Tattoo Kiss x, page 16
“Got slapped?” I cock my head at him as he takes the seat next to me.
“Yup.” Jack blushes, half-proud, half-embarrassed.
“Good.”
Even I’m surprised by the word that just came out of my lips.
“Good?” He looks at me incredulously, but still smiling.
“Yeah, I mean. If I was their age, I’d be pissed. But you know, people see other people and that’s okay. As long as it’s casual, no one gets hurt. Noncommittal is a word these younguns need to learn.” My mind harks back to Joe’s comment at the pizza, and I try to act nonchalant and not incredibly pleased his chihuahua pack has fucked right off.
Jack shrugs his shoulders uncomfortably inside his jacket, and I can’t help but watch them move. My eyes linger more than they should, and my gaze is hungry despite just having eaten.
“Noncommittal is your thing, huh?” Jack asks pointedly.
“Am I on trial here? I thought I was the lawyer,” I ask playfully.
I touch my shot glass, and now it’s his turn to linger. He watches my fingers intently as I flirt with the rim of the glass. Rubbing it back and forth like it’s a Tibetan singing bowl. “I thought noncommittal was your thing, to be honest. Different girl every week, sorta thing.”
The sleight of hand distracts from the question I’m really asking. Jack laughs, but the laugh gets stuck in his throat and he flushes red around the ears before darting his eyes up to my face again.
“Touché. That’s who I used to be. Wouldn’t say that’s who I am, Eddie. Ye’d ken that if ye called.”
Knife. Twist.
“We all have different ways to deal with pain. I’m not one to judge.” I nod at him respectfully and pick up my glass to leave.
My heart is racing just being near him, but I’m not letting it show. He watches me with those cat-like eyes that seem to change color and seep through everything around me until all I see is blue.
“Wait.”
Jack takes my hand in his, and for a moment, my mind goes blank with the electricity.
His skin is my contact drug. One touch and I’m already high and buzzing for more.
His eyes dilate as he blinks at me.
“Ye up for a game?”
“A drinking game?” I sputter, trying to remain cool. This can’t end well. “My years of getting blackout wasted are behind me, my friend.”
“Nah, not a game, per se. Although we’ve been playing games all night and I quite like it, Eddie.”
Each time he says that word, my brain turns to mush and I may as well be as young as Erin and the others with how it makes my stomach turn, cradled in my gut.
Eddie.
I hate that I love it now.
The name itself is a color I didn’t know existed, and he is the first to show me.
And now I can’t stop seeing it everywhere.
Jack is sitting up as if every hair on his body is paying attention. He’s taking this very seriously for a grown man who just suggested a drinking game.
“Truth or dare. If I ask a truth and ye tell me a lie, though, ye have to drink.”
“And dare?” My heart quickens.
“Dare is to ask the questions we’ve been dying to ask. The other person has to respond. Or do something, ye ken.”
“Like?”
Realization set in quickly and his features flush pink before he goes on. “I ken what ye’re thinking. I’ll go far, but I draw the line at one thing, Eddie.” Jack’s blue eyes are like guarded steel.
My pulse catches in my throat before deciding to beat again.
“No daring me to kiss ye.”
I’m oddly disappointed, yet something about knowing that is strangely exciting. For someone who teases it so much, I’m surprised it’s off the table.
“Odd request for you, lover boy, but so be it.” I laugh lightly, trying to hide the fact that my stomach shakes with his words. My brontosaurus salad didn’t fill me.
But I bet he could.
“No kissing, unless ye beg me for it.” Jack’s eyes are already on my mouth, and I smile, catching his gaze.
I have a feeling this is going to be harder for him than he realizes.
“I never beg,” I say confidently.
“Nor do I.”
“Stalemate.” I nod curtly.
“Stalemate.” His eyes are unreadable, and something about that terrifies me.
“So, truth or dare. The dare is we get to ask potentially awkward questions?” If I’m going to battle, give me the parameters, I can set up the courtroom in my head.
