Page 37 of Turning Tides
Suddenly grumpy, I pushed the back door open and Cyrus stepped inside. “Shane’s truck is in the lot, but I had a look around the bar. He’s not there.”
“He’s upstairs. We were talking about his next tattoo.” I grabbed my stack of mail from Cyrus and headed up the stairs. “Thanks for bringing this by.”
“Well, I thought you might invite me up to see the place, but I had to invent an excuse to come.”
Rolling my eyes, I opened the door to my apartment slash studio. “You could just drop by to say hello. You don’t need an excuse.”
Shane was sitting on the couch flipping through a binder of my work like he was actually seriously considering each piece and how it might look on his skin.
“See anything you like?” The question had the desired effect on Shane, though I doubted Cyrus noticed the way his boss ducked his gaze to avoid mine or the slash of color suddenly rising on his cheeks.
“There’s some killer work in here.”
“The place looks great,” Cyrus said, taking himself on a tour of the space. “Are these new?” He pointed to the moths that I’d drawn and framed. I’d done a variety of species all in black. Some had subtle shading in color.
“I did those recently, yeah.” What I didn’t say was that I did them while I was avoiding his house as much as possible. I’d drawn most of them while sitting in the park or the library. “When I was between shops, I had time to work on new pieces.”
That was an understatement. I had entire sketchbooks filled with rough ideas. The moths were some of the pieces that I’d refined and had stuck in frames. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever tattoo them on anyone. They were the things I’d been working on the day I met Shane. The fact that I was a sentimental idiot wasn’t lost on me. The moths felt like they belonged to us and not to the rest of the world. But Shane didn’t know that.
“I never thought much about getting a tattoo done, but these moths are really nice. Maybe you’d tattoo one for me.”
Immediate no. Absolutely not. I bit back my kneejerk reaction, though, and pretended that acid wasn’t burning a hole through my stomach. “If you want something, I’ll design something for you. Maybe something with knives.”
Cyrus nodded. “That’s probably a better fit.”
“There might be something you like over in the books Shane’s looking at.” I turned my attention to the stack of envelopes I’d been clutching. It was all junk mail, not a single bill or important letter or anything. Nothing Cyrus couldn’t have chucked into the trash. He really felt like he had to make up a reason to come see me.
Guilt twisted the knife in my stomach—I’d been a shitty brother. Cyrus had taken me in and helped me when I needed him. And I’d repaid him by avoiding him as much as humanly possible.
“Hey, Cyrus, why don’t you and Marshall come over on your day off? I’ll order in and we can hang out. Maybe watch one of those movies you and Marshall love so much.”
“Are they still obsessed withThe Fast and the Furious?” Shane asked. “Say it ain’t so, Cyrus?”
Cyrus shrugged. “Paul Walker was hot. I’ll run it by Marshall, but I’m sure he’d love to come. Shane should come too. I never get to see him outside of work. It would be nice to pretend we’re real friends.”
I wasn’t sure if Cyrus’s comment had meant to pierce through the bubble of happiness that had surrounded Shane and me, but I felt it burst and had to stop myself from flinching. The last thing I wanted was for Cyrus to remind Shane that they were friends, but the damage was done.
“You can’t just invite me to other people’s shit, Cyrus,” Shane said.
“He can’t, but I can. You should come. We can order food that Cyrus doesn’t have to cook and if you come, they can’t out-vote my movie choices.”
“No one wants to seeThe Brave Little Toaster.”
I spun around and glared at Cyrus. “That movie is a masterpiece. Highly underrated.”
“The what?” Shane asked, humor coloring his voice.
“It’s movie from the 80s,” Cyrus said. “When we were younger, Archer had a phase where all he wanted to do was watch old movies.” Cyrus put air quotes around the word old.
“Anything produced before the year 2000 is ancient history. Besides, I haven’t made you watch that in years. The last movie I made you watch was,*batteries not included, and you can’t tell me you hated it. You cried.”
“I haven’t seen that one,” Shane said.
“It’s these little alien robot things that help save a historical building from destruction and its residents from eviction.”
“I did not cry.” Cyrus rolled his eyes again. “And we are not watching that. Surely there’s a movie made this century that you have an interest in seeing?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “,*batteries not includedor no deal.” I was an expert at playing the part of the bratty younger sibling to get my own way.
