Tattoos & Teacups (2 page)

I worked solidly for a few hours, making progress through the pile of work on my desk, and looked up at the clock in surprise when Adam knocked on my door at five.

“Hey,” he said, sticking his head around the door. “You ready to head out?”

“Yeah, nearly. Come in a minute.” I gestured him inside.

Adam flopped down on the couch, making himself at home while I saved everything and packed up all I’d need for the weekend.

“This place is a dump,” Adam opined.

“It is not a dump. It is organized chaos,” I corrected him.

Adam snorted with laughter under his breath. He wasn’t a lecturer, Adam. He worked in the campus theater as a working technician. From the bright lights of Broadway to the dusty spotlights of the college auditorium, his career had taken a bit of a downturn, but he’d wanted to move his young family out of the city and into the suburbs. I liked his laidback, easygoing nature, characterized by a lolloping gait caused by his six-foot frame.

“Come on, beer’s waiting,” he huffed as I finally stuffed the last of my papers into my briefcase.

“I’m coming.”

“That’s what he said.”

“Adam, don’t be crude.”

He knew about my sexuality and occasionally made fun of me for it, not in a cruel way, just the way friends do. He asked me once if I found him attractive. I said no, I didn’t go in for redheads.

My ancient, rusting Buick was something else that often caught the sharp end of his witty tongue. It was a remnant of my own college days, and I liked the familiarity of the heap of junk, even if it did cost me more to keep running than it was worth. I drove over to the Ship with the windows down, pretending to us all that there was warmth left in the air when in reality, autumn was creeping in fast.

I
HAD
been persuaded, against all my better judgments, to stay at the Ship far longer than I had originally intended. Once we were past the point where I could reasonably drive home, it was actually embarrassingly easy to keep me there, teetering on a barstool as we debated the perils of American “football.”

“Now rugby,” I said, slapping an emphatic hand down on the bar. “There’s a real man’s sport. None of this namby-pamby padding you Yanks all wear.”

“Your accent comes out when you’re drunk, you know that?” Adam said.

“Aye,” I agreed. “That it does.”

“Aye,” he parroted.

A light hand tapped me on the shoulder. I whirled around too quickly; the world blurred before my eyes before fixing on a young blond man.

“Can I help you?” I asked him, trying to suppress the Scottish aggression in my voice.

“Sorry,” he said, a slow, easy smirk spreading across his face. “Thought you were Gerard Butler there for a minute.”

“Butler!” I yelled. “Bloody Gerard bloody Butler is the bane of my bloody existence!” My wild gesticulating had caused me to spill some of my pint down my shirt, a fact I was made aware of as the amber liquid seeped through to my skin. “And he’s about ten years older than me!”

“Sorry about this,” Adam said, leaning over me, slurring his words. “He gets rowdy when he’s drunk.”

“I can see that,” the boy said. He hopped up onto the barstool next to mine and gestured to the barmaid. “Do you have a name?”

“My name,” I said, pulling myself up to my full (seated) height, “is Robert Andrew McKinnon. The second. Who the hell are you?”

“Chris. Christopher Jacob Ford. The only. I like your accent.”

Adam collapsed into giggles, and I took his hand to shake. His brightly colored, vividly tattooed hand.

“Ah, everyone likes my bloody accent,” I sighed into my pint glass.

“He says ‘bloody’ a lot when he’s drunk,” Adam helpfully supplied. “Hey, are you gay? Robert is, and he hasn’t gotten laid in ages.”

“Adam!” I exclaimed and shoved his shoulder. He fell off the barstool.

I didn’t apologize—he deserved it—but I did buy another round of drinks while he loped off to the bathroom. To the loo. To the bloody loo.

“So,” I said to Christopher Jacob Ford, emboldened by my display of brute masculine force, “are you gay?”

He smirked at me in a way I should have interpreted as “yes.” In a way, once upon a time, I would have interpreted it as “yes.”

“If you wanna know,” he said, pushing a neat white card across the bar to me, “call me.”

I lifted the card to my face. It had ten numbers and the characters
C.J.F. (1)
printed on it in neat handwriting. I tucked it into my wallet for later.