“Correct.”
“All right then. You first.”
I’m increasingly confident in myself despite my situation. I can talk my way out of anything, but I’m pretty sure Jack can as well. For a maintenance man, he’s certainly coming across as more educated than most.
“Truth or dare?” Jack launches first.
“Truth.”
I’m nervous now. My hand flutters to the hem of my blouse and instead of following it with his eyes, he bores them into me in the way he did under the fedora.
“What is…yer favorite food?”
“Baby questions, eh?” I snort. “There’s a Thai place by Joe’s house that makes a mean pad kee mao, extra spice. You?”
“Truth.” Jack laughs. “I’ll take that as ye told the truth, so no drinking yet.”
“Hmm,” I say, thinking out loud. “Were you actually on a date, or did you just say that?”
“Actually, on a date.” Jack’s eyes sparkle at me and a corner of his mouth twitches into the dimple that could kill me.
“Drink, sir. Groups aren’t dates. Not after age eighteen.” I point ferociously at his shot glass and watch his dimples deepen as he takes the shot.
He downs it like water. I’m in trouble.
“Are they not?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“Yer turn.”
“Truth.”
“What is one thing Leticia Ruiz,” he emphasizes my full name since he knows it, “wishes everyone knew about her?”
I think for a moment. “Free legal advice isn’t a thing. Get the fuck out and pay me, dammit.”
I chuckle and Jack nods along. “Fair, I wish people didn’t ask me to sing every ten seconds or break out a guitar at every party. When ye’re good at it, it gets old. I’m a person, not a trained monkey.”
“Absolutely.”
There’s a moment between us and I can almost hear a pin drop in the busy restaurant behind us. Time seems to move of its own accord when he’s around.
It reminds me of the Fetch. At twelve, I went through a phase of interest in the supernatural and read everything I could about the beyond. Stories from the old hills of Appalachia only fueled that fire with legends of the Fetch. Folklore had it that sometimes, when you were alone in the woods, it would go quiet. Unnaturally quiet. That was before the Fetch came. In all reality, this story was simply meant to scare children to stay put and not wander, but I always wondered how it started. The Fetch was a supernatural being meant to “fetch” you to the other side, the fairy realm, as some would say.
Sometimes, it would look like your friend or neighbor, but something would be off about it. A smile not quite right. A facial feature not down exactly as it mimicked those you loved.
Terrifying really. But always, always the tale had one similarity. The Fetch would be surrounded by a quiet that didn’t make sense. Bees would stop buzzing. Birds would stop singing. Trees would stop swaying. All would be still. Deathly still in supernatural wonder.
Jack and I are in our own bubble of silence, and it doesn’t matter who drops a plate or pops the question behind us. We are off in our own realm together.
Maybe there’s some truth to the old tales.
“Dare.”
Jack takes a sip of the water on the counter next to the glass and settles back comfortably. Maybe a little too much for someone who’s just asked for a dare.
My mind races. There’s so much I want to ask.
“I dare you to tell me what made you leave Scotland.”
I wait for him to recoil, to look away, to do any of the tells on the stand that I’m used to that mean a witness doesn’t want to answer the question.
But he doesn’t.
He looks straight at me and begins to answer as simply as if we are talking about the weather. Whatever Jack is, a liar isn’t one of them. At least, not about things that matter. Faux dates aside.
“Lost a record deal. Ruined it. Fucked it up. Righteously. I was young and cocky. My family needed me here. Da and Mam moved when I was about to go on tour and Da was poorly. So I came to take care of him. Then the heart attack and now I’m here.”
“Alone?” I asked.
“Yes,” Jack replies bitterly, a mix of sadness and regret on his face. “Mam’s in Tennessee now. It’s just me.”
“And the tattoo kiss?”
Jack’s mouth twitches into a sad smile and his eyes flash in pain.
I regret asking that one.
