Say it Louder (12 page)

When the bell jingles, I sit up straight and immediately regret it.
Ow.
I wring an angry cramp from my neck, earned from sketching nonstop for more than an hour.

The day’s half over and I’ve had a steady stream of walk-ins mostly wanting to browse our design books and talk options.

I can tell the serious customers from the looky-loos. Serious folks talk in terms of hours, steps, shading, and design approval. Gawkers? They talk prices, debate whether to do a flower or a cartoon character or a Chinese symbol for who-the-fuck-knows-what.

Beside the walk-ins and my two scheduled clients, I’ve also seen one reporter, a couple of art students and a collector. So much for privacy or anonymity. They walk in and they
know
.

It’s almost enough to make me want to dye my hair back to its true honey blond.

Almost.
I like pink. I tell people fuchsia is my natural hair color, but it fades.

Give it two weeks and it’s barely there. Dyeing my hair, even doing it myself with the cheap stuff, is one of my few vanities.

The latest person to walk through my door doesn’t belong: he’s tall, gaunt, and clad all in black except a white thermal long-sleeve shirt that’s pushed up his forearms, layered beneath a faded band T-shirt.

“Are you … Willa?”

“What’s your name?” I hold out my hand to shake, forcing him to answer.

“Jeff Collins.”

“Are you here for a tattoo, Jeff Collins?”

“No, I’m looking for Willa. The artist?”

Well, doesn’t that just make me feel special.
Willa the Artist
—not a phrase I expect to hear from some guy I’ve never met.

Except now I’ve met him, and I would like to know why the fuck he’s in my shop. I could be sketching. I should be, if I’m going to make the new stencil I have in mind tonight.

“So why are you here?” I’m aware I’m not answering any of his questions, but he’s on my turf.

“I wanted to find out more about Willa’s—your—work,” he says, assuming he’s got the right girl. “What do you do besides the street stuff and tattoos?”

And so I rattle off the same thing I’ve told the other drop-ins today: I do canvases, I have a gallery show in the works, and no, I’m not willing to work on commission unless it’s for a tattoo.

I want my art to make
my
statement, not theirs.

“The thing about your work is that art collectors love a story, Willa.”

I hate that Jeff’s using my first name. A lot. I stare at him, willing him to get it over with.

“So I think people are going to want to know the woman behind the canvases—how you get to where you are? What are your influences? Where did you study?”

I snort. “I studied at the school of hard knocks and the New York Public Library.”

Other than getting my GED through the homeless teen resource center, I’ve got zip for formal education but a whole lot of practice.

I sketch more often than I eat.

While other people watch TV, I paint. (I don’t have a TV anyway.)

While other people go out drinking, I go out and make street art.
 

I even tried to learn to knit to knit-bomb some bike racks, but it took too long and yarn’s expensive. I’ll leave that to the crafty types.

Once I made flyers for a dog that was not, in fact, lost. I got his picture from a magazine and described him—all the cool tricks he could do, that ringing phones made him go deliriously crazy barking, that he only answers to “Goofus.” I named him Rusty.

I did it because I’ve always wanted a dog. But I can’t have one.

Not with my apartment.

Not with my life.

So I make fake lost-dog signs. Fuck if that doesn’t sound painfully lonely.

I’m living by proxy.

“So, OK, you’re not classically trained. Have you done shows before? Sold pieces?”

Jeff snaps me out of my mini-pity party but I’m done with him and his little flippy notebook and his peppered questions. I rest my hands on my hips. “Why the inquisition?”

“Because I want to know if you’ll be a marketable artist, or just a curiosity.” He reached for his back pocket and digs through a fat wallet for a business card but I hold up my hand like a stop sign.

“Look, Jeff Collins from I-don’t-know-where, I’m an artist, and right now I don’t give a fuck if I’m marketable or if I have a story. If you like my work, buy it. If you don’t, walk away. But don’t come in here and try to nose into my business like the backstory matters. It doesn’t. Take it on face value or leave it.”

I hear a slow clap and I turn to the door. “You tell him, Willa.” Dave edges into the shop and I find myself actually glad to see him.
 

“I was just—” Jeff starts.

“Leaving,” Dave says firmly. “Give it a rest, dude. Plenty of people have been sniffing around. Give the girl some space.”

He holds open the door for Jeff, a gentlemanly gesture made absolutely forceful with his intense stare. Jeff flips his card on the counter and edges toward the door. “I want to see some of your other work. Maybe your bodyguard will let you call me.”

Dave snorts and closes the door swiftly behind him, then cracks a grin at me. “Your bodyguard. Right.”

“Well, you
did
act a bit macho just then.” I sweep the card into the trash without inspecting it.
Another one for the pile.

“I can throw down with the best of them when the moment calls for it.” He holds up his right hand to display swollen knuckles.

I suck in a breath. “What did you
do
?”

“Chief’s face got in the way of my fist. A bit of payback, maybe.”

I roll my eyes. Macho shit. “So you’re telling me you sorted your stuff out?”

“Fired our manager? Check. Figured out a new one? Maybe; Gavin’s making a call. Confronted Kristina? Done. But she won’t go without taking half my bank account. Half of everything.”

I shrug. “That’s all?”

“That’s
all
? Willa, I spent seven years working on building up Tattoo Thief, and Kristina was along for the ride for six of them. And it’s been a full ride, anything she wants. She should count herself lucky to be leaving with a closet full of expensive shit.”

Again, I shrug. “There are worse things to lose than money.”
Like your freedom, or your life, or love.
 

I turn and walk to the break room for a coffee refill and Dave follows me. Something tells me there’s no love lost with Kristina. He’s angry from the betrayal, but I don’t see the heartache of someone whose true love has betrayed them.

