Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 132933 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 665(@200wpm)___ 532(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132933 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 665(@200wpm)___ 532(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Voices suddenly resonate up the stairs, my door slightly ajar, and I close my laptop and slip onto the second-floor landing.
“How many episodes have I missed?” Beckett asks Sulli from downstairs.
I don’t lean into the stairwell, so they’re not visible, but I hear Sulli’s reply. “Ten.”
“Ten?”
“Yeah, it comes on three times a week.” Oh, they must be talking about Big Brother. It’s Sulli’s favorite show, and CBS is airing a season during the fall this year.
“Shit…I thought I was keeping up.”
“Oh hey, you are. The show outpaces me sometimes, too. Binge-watching is half the fucking fun anyway. I’ll grab the popcorn.”
Donnelly peeks around the corner, coming into view from the narrow stairwell. My heart metaphorically pancakes. Flipping and flopping in a way that I’ve come to recognize as a clear sign I have spotted an attractive specimen on planet Earth.
Unkempt, fluffy chestnut brown hair, eyes the color of blue spinel gems, and the coolness of a person who cares little of what anyone thinks—Paul Donnelly carries nothing on him. At least, he always appears to be saddled with nothing.
“Wondering where you were,” he says with a friendly kind of grin and South Philly lilt. He slips a ballpoint pen behind his ear. Tall and fit with lean muscles, he sports a faded Van Halen tee and black pants.
Tattoos inch up his arm, and his silver earring and septum piercing glint in the light. If he landed on another planet, aliens would most definitely poke and prod him to find the equation for beauty. It is certain.
I make sure not to do the whole “I’m checking you out” look because the last thing he needs is me getting in the way of his job. My dad is already making that difficult. I just want a tattoo. Simple. Easy. Nothing to worry about.
“I’m here.” I wave a hand. “Hey. Hi. Heidi. Ho.”
“Heidi ho back at you, wannabe alien.” Sketchbook tucked beneath his arm, his gaze is always soft like a cloud, and I rest easy against it, my lips rising in return. Donnelly steps onto the second-floor landing. “Where you wanna do this?”
I’m a go with the flow kinda gal. I just nod towards my bedroom. “This way.” I lead Donnelly inside.
He follows casually behind.
The thing I really like about Donnelly is how comfortable he makes everything. Like living is just as easy as breathing, and sometimes I do wonder how it can feel that easy. Because in my head it’s not easy at all.
On instinct, I head towards the desk where orange knitted yarn hangs out of a drawer. I made Donnelly something for the design. As payment, just to show how much this means to me and that I’m serious about this exchange. But I suddenly hesitate to go retrieve the thing.
“You’re really sure you’re okay with this?” I wonder while Donnelly takes a seat on the desk chair.
He leans forward, flipping through his sketchbook. “As sure as I was a week ago.” He pauses, mid-flip. “You changing your mind?”
“Uh-uh.” I shake my head. Coming closer, I rest a little against the edge of the desk. “I just heard that my dad kinda threatened you after the star tattoo on my hip. I’m sorry he did that.”
This time, Donnelly shakes his head like it’s nothing. Then he literally says, “It was nuthin’.”
My older brother didn’t make it seem like nothing when he told me. So Donnelly could just be downplaying the gravity.
“If you need to abort, I’d understand.”
Donnelly proceeds to flip the next sketch page. “I don’t need to.” He looks up at me. “Do you?”
Do I want this to end?
“Only if it hurts you,” I say so quietly, I’m unsure if he hears, but in the stillness of my room, his ears must catch the words because he replies, “It won’t.”
“My dad could hurt you,” I remind him, more loudly. “I don’t know exactly what he said, but I heard that he threatened your job if you tattoo me again.”
I’m not throwing my brother under the bus and naming him. Moffy received the info from Farrow and then shared with me. In part, I think Moffy only told me about our dad threatening Donnelly so I’d stop asking Donnelly to tattoo me.
Maybe I should.
I can still abort.
Donnelly is giving me the keys to the exit hatch, but I want this tattoo about as much as I wish I could explore a hundred-thousand galaxies. Maybe even more, because I know the tattoo is a true, real tangibility and the explorer in me can only remain inside pages of fiction.
“I’m not worried about it,” Donnelly says, again, like it’s nothing.
It being my father. What if Moffy just exaggerated everything? What if I am worried about it, even if Donnelly isn’t? I weigh everything.
“I think I’ll hide the tattoo from my dad for a while, anyway. Just to be on the safe side.”