“Ye’ve exhausted yer free question. Time for mine.”
“Dare.” I straighten up.
Jack smirks a little. “Fair’s fair. I like that.”
He looks at me a moment before speaking.
“Did ye love him? Yer husband?”
I smiled sadly. “Yes, I did at one time. Although we had some irreconcilable differences before he died.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning he wanted to continue sleeping with other people and I found that to be irreconcilable.”
“Ah.” Jack nodded. “I ken that must’ve hurt. I’m sorry.”
I swallowed. “Me, too. That’s what’s fucked up about it all. I had to be this dutiful wife at his funeral and everyone was sobbing to me, saying how sad they were for me. For me, he was already dead. Left me with scars I can’t get rid of and, well…”
I trail off. I’m giving him way more than I thought I would. I can’t read Jack’s face, but he seems to drink in every word.
“That’s only part of The Trauma™,” I say bleakly.
“The Trauma™…I like it. It’s like ye’ve branded it and made it yer own.” He nods and licks his lips thoughtfully.
Thoughtfully, in a way that says he’s not afraid, not run-off. In a way that makes me feel he could take it on someday.
I doubt it. No one would really do that. Why would they do that?
“Truth,” Jack says with certainty.
“What’s one song you refuse to play?”
I thought the question would be harder for him to answer, but he answers as certainly as if I’d asked him his favorite color, which I didn’t. He already told me with that line about my eyes, the cheater.
“‘Hallelujah’ by Leonard Cohen.”
“Aw, but that would be amazing with your voice,” I say.
“I don’t play it, Eddie.”
His tone cuts me and I look intently at his face as his jaw is working on keeping calm. I notice his chest rise and fall haphazardly and suddenly realize this may be a question for a dare. Some other time.
“Yer turn, love.”
Jack nudges me with his knee. I realize we are now sitting so close together we may as well be on one stool.
“Dare.”
“What made ye give up law?”
Ouch.
I agreed to this, though. He’s within the parameters.
“The Brenner case.”
Jack looks at me with wide eyes. “I ken the name—”
“Over a year ago. It was all over the news. I represented the wife, and the law failed her. Tried to get a protective order against the husband. Husband shot and killed her three days after the judge wouldn’t grant the order.”
“Eddie, surely ye ken that wasn’t yer fault.” Jack’s face softens toward me. His hand reaches out and touches my arm lightly. His fingers running up and down the silk blouse to soothe me.
The truth keeps spilling out of me at his touch.
“I wasn’t in a good place. It was right after Kyle died. I-I had a lot going on.” I clear my throat. “There was a meeting. Closed doors. Joe told me about it. The firm thought I was incompetent, and well, here I am. Answering phone calls for a damn living. I chose to leave. You don’t just get your professional reputation thrown out like trash and keep going.”
I take the shot in front of me, not caring if I had or hadn’t told the truth.
Jack squeezes my shoulder before dropping his hand and ordering another round of drinks.
We keep on going. He finds out my favorite color is blue, and I despise K-Pop. I find out his favorite candy is M&M’s, and he secretly has a fear of spiders and nuns. In that order, specifically. He has two middle names. Ewan and Malcolm. He knows I have no tattoos on my body but makes me drink anyway, in case I am lying to him about that. I get flustered at the thought of him looking for one. The idea that one day he would explore every inch of me is too much. I bury my blush deep into the feeling of the warm alcohol. Before I know it, two more glasses are stacked in front of us and we are on.
“Truth,” I say.
“All right.” Jack pretends to stroke a nonexistent beard like an old man, the shots clearly finally hitting him. “What is the best present anyone ever gave you?”
“My insecurities and sense of humor.”
“Drink,” Jack demands.
I take the shot and cough this time. “Fine. I give. I had a pair of rainbow striped knee highs that I fucking loved in middle school. Wore ’em every day that I could.”
Jack laughs. “Hmm, somehow I can’t see ye wearing them now.”
