Page 23 of The Fallacy of True Love
My eyes flicked to the sign in front of her table. “It says you’re open until five,” I pointed out as I took the empty seat.
She didn’t bat an eyelash. “Does it? Must be a typo.” Leaning over, she grabbed said sign. Her tank top gaped lower as she moved, and I caught a flash of cleavage before averting my gaze. “Anyway, Hector’s over there. You can get a tatt with him.”
“I want one from you. Your friend Nikki said to tell you she sent me…” I paused for dramatic effect. “Cam. Nice name, by the way.”
Her jaw clenched. It was wrong, but I felt a perverse sort of pleasure in getting a reaction from her.
“I’ve already dealt with you crashing into my board and an asshole pissing me off,” she hissed, her eyes sparking like a wire short-circuiting. “I’m done.”
My humor fizzled out. “Did the guy do something?” Turning, I looked around, trying to find the blond man she’d been inking.
“I handled it. But I’ve reached my quota for the day,” she said as she cleaned her tools.
“You sure you don’t want me to look for him?”
“And do what? Beat him up?”
I reared my head back. “I was thinking more like talking to him about his manners.”
“Been there, done that.” Her tone was flat, and her eyes stayed fixed on her task.
“I actually wanted to say sorry to you too. You helped me this morning, and I acted like an ass.”
This time, she looked at me. “Are you saying that so I’ll give you a tattoo?”
I blinked. “Your faith in humanity is really something.”
“I’m not inking you, Manila.”
My heart sank. “That’s cool,” I said, trying to play it off. “I shouldn’t make a decision like that right now, anyway.” I still wanted that tatt, but later, when I was certain I had my head on straight.
“Guess I’m doing you a favor then. You’re welcome.” With that dismissal, she packed up her things. Her fingers navigated the motions as efficiently as a surgeon might handle his tools. Her nails were cut to the quick, unpolished.
I wondered if she always kept them trimmed like that or if she ever grew them out and painted them. A nice shade of black, maybe, to match her variety of tattoos.
There was a buko with a straw on the inside corner of her right wrist, while a row of numbers were inked across her left one. The words me, myself, and I in all caps just below the crook of her elbow and a bunch of delicate flowers on her bicep. A thick black line through a word I couldn’t make out on the side of her other arm.
She stopped moving. “Why are you still here?”
I shrugged. “Just trying to figure out what I did to endear myself to you so much.”
“Endear?” Her laughter was mocking. “You city boys and your fancy words.”
“It means to get you to like me.”
She gave me a withering glare. “Thank you for the vocabulary lesson. This uneducated girl needed it.”
“I didn’t mean?—”
“Don’t backtrack now. I already know you’re an elitist jerk.”
Well, that was a first. If she only knew that was far from the truth.
Closing her folio case with a click, Cam stood. With me sitting, her position put her chest within my line of sight and I hurriedly shifted my eyes again.
“Have a good life, Manila,” she said. “Bye.”
As she strode off, I kept my stare fixed on her chair, only turning when I figured it was safe enough that I wouldn’t be accused of checking her out. She’d stopped a few feet from me, talking to a guy with a man bun and a half sleeve of tatts. They seemed to be arguing, and given how he gestured toward the booth, I figured he was asking why she’d closed up early.
