “Wow, our brains really do work differently.” Kia held open the door and stepped back. “Come on in.”

Now that her brain had started down this path, she couldn’t turn it off. “How do you feel about public speaking?”

“What?” Kia blinked at her.

“Public speaking. Yay or nay?”

Kia eyed her warily. “Umm. I guess it depends on how many people we’re talking about and why I’m talking?”

“Would you have any interest in coming in and talking to my class about tattooing?”

Kia puffed out her cheeks and audibly exhaled. “How big is your class?”

“It’s not too big, maybe around seventy-five people.”

Kia’s eyes widened. “Seventy-five? Umm…can I be honest?”

“Of course,” Bailey replied.

“That sounds awful. I was thinking like Max’s class size and even that would be pushing my comfort zone since this would be adults, not kids. But seventy-five? No, thank you. Sorry, you’re gonna have to find some other tattooed body to discuss.”

“No, no, no, I wasn’t wanting to discuss your body. Well, not exactly. I was hoping you could talk about why you like it both as an artist and as someone who clearly enjoys getting tattoos.”

“Nope, seventy-five is far too many judgy little eyeballs looking at me.” Kia shook her head. “Honestly, I don’t know how you do it. That would absolutely terrify me.”

Bailey shrugged. “You get used to it. Besides, despite what they might think, I still know more than they do.”

“I guess, but still, public speaking is not for me. It’s listed as one of the top ten fears for a reason.”

“I guess,” Bailey mumbled. Public speaking was fine. But the idea of following Gonzo to some unknown city, relying on him and then things not working out absolutely terrified her. What happened with Brad was bad enough, but at least she’d had a job to fall back on. If push came to shove, she could support herself, at least. The idea of depending completely on someone else financially made her feel sick.

“You okay?” Kia asked. “You look a little pale all of a sudden.”

“Yeah, just thinking.”

“Mom,” Max called. “Can we go to the beach now?”

“Yep. Grab your stuff.”

A moment later, Max came tearing down the hallway with his towel dragging on the floor behind him. “Here,” he said, thrusting his towel at his mom as he hopped into his flip-flops.

Bailey grinned as Kia looked at her son, her face a mixture of amusement and exasperation. “Manners, dude, say hi to Bailey.”

Max glanced over his shoulder. “Hi Bailey, can we go now?”

Bailey chuckled. “Let’s do it.”

Max whipped open the door and raced toward the beach. Bailey couldn’t do much more than follow in his wake.

She spread out her towel on the sand and plopped down with a sigh.

“You okay?” Kia asked.

“Not really, no,” she mumbled as she looked out at the water.

“You want to talk about it?”

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