“I was peak two thousand’s girl. Frosted lip gloss, butterfly clips, and rainbow knee highs.” I sit up on the stool and get in his face. “Zenon girl of the twentieth century, eat shit.”
Jack loses it. His face cracks into a thousand lines as he laughs till he coughs.
“I was so sad when they got holes! Worst day ever. Never been able to find a pair again.”
I hit him playfully to stop laughing, but his broad shoulders are shaking.
“Your turn.”
“Truth.” He clears his throat and tries to stay composed.
My mind is addled at this point.
“Have you ever been married?” I blurt out.
“Nah,” Jack answers. “Engaged though. A very long time ago. Didn’t last long.”
“She the kiss?” I look at him dead in the face, trying to read his expression this time.
Jack shakes his head. “No. Turn’s up. Truth or dare?”
“Truth.”
“Have ye been with anyone since yer husband?”
I shake my head. “Nope.”
Can’t believe I just admitted that out loud, but there it is.
“Ye’re fucking with me. Surely—”
“No. Cross my heart, it’s true.”
Jack seems way too pleased by this and it annoys the living hell out of me.
“Truth or dare and you can stop smiling at any time now, buddy.”
“Dare,” he says.
I suddenly remember I can dare him to do something for me.
“I dare you,” I start slowly, “to take me home.”
Jack’s eyes take on a different shade of blue and deepen into mine as he raises his hand to close out the tab. “I thought ye’d never ask.”
The night is sparkling.
Yellow ochre fireworks as we pass streetlight after streetlight in the back of the Uber. The windows are tinted darkly, and my hands find his as they clasp and unclasp in the back of the car.
I’ve never called an Uber before. I don’t let Jack know that, though.
I follow his lead and he leads me home, our bodies bumping into each other as we sit close in the back seat of the little car as we’re bound to do considering his size and our drunken state of infatuation.
We come apart occasionally, and in the silence, we slide closer together again.
Like magnets within us, pulling the other ever-closer, I can feel the force between our skin as hand meets hand, and he looks at me through heavy eyes. The light of a passing streetlight brightens the back seat in a flash of gold, and for a moment, I see his face. Illuminated with the glow, his throat rolls gently as he swallows, and I watch the shape of his Adam’s apple slip down into his brown leather jacket collar.
We’re both drunk on something stronger than anything the bar offered. He brings my hand to his mouth and lightly kisses my fingers, taking his time. I think he’s having an affair with my wrist and I am one hundred percent okay with that at this moment, and any other moment he spends focusing on any part of me.
My hand catches his cheek and I feel the mole on his jawline under my fingers as I smooth them over his rough stubble. I’d say it was a dream, but I feel him breathing and incredibly human and real under my touch.
My mind is full of all that I want to say, but never will.
I hope I never lose you.
He will stain my soul and, like red blood, the stain will never come out.
Don’t. Fuck. This. Up.
I had no plan when I dared him to take me home.
I knew he would. But beyond that? Yeah. No fucking clue.
I’m not sure if he has any plan at all either, sitting here in the half-dark, watching me closely.
My cardigan is over my lap, and his other hand is underneath. Resting dangerously on my knee, his hand moves slowly subconsciously, remaining a heavy, warm presence that tethers me into the present and out of the darkness of my own inhibitions.
Together, we ride in a silent confessional, finding hope and justification for our actions in the silence between us.
Justification.
That’s a funny word to describe any encounter with the opposite sex past the age of twenty-one.
I equate holiness and sexuality. To know one is to know the other.
I had never been with another man before Kyle. Ten years my senior and well-versed in the ways of sex, I never took it upon myself to question what it would be like to be with anyone else.
When I was fourteen, I went through a phase where I had a horrible attitude, like all teenagers do. I remember overhearing my mom screaming to my dad about how they should take me downtown to see actual hookers, because that is what my life would be like if I didn’t “shape up.” To her, sleeping with a man you were not married to was…well, it was a fate worse than death.
