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Pete reached for his coffee again and took a slow sip. “Man, I needed that,” he said wearily. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

“No. My mom was seventeen when she had me.”

“Seventeen?” He let out a low whistle. “Wow. I saw a fourteen-year-old give birth last year. These kids get younger, man.”

“You sound like Ellie’s dad.”

“Are you calling me old?”

From his appearance, he didn’t look much older than me, but he had his own place, a real job, and his eyes… damn, they just seemed so wise. “Maybe,” I countered as my curiosity got the better of me. “How old
are
you?”

“I turned twenty-four a few weeks ago,” he said with a wink. “Is that too old for you?”

The coffee in my mouth went down the wrong way and made me choke. What the hell was wrong with me? Thankfully, the waitress arrived with our food. She put the plates on the table, refilled Pete’s coffee, and walked away without a word. I took my cue and hastily changed the subject. “Why did you become a paramedic?”

“Didn’t have any better ideas.”

“Do you like it?” It felt strange to be so interested in another person, but for some reason, I wanted to know.

Pete glanced up from his food. He reached for the hot sauce and doctored his eggs while he considered his answer. “Some days, but then some days it sucks.”

“What about today?” I chewed slowly and deliberately on some toast. I was still learning to eat normally and not shovel every meal down in ten seconds flat. “Was today good or bad?”

Pete made a face somewhere between a wince and a scowl. “Today sucked ass. Did you hear about that big pileup in West Loop?”

I shook my head. I’d worked until late and then sulked at home. I hadn’t seen any news reports or newspapers. “Was it bad?”

“Yeah.”

His answer was short and clipped, so I let it go. I had plenty of shit I didn’t want to talk about, so it was only fair I give him the same privilege. He changed the subject, and the conversation stayed light after that. Turned out he liked ink, and he had some of his own.

“Show me?”

“Sure.”

Pete took off his jacket and rolled up the sleeve of his T-shirt. Despite myself, I leaned forward eagerly. Tattoos with personal meaning fascinated me. They often told me more about a person than their words ever could.

I took my time examining his two pieces. The oilrig sketch on the inside of his bicep was really cool. With the American flag curled around it and the date inscribed beneath, it was clearly a tribute to his father. I’d seen and done loads of designs dedicated to dead relatives. His was definitely one of the best I’d seen. His second ink, a small set of stars, was on the opposite shoulder. I looked at it with a critical eye. It was rougher, less refined, and it hadn’t been finished well, but it still looked amazing against his smooth olive skin.

“You look like you’re plotting,” Pete remarked as he rolled his sleeves back down and shrugged into his jacket. “Are you going to creep into my room some night and fix it?”

The plate of food I’d eaten felt suddenly heavy in my stomach. I swallowed the last of my cold coffee. “Are you ready to go?”

Pete shot me a strange look. “Sure, let me just get the check.”

“Nah, I got this.” I reached for my wallet and threw some bills on the table. Suddenly, I needed to get the hell out of there. I slid out of my seat and made for the door without looking to see if he followed.

I leaned against the wall outside. The fresh air cleared my head, but I could still hear the blood pumping in my ears. I hated that noise. The pounding made me dizzy, and I felt completely detached from the world around me, like I was looking down on myself from another planet.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I’d pretty much forgotten about Pete until someone kicked my foot. I snapped my eyes open and there he was again, grinning like he didn’t have a care in the world. “Let’s go home.”

T
HE
smell of warm chocolate roused me from where I lay sprawled on Ellie’s couch—the couch that had been my bed until she found Pete’s place for me—half-asleep and staring at her
huge
TV.

She nudged me with her knee. I didn’t move. With a sigh, she gave up and sat on top of me. “So, how are things going with your hot roommate?”

I turned my head and lazily raised an eyebrow. “
You
think he’s hot? Isn’t he a little too male for you?”

“Honey, even a closeted lesbian can appreciate a smoking-hot guy.” She smirked and ruffled my hair. “He’s nearly as pretty as you are. Don’t you think he’s hot?”

I made a grab for the plate of brownies she’d brought through from the kitchen. “Is that why you wanted me to live with him? So you could wonder about what might have been?”