I
WOKE
up the following morning with a ball of fluff on my head and another one forming between my teeth. On trying to move I discovered two things: the ball of fluff on my head was Flea, who indignantly dug his claws into my scalp as I tried to dislodge him, and the ball of fluff between my teeth was certain impending death.

Hangovers enhanced my sense of melodrama.

I crawled out of bed, where I’d sprawled to sleep, facedown, wearing one sock and my shirt and tie. Nothing else. Walking to the bathroom (I refused to crawl, even though that was clearly the better option), I tried to use the power of positive thinking to will myself back into consciousness. It didn’t work, but the steaming-hot shower, painkillers, two glasses of water, and committing an act of self-love all went most of the way toward fixing it.

Just after I’d finished shaving and dressing in my favorite blue jeans and plaid shirt, the intercom buzzed. I didn’t have time to comb my hair before answering it, which annoyed me greatly.

“Haven’t you done enough already?” I barked at Adam as his grainy, grey face appeared on the little screen.

“Thought you might like to join me and the family for breakfast,” he said with a jovial smile. I huffed and buzzed him in.

“I do have other friends, you know,” I said as he let himself in through the front door I’d apparently forgotten to lock the night before.

“I know you do,” he countered. “But by my reckoning, you’ll be like a bear with a sore head this morning, and a good breakfast will go miles toward fixing it.”

I mumbled and grumbled and pulled on shoes, combed my hair, and found a nice sweater vest to go over my shirt.

“Are the kids coming?” I asked.

“They’re already in the car. As is Marley. Waiting for you.”

“All right, all right,” I muttered, taking the hint. Glanced in my wallet and winced at its contents, or lack thereof. Frowned at the little dog-eared card that had been tucked in behind my driver’s license. Left the house as Adam smacked me around the back of the head to hurry me along.

Marley is Marlene, Adam’s equally tall, exceptionally beautiful wife whom he got pregnant while she was dancing in
Romeo and Juliet
and convinced her to give up the high-pressured, super-slim world of ballet for motherhood in the suburbs. Two children later and I think they’re the happiest couple I’d ever met.

“I’m seeing Chloe later,” I said as I climbed into the backseat of the car, between Tia and Charlotte at their request.

“Good, you don’t see her enough,” Marley said as she leaned through the gap between the front seats to give me a kiss.

The first time I went out with Adam’s family, I felt like a third wheel, intruding on personal family time that I had no right to intrude on. That soon passed, though. Marley was too warm and loving for me not to warm to her, and other friends joined us often enough.

As we settled into our table at the diner, I pulled my wallet out again, determinedly looking for that bloody card. While inspecting it further, Adam began to laugh.

“I’m glad you hung on to that,” he said, still chortling.

“What is it?”

“Some guy gave you his number.”

It came back to me in flashing, still images: a young blond man, pushing Adam off his barstool, tattoos.
“If you wanna know, call me.”

“Oh crap,” I muttered, dropping my head to the table, making the girls laugh.

“Let me see,” Marley said. I passed her the paper without lifting my head. Her fingertips threaded through my hair and gently massaged my neck. “What does C.J.F. brackets one mean?”

“It means,” I said, summoning the shards of my dignity and sitting up again, “Christopher something-beginning-with-J Ford, or Frost, or… no, I think it was Ford, the first.”

“And only,” Adam helpfully supplied.

“Yes. The first and only.”

“Are you going to call him?”

“No!” I exclaimed. “Absolutely not. He thought I was Gerard Butler.”

Marley winced in sympathy. She knew Butler was older than me and that I hated the comparison. Especially when people said, “Oh, I thought you would have been about the same age….”

“Butler is rather dashing, though, Robert. You should start taking it as a compliment. All the girls like him.”

“Yes, well, I’m not particularly interested in having all of the girls liking me.”

Tia looked up from where she’d been stirring her orange juice with a straw. “Uncle Robert, why don’t you want all the girls liking you?”

“New topic of conversation!” Marley said loudly and enthusiastically, clapping her hands and smiling brightly. Adam leaned over and whispered something in Tia’s ear, making her frown, then violently start stirring her juice again. I suspected he’d told her the truth.

The waitress came shortly after that and took our orders.