“Yup.” Jack blushes, half-proud, half-embarrassed.
“Good.”
Even I’m surprised by the word that just came out of my lips.
“Good?” He looks at me incredulously, but still smiling.
“Yeah, I mean. If I was their age, I’d be pissed. But you know, people see other people and that’s okay. As long as it’s casual, no one gets hurt. Noncommittal is a word these younguns need to learn.” My mind harks back to Joe’s comment at the pizza, and I try to act nonchalant and not incredibly pleased his chihuahua pack has fucked right off.
Jack shrugs his shoulders uncomfortably inside his jacket, and I can’t help but watch them move. My eyes linger more than they should, and my gaze is hungry despite just having eaten.
“Noncommittal is your thing, huh?” Jack asks pointedly.
“Am I on trial here? I thought I was the lawyer,” I ask playfully.
I touch my shot glass, and now it’s his turn to linger. He watches my fingers intently as I flirt with the rim of the glass. Rubbing it back and forth like it’s a Tibetan singing bowl. “I thought noncommittal was your thing, to be honest. Different girl every week, sorta thing.”
The sleight of hand distracts from the question I’m really asking. Jack laughs, but the laugh gets stuck in his throat and he flushes red around the ears before darting his eyes up to my face again.
“Touché. That’s who I used to be. Wouldn’t say that’s who I am, Eddie. Ye’d ken that if ye called.”
Knife. Twist.
“We all have different ways to deal with pain. I’m not one to judge.” I nod at him respectfully and pick up my glass to leave.
My heart is racing just being near him, but I’m not letting it show. He watches me with those cat-like eyes that seem to change color and seep through everything around me until all I see is blue.
“Wait.”
Jack takes my hand in his, and for a moment, my mind goes blank with the electricity.
His skin is my contact drug. One touch and I’m already high and buzzing for more.
His eyes dilate as he blinks at me.
“Ye up for a game?”
“A drinking game?” I sputter, trying to remain cool. This can’t end well. “My years of getting blackout wasted are behind me, my friend.”
“Nah, not a game, per se. Although we’ve been playing games all night and I quite like it, Eddie.”
Each time he says that word, my brain turns to mush and I may as well be as young as Erin and the others with how it makes my stomach turn, cradled in my gut.
Eddie.
I hate that I love it now.
The name itself is a color I didn’t know existed, and he is the first to show me.
And now I can’t stop seeing it everywhere.
Jack is sitting up as if every hair on his body is paying attention. He’s taking this very seriously for a grown man who just suggested a drinking game.
“Truth or dare. If I ask a truth and ye tell me a lie, though, ye have to drink.”
“And dare?” My heart quickens.
“Dare is to ask the questions we’ve been dying to ask. The other person has to respond. Or do something, ye ken.”
“Like?”
Realization set in quickly and his features flush pink before he goes on. “I ken what ye’re thinking. I’ll go far, but I draw the line at one thing, Eddie.” Jack’s blue eyes are like guarded steel.
My pulse catches in my throat before deciding to beat again.
“No daring me to kiss ye.”
I’m oddly disappointed, yet something about knowing that is strangely exciting. For someone who teases it so much, I’m surprised it’s off the table.
“Odd request for you, lover boy, but so be it.” I laugh lightly, trying to hide the fact that my stomach shakes with his words. My brontosaurus salad didn’t fill me.
But I bet he could.
“No kissing, unless ye beg me for it.” Jack’s eyes are already on my mouth, and I smile, catching his gaze.
I have a feeling this is going to be harder for him than he realizes.
“I never beg,” I say confidently.
“Nor do I.”
“Stalemate.” I nod curtly.
“Stalemate.” His eyes are unreadable, and something about that terrifies me.
“So, truth or dare. The dare is we get to ask potentially awkward questions?” If I’m going to battle, give me the parameters, I can set up the courtroom in my head.