Ellie held the plate just out of my reach. “Maybe,” she hedged. “But, lesbianism aside, I doubt he’d be interested in me. Besides, I hardly ever see him.”

“That’s because he’s hardly ever home.”

It was true. I hadn’t seen him for a few days. The last time had been outside a bar a few blocks from his place with some blonde chick all over him. I only saw the back of her head as I walked past, but she looked pretty hot. I stayed out that night, in case he brought her home. He was gone when I got back, if he’d been home at all.

Ellie sighed. “Shame, you two would look so hot together. I bet he likes guys too; I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

I rolled my eyes. Her gaydar was seriously flawed, especially when it came to men. “I thought you hardly ever saw him.”

She leaned forward and shoved half a brownie in my mouth. “That’s not the point. He’s still nice to look at, right? It’s better than living with some pimply blimp.”

I chewed quickly and swallowed. “Are you calling Angela a blimp?” I inclined my head toward the spare room just down the corridor. “She’s not that big….”

“No!” Ellie flicked me just hard enough to shut me up. “And keep your voice down. I just meant I’d rather look at him in the morning than some greasy fat-ass.”

I let out a rueful laugh. Though she was being a little harsh on her own roommate, she was more right than she knew. Even when Pete was on his way in from working a night shift, he was still amazing to look at—so amazing that those days he’d be on my mind for hours: a sensation that was equal parts fascinating and disturbing.

Ellie shook her head. My sexuality confused her because it was undefined. Sometimes I liked women, and sometimes men. I was unpredictable, and I hadn’t been with a guy for months, not since I left Philadelphia. A new city made me nervous, and being with a woman was easy—
too
easy. You just told them they were hot and made them feel good. Fucking a dude was more complicated, for me, anyway. It was going to take a while to find the nerve.

Despite all that, though, Ellie was right. Pete
was
hot, and it was hard not to notice him. He was a little shorter than me, but he was more defined and definitely stronger. Everything about him was strong—his arms, his chest, his eyes—like he could handle anything. With his dark hair and smooth olive skin, it was a killer combination.

“So you’ll come, then?” Ellie said hopefully.

I blinked. “Come where?”

She gave a long-suffering sigh. “You have the worst attention span ever. My mom wants you to come with me for dinner on Sunday. She misses you.”

“Your mom misses anyone she hasn’t seen in the last twenty-four hours.”

“Aw, don’t be so grumpy,” Ellie chided. “Megan won’t be there, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

It wasn’t. So what if Ellie’s older sister thought I was a tramp? Even at my worst, I could look at her and know she was more miserable than I was. Scars on her wrists, a different guy every week, and she thought she was better than me? Nah, rich people just called it something else.

Meg didn’t worry me. What put me off was Ellie’s father. He’d been nothing but nice to me since she’d dragged my sorry ass home with her last fall, but he still gave me the creeps. He had a way of staring at me like I was some kind of experiment. I always came away from him feeling like I’d had my brain bleached.

“If you don’t see my mom soon, she’ll come looking for you,” Ellie warned as she correctly interpreted my silence as mutiny.

“She doesn’t know where I live,” I countered. Ellie looked away guiltily. “You told her where I live?”

She scowled. “Of course I did. Why wouldn’t I? Is it so bad that she wants to send you boxes of food like she did to that crappy hostel when I left you behind in Philly? You didn’t mind it then.”

I grunted a retort. That was different. With Ellie’s mom, Vivienne, in Chicago, there’d been little chance of her appearing on my doorstep back then. Seemed I wasn’t so safe now I was here too.

Ellie curled up beside me and flipped the TV channel over to some girlie chick flick she watched all the time. “She’s like that with everyone. You’re just not used to anyone caring. Someday you’ll learn to like it.”

I wasn’t so sure, but I let it go without ever answering her question. We both knew when she came looking for me on Sunday I’d go with her, because, really, what else was I going to do?

I
LEFT
Ellie’s after snoozing on her couch for most of the evening, and made my way home. Halfway there, I heard my name and I looked around to see Ted, my boss from the tattoo shop, waving at me from across the street.

“Hey, Ash,” he called. “Come over here, boy.”