T
HAT
evening I settled down with an Indian takeaway meal and tried not to think of Chris and his number and the paper that was burning a hole through my wallet into my ass cheek. Arse cheek. Eventually, as I was cleaning up the kitchen, I removed the slip of paper from my wallet and stuck it to the fridge with a magnet shaped like a tomato. I stared at it for long moments, wondering what the hell I was going to do with it.

I
CLOSED
my eyes and dialed his number blind, letting the beeps tell me that I was pressing the right numbers. I gritted my teeth as it rang. Felt like I was going to throw up.

I cleared my throat. “Hello, um, Chris? This is Robert.”

“Mm. Robert. Robert, Robert… oh! Gerard Butler.”

This was a bad idea. “Yeah.”

“Hey! I was hoping you would call.”

“Oh. Well, I did. How are you?”

“Good, man, I’m good.” The sound of him rummaging around. It sounded like he was still in bed. It was nearly two in the afternoon! I was calling from my lunch break! “What are you doing?”

“I’m actually just on my lunch break.”

“Cool. Wanna meet for a beer later?” My heart leaped.

“Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good.”

“Awesome. Well, I’ve got your number now. I’ll text you when I move.”

“Okay. I’ll speak to you later, Chris.”

“Yup. Later.”

Then he hung up. I stared at my phone for long moments, in complete shock. I had a date. On a Tuesday night. I slammed my laptop shut and raced across campus to try and find Adam.

T
HERE
was no time after my last class of the day to go back to the apartment and change, so I was forced to go out still dressed in my suit (although I did take off my tie and leave it in the car, with my jacket. It was an attempt at casualness at which I fear I failed.)

I had received a text from Chris saying that he’d gone to a coffee shop; I was relieved it wasn’t another bar after our last encounter. I parked just a few doors up and compulsively wiped my hands on my thighs a few times, trying to dispel the nerves that were gnawing at my stomach. I hadn’t been on a date in… too long.

Chris stood as soon as I walked through the door and waved me over.

“I was starting to worry you were going to stand me up,” he said, teasing.

“Oh, no, I would never do that,” I said. “I got caught up at the office. I’m sorry.”

“No worries,” he said, flashing me his boyish grin and settling back into his deep leather chair.

I bought him a refill and me a decaf in an effort to calm my nerves. The hot liquid scalded my tongue as I sipped at it, forcing me to hide my grimace of pain.

“Where do you work?” Chris asked as I sat back in my chair. I carefully returned my cup to its saucer.

“I’m a professor, actually, at the university.”

“Oh yeah?” He sounded interested. “What do you teach?”

“Colonial literature, with a particular emphasis on Kipling. Please tell me you’re not a student.”

Chris laughed easily. “I’m not a student, Rob.”

“Robert,” I corrected automatically, then cringed. “Sorry.”

“I had an uncle called Robert,” Chris said, waving off my apology. “He was a pervert and an alcoholic. Rob sounds… younger.”

“I don’t generally let people use that as a nickname.”

“I’d gathered that.”

“I suppose I could make an exception for you.”

I was treated to another smile. To see it again, the concession on my name was nothing.

“And you?” I asked. Sipped still-scalding coffee. “What do you do?”

“I’m a percussionist,” he said.

“A drummer?”

Chris frowned, rolled his eyes, and threw his hands up in the air. “No, not a drummer, a percussionist.”

“I’m sorry,” I apologized.

“It’s fine. Well, to be fair, I do own a drum kit. But I also work freelance for orchestras and symphonies and all that shit too.”

“Wow,” I said, impressed. “How long have you been doing that?”

“Drumming? Since I was eight. I started on everything else when I realized how much money there was to be made doing all of the highbrow shit as well. I’m in a band,” he added, bragging, but it suited him. “Yeah. That’s how we ended up here. We’ve been on tour for about a year and a half.”

“Where did you come from?”

“Florida, originally,” he said, leaning forward to collect his mug from the table and stretching the thin white T-shirt he was wearing tight over his back. “Moved about some when I was a kid, ended up in Tallahassee, where I met the guys. We played out the South over a period of a few months, then decided to get on the road.”

“Where have you been?” I asked. “Sorry—I don’t mean to bombard you with questions, I’m just interested.”