“Correct.”
“All right then. You first.”
I’m increasingly confident in myself despite my situation. I can talk my way out of anything, but I’m pretty sure Jack can as well. For a maintenance man, he’s certainly coming across as more educated than most.
“Truth or dare?” Jack launches first.
“Truth.”
I’m nervous now. My hand flutters to the hem of my blouse and instead of following it with his eyes, he bores them into me in the way he did under the fedora.
“What is…yer favorite food?”
“Baby questions, eh?” I snort. “There’s a Thai place by Joe’s house that makes a mean pad kee mao, extra spice. You?”
“Truth.” Jack laughs. “I’ll take that as ye told the truth, so no drinking yet.”
“Hmm,” I say, thinking out loud. “Were you actually on a date, or did you just say that?”
“Actually, on a date.” Jack’s eyes sparkle at me and a corner of his mouth twitches into the dimple that could kill me.
“Drink, sir. Groups aren’t dates. Not after age eighteen.” I point ferociously at his shot glass and watch his dimples deepen as he takes the shot.
He downs it like water. I’m in trouble.
“Are they not?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“Yer turn.”
“Truth.”
“What is one thing Leticia Ruiz,” he emphasizes my full name since he knows it, “wishes everyone knew about her?”
I think for a moment. “Free legal advice isn’t a thing. Get the fuck out and pay me, dammit.”
I chuckle and Jack nods along. “Fair, I wish people didn’t ask me to sing every ten seconds or break out a guitar at every party. When ye’re good at it, it gets old. I’m a person, not a trained monkey.”
“Absolutely.”
There’s a moment between us and I can almost hear a pin drop in the busy restaurant behind us. Time seems to move of its own accord when he’s around.
It reminds me of the Fetch. At twelve, I went through a phase of interest in the supernatural and read everything I could about the beyond. Stories from the old hills of Appalachia only fueled that fire with legends of the Fetch. Folklore had it that sometimes, when you were alone in the woods, it would go quiet. Unnaturally quiet. That was before the Fetch came. In all reality, this story was simply meant to scare children to stay put and not wander, but I always wondered how it started. The Fetch was a supernatural being meant to “fetch” you to the other side, the fairy realm, as some would say.
Sometimes, it would look like your friend or neighbor, but something would be off about it. A smile not quite right. A facial feature not down exactly as it mimicked those you loved.
Terrifying really. But always, always the tale had one similarity. The Fetch would be surrounded by a quiet that didn’t make sense. Bees would stop buzzing. Birds would stop singing. Trees would stop swaying. All would be still. Deathly still in supernatural wonder.
Jack and I are in our own bubble of silence, and it doesn’t matter who drops a plate or pops the question behind us. We are off in our own realm together.
Maybe there’s some truth to the old tales.
“Dare.”
Jack takes a sip of the water on the counter next to the glass and settles back comfortably. Maybe a little too much for someone who’s just asked for a dare.
My mind races. There’s so much I want to ask.
“I dare you to tell me what made you leave Scotland.”
I wait for him to recoil, to look away, to do any of the tells on the stand that I’m used to that mean a witness doesn’t want to answer the question.
But he doesn’t.
He looks straight at me and begins to answer as simply as if we are talking about the weather. Whatever Jack is, a liar isn’t one of them. At least, not about things that matter. Faux dates aside.
“Lost a record deal. Ruined it. Fucked it up. Righteously. I was young and cocky. My family needed me here. Da and Mam moved when I was about to go on tour and Da was poorly. So I came to take care of him. Then the heart attack and now I’m here.”
“Alone?” I asked.
“Yes,” Jack replies bitterly, a mix of sadness and regret on his face. “Mam’s in Tennessee now. It’s just me.”
“And the tattoo kiss?”
Jack’s mouth twitches into a sad smile and his eyes flash in pain.
I regret asking that one.
“Ye’ve exhausted yer free question. Time for mine.”
