Page 35 of His Custody

He nodded. That was fair, and better than the possibility he’d dreamed up. And just because he hoped she wouldn’t be asking herself that question for the rest of her life didn’t make it true. She probably would be and if he could make it easier for her, then he’d do it. “What did you have in mind?”

She turned the screen so he could see it better and clicked over to a different window. There in elegant script it read, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

“It’s pretty.” She’d taken the well-known phrase and made it her own. No longer a sarcastic dig, but an earnest question. “Where are you going to put it?”

She pointed to the scar on her arm, the one he saw her rubbing almost daily. Sometimes it was in an absent, meditative way. Sometimes it was a desperate lament. She’d rub the letters inked into her skin the same way she rubbed at the star on her bracelet. A memory.

Her eyes were wide, full of caution and curiosity. Apparently she’d been nervous to ask. “You’re not going to try to talk me out of it?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“Do you want me to?” He could talk nearly anyone on the planet into nearly anything, although Keyne wasn’t usually subject to his charms or his logic, or anything else for that matter. But if she was looking for an out, a reason not to do this, he’d sure as hell try to give her one. That was one thing he’d learned from his parents. They’d told him when he was a teenager if there was ever something his peers were trying to talk him into and he didn’t want to do it, to use them as an excuse:My parents would be so fucking pissed, I’d get grounded for the rest of my life. Dude, I would, but if I get caught, and you know my mom’s got a nose like a bloodhound, I’m losing my car until I’m forty.He hadn’t used it as an excuse often, but it had been there.

“No, I’m sure, but...”

“Doesn’t seem like a thing a guardian should green-light?”

“No, not really.”

“Well, as we’ve discussed many times before, I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing.” She laughed, as he’d hoped she would. It made his heart sing, made him want to spend the rest of his life charming her. At the moment, though, he had some explaining to do. “But here’s my thought process. This isn’t like the cutting. You’re not doing it to hurt yourself. You’ve put a lot of thought into it and I understand why it’s something you want. Also, I believe you when you said you were going to tell me. This whole trust thing goes both ways, so if you say this is something you want, something you need, and I don’t think you’re being self-destructive, then I’ll do my best to give it to you. I have some friends who have tats—”

Her strawberry brows went halfway up her forehead. “You do?”

“Yes, Keyne, I do.” Many. Kink and ink seemed to go hand in hand.

“Do you have one?”

“No.”

She nodded, arranging this new information in her head. Oh, the things he could surprise her with. But she’d probably be traumatized enough by the things he didn’t realize he was doing wrong, never mind things he was certain he shouldn’t do, so he’d leave that part of himself locked in a vault.

A lot of the people he knew at the club had ink, he’d ask them for recommendations. He’d find her the cleanest, most reputable place in the tristate area and he’d bring her there himself. Hold her hand while the needles pierced her skin and inked on the reminder. Would she change her mind when it started to hurt? He doubted it. From what he could tell from the way she went flat out at Alice’s gym, she was a bit of a masochist, his Tinker Bell. They’d see how much of one.

***

The place Jasper brought her to looked more like a doctor’s office than a tattoo parlor. At least in the back room where they did the work. In the front, it looked like any other that she’d seen on TV. It disturbed her more, almost, the sterility, the bright white and the gleaming metal. It was supposed to be dark and dingy, sketchy. This didn’t feel rebellious. And it wasn’t.

Jasper’s easy endorsement had taken a little of the high off of the idea of a tattoo, but she found she still wanted it, badly. For precisely the reasons she’d told him she did. A reminder to ask herself every day if she’d been responsible for Gavin. She hadn’t been able to say no yet today.

If the studio wasn’t what she had in mind, at least the woman who would be doing her ink was straight out of central casting. If she couldn’t have an overweight biker-looking dude whose name was Tiny or Bubba, wearing a leather vest and a greasy bandana, she would definitely pick Leisl.

The woman was tall and built enough to not look small next to Jasper, but she wore her black hair in pigtails and her pristine chucks had pink glitter hearts on them. Add to that more tattoos than Keyne had ever seen on a single person, and piercings in places she didn’t know a person could be pierced, and Keyne was in insta-love.

“Make yourself comfortable, Keyne. I’ve got a few things I need to get ready and then we’ll get started. Do you have any questions you want to ask me?”

Keyne sat in the chair, almost identical to the one at her dentist’s office, and tried to get comfortable. It was hard when she felt like she had fireflies in her stomach.

“Will it hurt?”

Leisl smiled. It wasn’t a mean smile, but Keyne wished she didn’t sound like a stupid kid. That was probably the first question everyone asked.

“It feels different to everyone. Most people say it hurts, but how much depends on where you’re getting it and how you process pain. Some people like it.”

Leisl winked at her and Keyne’s eyes went wide. “Do you like it?”

“I do. Clearly.” She gestured to her inked sleeves. On one arm Leisl had blue waves cresting over her muscles, the tips of the waves frothing and when she flexed her forearm Keyne could picture the waves rolling into shore. On the other arm, there were cherry blossom branches and sparrows flying between the delicate pink blooms. “It doesn’t feel good exactly, but there’s a rush that comes with it I haven’t been able to duplicate with anything else. Not anything legal anyway.”

---