I pour a cup and pass him the coffee pot, forcing my tone to stay light. “It’s your call. Don’t let me tell you how to get rid of her.”

Dave shakes his head, as if shaking away the problem of her. “I’ve wasted enough brain cells on that today. Can we talk about you? Your contract?”

“As long as the shop’s empty.”

He follows me back to the front counter, where I close my sketchbook and double-check the client schedule. We pull twin stools up to the counter and he sits closer to me than necessary. The warmth of his arm, the coffee, and the summer air sink contentment deep into my belly.

It feels so … safe.

It feels totally foreign.

A girl on her own can’t be too careful, can’t go out without her guard up. I don’t have a safety net or a backup plan—I’ve always had to be my own sword and shield.
 

So to have this man looking out for me on something as simple and complicated as a contract, to chase what’s-your-story Jeff Collins out of my shop, and to pull his stool close enough that he can rest his hand lightly on the small of my back … it’s nothing, but it means
everything
.

It’s finding a ten-dollar bill in my jeans when I’m out of cash and payday is days away. It means
living
a bit, instead of just scraping by.

Dave’s breath sweeps over my neck as he explains points in the contract and I turn to face him, our faces just inches apart. A slow smile curves on his lips and his dark eyes drop to my lips for a moment. His hand flexes lightly on my back.

“Were you listening to me?” There’s humor in his voice, and more of that warmth I want to wrap around myself.

“No.” I whisper my confession.

Gentle hands flip the contract back to the first page where red lines strike out paragraphs in the contract and add new ones. “No problem. I just wanted to show you what I got from the attorney. Here’s the part where we’re limiting what the gallery can do with reprints.”
 

He gives me a moment to scan it, then flips to the next page. “And this part talks about your commission split. Basically, it’s an accelerator clause that says the more you sell, the higher percentage you make on each piece.”

I nod, painfully aware I’m out of my depth on this. But Dave’s quiet coaching soothes me, and through twenty-odd pages he patiently explains, answers questions, and talks me through what-ifs until I feel like I’m ready for this.

When the last page is flipped over, he rotates his body on the stool so I’m surrounded by his thighs. One hand still makes little circles with his thumb on my back, the other rests on my knee, like he can’t help but touch me. Like it comes naturally.

I raise my eyes from the contract to meet his gaze and it steals the breath from my lungs. His typical warmth has transformed into furnace-level intensity.

Holy shit.
My body freezes me in place, my nipples pebbling beneath my T-shirt, my thighs squeezing together with unexpected heat.
 

Being with Dave is like jacking up the contrast on a photo until everything takes on a psychedelic vibrancy. And it’s too much, color overload, lust threatening to short-circuit my brain.

I take a sharp breath and force myself to draw back, as far as I can move without toppling off the stool. “I don’t think this is a good idea,” I whisper.

“The contract? I thought you just said everything makes sense.”

“That does.” My eyes flick to the paper, and then back to Dave. Even though my body craves him, my brain is sending
run run run
signals, a fierce instinct to protect myself rather than letting him protect me. Because he might fail. “But you don’t. We don’t. We shouldn’t do this.”

I’m edging away as Dave moves closer, his lips practically screaming at me to take another taste. I feel myself tipping, unbalanced, and my instinct wins—I grab his arm to pull myself back from falling off the stool and it brings me a breath from his face.

He doesn’t give back an inch of my personal space. His expression is open and tempting, waiting for me to take what he’s offering. I inhale his scent, mint and cut pine. It transports me from a sweaty August to the December tree lots, where I’d pretend to escape the city for a walk in the woods.

With the exception of the one crazy plane ticket from Nancy that took me to Europe, I’ve never left the city.

Dave’s lids lower, his mouth tilting a fraction.
So tempting. So desperately necessary.

My thoughts swirl and I try to remember why I’m resisting this warmth. I squeeze his strong arms, still holding me and preventing my fall, and he responds in kind, pulling me closer to his chest, bracketing me between his legs.

I tip my forehead and feather my lips over his, soft but edged with stubble. I press closer and a heady rush takes over, thoughts of self-preservation disappearing like vapor as I just let myself
feel
.

And feel.
 

And feel.
 

My heart expands in my chest, thumping to break free of my ribs. I’ve held my breath for far too long and it escapes as Dave tickles his way from the corner of my mouth to my jaw bone, kissing the soft space behind my ear, trailing his tongue down my neck to where it meets my shoulder.

I sigh with pleasure as his stubble coaxes little sparks from my skin, building up so much feeling that I can’t be more alive than right now. I feel invincible.

I’m held, protected, cherished. All this from a PG-rated kiss that speaks louder than a proclamation.

He cares for me.
This realization almost shocks me out of the moment. He isn’t taking—he’s giving. He’s teasing something out of me that I’ve fought to keep hidden.

I want.

I want
more
.

I arch my neck to feel his lips on the hollow of my throat, his hands moving up my sides, thumbs brushing lightly beneath my tender breasts. And just as I’m about to lose myself entirely to this kiss, a bell clangs and we’re shot from this moment in the clouds back to earth.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“Customers keeping you busy, Willa?”

A wide-set biker, his black hair shot with gray, closes the front door of the shop with a laugh.

Willa struggles to extract herself from my arms and runs her hands through her spiky hair, sending it in wild directions. Her face is flushed, her lips bee-stung and wet from our kiss. There’s no doubt that his man saw enough.

“Welcome back,” she says shakily. “How was Sturgis?”

“‘Bout the same. Skulls and fire tats still keepin’ me in business.” His motorcycle boots and leather cut over a T-shirt scream
tough guy.
Full tattoo sleeves creep down to his knuckles and up his neck.