Usually, I hated people calling me boy, but with Ted, I didn’t mind. He was a big old biker dude and it was a term he used for everyone. I crossed the street and made my way over to where he was standing outside a busy bar with a smoke in one hand a drink in the other.

He grinned and showed me the gaps in his teeth. “I thought it was you slouching along with your hands in your pockets. Come on, I’ll buy you a beer.”

I followed him inside, sensing it wasn’t really a request, and accepted the bottle he thrust into my hands.

“So,” he said when he’d turned away from the bar. “How’s it been going for you? Are you settling in okay?”

“I’m good,” I said, because, as far as my work went, I was. I liked my job in the shop, and I was grateful to him for giving me a shot. Catching this gig at Finnegan’s had been a lucky break. I’d only done a short apprenticeship, and he didn’t usually take people with experience as limited as mine. Hell, no one did, but my mentor in Philadelphia was an old friend of his and she’d twisted his arm. It was just a shame he wasn’t around much. Despite his rugged, biker appearance, he was an amazing artist with a really light touch. I liked to watch him ink. It was like watching a magician at work.

Ted shouted across the bar and stuck his finger up at a guy who was obviously his friend. Their exchange went on for a while, so I drank my beer and looked around me. I’d never been in the bar before, but I walked past it every day and it was always kicking. I liked noisy bars.

“I’ve been looking at some of the custom work you’ve done,” Ted said when he turned back to me. “Do you have any others you want to sell?”

I shrugged. “A few.”

Ted nodded. “Good. I want to add you to the catalogues. Usually, I wait a bit longer. People come and go in this trade, and it’s a pain in my ass when I have to pull a shitload of pieces out overnight.” He threw back his whiskey and banged on the bar for another. “But you seem settled enough, and people are starting to request you. It’s good to have designs knocking about when you’re not in the shop. It’s good for business, and good for you. So, what do you say? You want to bring me some to look over?”

Hell yeah.

The shop had two catalogues, both of them slim, and the studio was so busy that designs flew out and there wasn’t always enough time to replace them. It would be awesome to have my work there. And, it would give me an outlet for some of the stuff I drew on sleepless nights. I didn’t hate
all
of it, and it was starting to build up. Just a few days before, Pete had laughed at the piles of sketchbooks stacked up all around my room.

“Keep that up, and you’ll have to sleep in the kitchen.”

Ted’s heavy hand on my shoulder brought me back to the present. I nodded like an eager puppy, and he shoved another beer in my hand.

We spent the rest of the evening talking shop. Well, Ted talked and I listened, fascinated, especially when he showed me his oldest ink, on the back of his hands. The hearts and teardrops were faded and rough, but he had a whole tale of lost love behind every component. I found myself riveted, like I always was by the story behind the ink. I was about to show him the only design I’d ever etched on myself when I felt a hand slide over my arm.

“Hey there, handsome.”

I turned around and searched for the owner of the husky female voice. Beside me, Ted smirked and thumped my back hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs. “Looks like you’ve got company, boy. I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah, bye,” I muttered distractedly. I heard him laugh, but I didn’t look back. In front of me stood a tall, Hispanic woman with long dark hair and sharp, high cheekbones. She took my beer bottle from me and wrapped her lips around it.

When she was done, she handed the bottle back and ran her finger down my chest. “Are you having a good time?”

I rolled my eyes. It was ironic, really. Life was hard, really hard sometimes, but hooking up with chicks was easy… safe, almost. Only problem was, they were predictable: predictable and
boring
. I knew the woman’s next move almost before she’d decided to make it.

She pulled me outside, blew me, and then I fucked her against the side of the building. It was hot with no strings, just how I liked it, but as had become usual in recent weeks, something felt off. I didn’t like the way her lips felt on my skin or the feel of her breasts in my hands. But even as she made me shudder for all the wrong reasons, my dick didn’t share my misgivings. With a chick, I could always see it through to the end.

I was halfway home when the lingering, creeping unease suddenly clicked. It had been her eyes; that had to be it. Beneath her heavy makeup, they were brown and sultry, but they held no warmth, no sparkle, and no hint of who she really was. I didn’t usually care, but I’d felt strangely empty as I walked away from her, like something was missing… like
someone
was missing.