“Dare.” I straighten up.
Jack smirks a little. “Fair’s fair. I like that.”
He looks at me a moment before speaking.
“Did ye love him? Yer husband?”
I smiled sadly. “Yes, I did at one time. Although we had some irreconcilable differences before he died.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning he wanted to continue sleeping with other people and I found that to be irreconcilable.”
“Ah.” Jack nodded. “I ken that must’ve hurt. I’m sorry.”
I swallowed. “Me, too. That’s what’s fucked up about it all. I had to be this dutiful wife at his funeral and everyone was sobbing to me, saying how sad they were for me. For me, he was already dead. Left me with scars I can’t get rid of and, well…”
I trail off. I’m giving him way more than I thought I would. I can’t read Jack’s face, but he seems to drink in every word.
“That’s only part of The Trauma™,” I say bleakly.
“The Trauma™…I like it. It’s like ye’ve branded it and made it yer own.” He nods and licks his lips thoughtfully.
Thoughtfully, in a way that says he’s not afraid, not run-off. In a way that makes me feel he could take it on someday.
I doubt it. No one would really do that. Why would they do that?
“Truth,” Jack says with certainty.
“What’s one song you refuse to play?”
I thought the question would be harder for him to answer, but he answers as certainly as if I’d asked him his favorite color, which I didn’t. He already told me with that line about my eyes, the cheater.
“‘Hallelujah’ by Leonard Cohen.”
“Aw, but that would be amazing with your voice,” I say.
“I don’t play it, Eddie.”
His tone cuts me and I look intently at his face as his jaw is working on keeping calm. I notice his chest rise and fall haphazardly and suddenly realize this may be a question for a dare. Some other time.
“Yer turn, love.”
Jack nudges me with his knee. I realize we are now sitting so close together we may as well be on one stool.
“Dare.”
“What made ye give up law?”
Ouch.
I agreed to this, though. He’s within the parameters.
“The Brenner case.”
Jack looks at me with wide eyes. “I ken the name—”
“Over a year ago. It was all over the news. I represented the wife, and the law failed her. Tried to get a protective order against the husband. Husband shot and killed her three days after the judge wouldn’t grant the order.”
“Eddie, surely ye ken that wasn’t yer fault.” Jack’s face softens toward me. His hand reaches out and touches my arm lightly. His fingers running up and down the silk blouse to soothe me.
The truth keeps spilling out of me at his touch.
“I wasn’t in a good place. It was right after Kyle died. I-I had a lot going on.” I clear my throat. “There was a meeting. Closed doors. Joe told me about it. The firm thought I was incompetent, and well, here I am. Answering phone calls for a damn living. I chose to leave. You don’t just get your professional reputation thrown out like trash and keep going.”
I take the shot in front of me, not caring if I had or hadn’t told the truth.
Jack squeezes my shoulder before dropping his hand and ordering another round of drinks.
We keep on going. He finds out my favorite color is blue, and I despise K-Pop. I find out his favorite candy is M&M’s, and he secretly has a fear of spiders and nuns. In that order, specifically. He has two middle names. Ewan and Malcolm. He knows I have no tattoos on my body but makes me drink anyway, in case I am lying to him about that. I get flustered at the thought of him looking for one. The idea that one day he would explore every inch of me is too much. I bury my blush deep into the feeling of the warm alcohol. Before I know it, two more glasses are stacked in front of us and we are on.
“Truth,” I say.
“All right.” Jack pretends to stroke a nonexistent beard like an old man, the shots clearly finally hitting him. “What is the best present anyone ever gave you?”
“My insecurities and sense of humor.”
“Drink,” Jack demands.
I take the shot and cough this time. “Fine. I give. I had a pair of rainbow striped knee highs that I fucking loved in middle school. Wore ’em every day that I could.”
Jack laughs. “Hmm, somehow I can’t see ye wearing them now.”
