“Eww,” Lark says and then fakes some hurling.
I laugh and open the door for them.
We step into the tattoo shop, and Lark runs straight into the new tattoo artist. He catches her by the shoulders and steadies her, and silently asks with his eyes if she’s okay. His brows arch and she nods. He lets her go and she adjusts her clothes. Her face is bright red.
Finny’s eyes meet mine and she grins.
The new artist’s name is Ryan Shepherd, and I met him two weeks ago when they had a “welcome to the Reed Brothers” party. Ryan is an artist from NYU, and he went to school with Logan. He’s really good at what he does, which is putting permanent art on people’s bodies. He’s also profoundly deaf. Finny and all her sisters can sign, so they can talk freely with him, but me…not so much. I’m set up to take a class starting next week. It’s hell being the only one in a family who can’t speak the language.
Paul Reed walks out of the back of the shop, along with his wife Friday. “Look who’s here,” Friday says. She looks at us and then at Lark. “What can we do for you?”
Lark plays with a loose string on her long gloves. “I want to get a tattoo,” Lark says. She looks down at her feet instead of at them.
“Did you have something in mind?” Friday asks.
Lark leans over, cups her hand around her mouth and speaks in Friday’s ear. And damn if the curiosity isn’t killing me.
Friday’s eyes skitter briefly toward Lark’s gloves and then she winces. “Oh, I’m afraid I can’t do that. That kind of application is an art all by itself.” She looks at Ryan. “Ryan can, though.” She waves her hands around until he looks at her. “Lark wants to consult with you about a tattoo,” she says, talking and signing to him at the same time.
He signs something back.
“Why you?” she repeats. “Because you’re fucking awesome at what she wants.”
His eyes rake down Lark’s body from head to toe, and I see sweat sheen her forehead.
“Maybe we should come back another time,” I murmur to Finny.
Finny glares at me. “Do you know how much courage it’s taking for her to do this?” she hisses at me. “Shut it.” She draws a hand across her throat like she’s cutting her neck. I’m pretty sure she meant that for me.
Ryan signs something.
“How the fuck am I supposed to know?” Friday tells him. She points to Lark. “Ask her.”
He throws up his hands.
Friday picks his hands up and holds them in front of him like she’s getting him ready. “Talk to her. She might even talk back.”
He signs something really quickly.
Friday rolls her eyes. “Yes, she can sign, dumbass.”
He signs something at Lark and she smiles softly at him. He mouths it at the same time, and I’m guessing he asks if she signs too.
She holds her finger about an inch from her thumb and nods hesitantly.
He motions her toward the back of the shop and she follows him, her head bowed and her steps tentative. He pulls a dark curtain around them, and my protective instinct goes into overdrive.
“Should we go with her?” I ask nobody in particular. I start in that direction, but Finny grabs my elbow.
“Let them be,” she says.
“Why exactly are we here?” I ask.
“Moral support,” Finny says.
Paul pulls up a chair and straddles it backward. “Who did that tattoo on your leg?” he asks me.
I look down at the back of my calf. I have an old-fashioned cross there. I got it when I was twenty. “Just some guy in a tattoo shop,” I reply.
He snorts. “Just some guy in a tattoo shop, huh?”
I nod.
“You should let me hook you up,” Paul offers. “Anything you want. My last appointment just cancelled.”
Friday raises her hand. “I’m free too.” She looks at Finny. “I could fit you in.”
She grins. “Hell yeah.” She goes with Friday to the other side of the shop, and they start to talk about designs with their heads together.
“So, I have an idea,” I tell Paul.
He grins at me. “You don’t say.”
He and I sit down together while he sketches something up.
“That’s it,” I say, when he has it right. Friday has to come and approve it, but I make her promise not to tell Finny what it is. And Finny won’t tell me what hers is. We sit on opposite sides of the room, and Friday works on Finny while Paul works on me.
“Do you think Lark is okay?” I ask, looking toward the back of the shop. “Shouldn’t we go check on her?”
Paul grins. “She’s fine.”
“I think he likes her a little too much. Did you see the way he was looking at her?”
Paul chortles. “You don’t have to worry about that one.”
“Why? Is he gay?” I ask. Now I’m confused.
Friday laughs from the other side of the shop. “God, no. He’s straight. But…” She lets her voice trail off.
“But what?” I ask. I wince as Paul hits a particularly sensitive spot.
“He only dates deaf girls,” Friday tells me.
Well, that’s not what I expected to hear. “Why?”
“He was born into a deaf family. Deaf parents. Deaf grandparents. He only dates deaf girls.”
“Oh.” Why doesn’t that make me feel better? “Are you sure she’s okay?”