“Are you okay? I—I always wanted to ask, but the longer I waited the harder it was and so I guess I just gave up.” Her shoulders slumped.

“You knew what happened?” I’d always wondered if she had—and if she was somehow on Duncan’s side.

She caught one of my hands with both her own. “I told him not to. I even broke up with him. But that just made him angrier and I didn’t know what to do.”

I looked down at the hand she held, the oddity of her unmarked flesh so close to mine. “I don’t think you could’ve changed anything, Thea. Besides, by then I was pretty used to getting beat up.” 

She winced. “I’m so sorry, Jack. If I’d known—"

“It’s fine.” I lifted my hand, breaking the contact between us. True, I’d been angry for a long time afterwards—but in the scope of things, it was just one more thing to add to my list. I’d been an angry kid. “How was LA?”

Thea brought her hands demurely back to one knee. “Hard. Harder than this, if you can believe that.” She recrossed her legs and I tried to ignore the way her coat rode up. “High school was such a breeze, I just thought I’d be able to go out there and conquer the world, you know? Waitress some, audition some, and then eventually someone would pick me.”

“How could they not?”

“Jack,” she said. “Shush.” 

I inhaled to remind her of how locally famous she’d been, back in the day—and then realized it wasn’t likely to help anything, and actually might hurt her feelings. My defense mechanism had always been not to have dreams, all the better to never have them crushed—but she had, and they had been. 

She took a sip of her drink. “The only guys who wanted to take me seriously were the ones who wanted to sleep with me. At least out here I get paid if they think like that.”

“Yeah,” I said softly, agreeing, because I didn’t know what else to do. 

“What about you? What brings you here?” Her voice was perky again. I could feel her putting her sexy armor back on and would do just about anything for her not to.

“The usual. After high school my folks kicked me out and I made some bad decisions, until I wound up in Dallas and started working at Bruce’s shop.”

“Doing?”

“Tattoos.” I was wearing a long sleeved button down shirt and went for my throat, undoing the first few buttons quickly, revealing the head of the dragon that curled up from my chest and over my shoulder.

Thea looked amused. “That’s a change.”

“What is?”

“A guy taking off his clothes for me.”

I laughed. “What should I charge you?” I asked, flipping my collar back and forth dramatically. She giggled as I buttoned my shirt back up. “This is Bruce’s—kind of an initiation. He won’t let you tattoo anywhere on someone else that you don’t have one first. But I’ve done tons of them now—I’ve got pictures on my phone if you want to see.” Anything to keep talking to her.

“Sure,” she said, leaning in. 

I pulled my phone out and thumbed through them, telling her each one’s story—why the person had gotten it, what’d made it memorable or hard—tattoos I hadn’t quite talked people out of, the ones I actually had. 

“So you didn’t just take their money?”

“I did a few times. But if I’m not good at something—or if their urge to have all of their children’s faces inside a kaleidoscope on their navel is incurable—I send them elsewhere.”

“That’s good,” she said. “You’re a gentleman.”