“I was peak two thousand’s girl. Frosted lip gloss, butterfly clips, and rainbow knee highs.” I sit up on the stool and get in his face. “Zenon girl of the twentieth century, eat shit.”
Jack loses it. His face cracks into a thousand lines as he laughs till he coughs.
“I was so sad when they got holes! Worst day ever. Never been able to find a pair again.”
I hit him playfully to stop laughing, but his broad shoulders are shaking.
“Your turn.”
“Truth.” He clears his throat and tries to stay composed.
My mind is addled at this point.
“Have you ever been married?” I blurt out.
“Nah,” Jack answers. “Engaged though. A very long time ago. Didn’t last long.”
“She the kiss?” I look at him dead in the face, trying to read his expression this time.
Jack shakes his head. “No. Turn’s up. Truth or dare?”
“Truth.”
“Have ye been with anyone since yer husband?”
I shake my head. “Nope.”
Can’t believe I just admitted that out loud, but there it is.
“Ye’re fucking with me. Surely—”
“No. Cross my heart, it’s true.”
Jack seems way too pleased by this and it annoys the living hell out of me.
“Truth or dare and you can stop smiling at any time now, buddy.”
“Dare,” he says.
I suddenly remember I can dare him to do something for me.
“I dare you,” I start slowly, “to take me home.”
Jack’s eyes take on a different shade of blue and deepen into mine as he raises his hand to close out the tab. “I thought ye’d never ask.”
The night is sparkling.
Yellow ochre fireworks as we pass streetlight after streetlight in the back of the Uber. The windows are tinted darkly, and my hands find his as they clasp and unclasp in the back of the car.
I’ve never called an Uber before. I don’t let Jack know that, though.
I follow his lead and he leads me home, our bodies bumping into each other as we sit close in the back seat of the little car as we’re bound to do considering his size and our drunken state of infatuation.
We come apart occasionally, and in the silence, we slide closer together again.
Like magnets within us, pulling the other ever-closer, I can feel the force between our skin as hand meets hand, and he looks at me through heavy eyes. The light of a passing streetlight brightens the back seat in a flash of gold, and for a moment, I see his face. Illuminated with the glow, his throat rolls gently as he swallows, and I watch the shape of his Adam’s apple slip down into his brown leather jacket collar.
We’re both drunk on something stronger than anything the bar offered. He brings my hand to his mouth and lightly kisses my fingers, taking his time. I think he’s having an affair with my wrist and I am one hundred percent okay with that at this moment, and any other moment he spends focusing on any part of me.
My hand catches his cheek and I feel the mole on his jawline under my fingers as I smooth them over his rough stubble. I’d say it was a dream, but I feel him breathing and incredibly human and real under my touch.
My mind is full of all that I want to say, but never will.
I hope I never lose you.
He will stain my soul and, like red blood, the stain will never come out.
Don’t. Fuck. This. Up.
I had no plan when I dared him to take me home.
I knew he would. But beyond that? Yeah. No fucking clue.
I’m not sure if he has any plan at all either, sitting here in the half-dark, watching me closely.
My cardigan is over my lap, and his other hand is underneath. Resting dangerously on my knee, his hand moves slowly subconsciously, remaining a heavy, warm presence that tethers me into the present and out of the darkness of my own inhibitions.
Together, we ride in a silent confessional, finding hope and justification for our actions in the silence between us.
Justification.
That’s a funny word to describe any encounter with the opposite sex past the age of twenty-one.
I equate holiness and sexuality. To know one is to know the other.
I had never been with another man before Kyle. Ten years my senior and well-versed in the ways of sex, I never took it upon myself to question what it would be like to be with anyone else.
When I was fourteen, I went through a phase where I had a horrible attitude, like all teenagers do. I remember overhearing my mom screaming to my dad about how they should take me downtown to see actual hookers, because that is what my life would be like if I didn’t “shape up.” To her, sleeping with a man you were not married to was…well, it was a fate worse than death.
