“So, it’s just you and your brothers?” she asks.

I nod. “Paul took responsibility for everyone when our dad left. He had to so we wouldn’t all be split up.”

“Wow.” That’s all she says. Just wow. She looks baffled.

“We make do,” I explain. I don’t want her to feel sorry for me. “How about you? Where’s your family?” I wait, like a kid in a candy store.

But she shakes her head. “No,” she says.

“That’s not fair,” I say.

She holds up a finger, just like I do to her all the time. “I know it’s not fair,” she says. “But it’s better if you don’t know.”

“Better for who?” I ask. I’m a bit irked that she’s keeping secrets. She has a right to them. But I don’t have to like it.

“My situation is difficult,” she begins. “And I can’t explain it to you.”

She looks back down at my tats. Her eyes play across them. There are too many to count. But I need to show her the one that’s hers. “I want to show you something,” I say. “But I’m afraid you’re going to be angry at me.”

She’s suddenly on guard. “Why? What is it?”

I turn my wrist over and point to her tattoo on my inner wrist. It’s a bare spot I’d been saving for something special. She leans toward it and all of her breath rushes from her body. I can feel it across my hand when she exhales. “That’s my tat,” she says.

She takes my hand in hers and lifts it toward her face. “Are you angry?” I ask.

She looks up at me briefly and then back down at the tattoo. She’s taking in every facet of it. Her hand trembles as she holds tightly to mine. “You changed it.”

“I felt like you needed a way out.”

I put it on my wrist because I was intrigued by the secrets inside. It’s art. And I appreciate art in all its forms.

She swallows. Hard. Then her eyes start to fill with tears. She blinks them back for as long as she can. And then she gets up and runs toward the bathroom.

Shit. Now I f**ked up. I made her cry. She runs by the waitress, who startles. The waitress starts in my direction, a sway in her hips. I get up and follow Kit. I stop outside the door to the ladies’ room and press my hand against it. I don’t know what I’m waiting for. She’s in there crying and I can’t hear her through the door to be sure she’s all right. Fuck it. I’m not leaving her in there upset. I push through the door and I don’t see any feet in the stalls when I bend over.

Where the f**k did she go? I push doors open, but the last one is locked. I stand up on my tiptoes and look over the top. She’s standing there with her forearms pressed against the wall, her head down between her arms, and her back is shaking. She’s crying.

I knock on the stall door and say, “Let me in, Kit.” She doesn’t say anything. I wouldn’t be able to hear her if she did. I step back onto my tiptoes and look over. She’s still crying. “Let me in,” I repeat. She doesn’t move, so I walk into the stall next to hers and stand up on the toilet. I rock the partition between the stalls gently. It might hold my weight. There’s only one way to find out. I hoist myself up and over the wall, bringing my legs over the top slowly and carefully, and then I hop down.

Before I can reach for her, she’s in my arms, her arms sliding around my neck. She’s still sobbing, and her body shakes against mine. I tilt her face up to mine because I can’t see her lips to tell if she’s saying anything to me or not. I need to apologize. I didn’t expect her to get so upset. I’ll have it covered up with something else if it bothers her this much.

My heart twists inside my chest. I really f**ked up. “I’m sorry,” I tell her, looking down into her face. Her face is soaked with tears and she freezes, looking up at me. I can feel her like a heartbeat in my chest. She steps on the toes of my boots, and then rocks onto her tiptoes. She pulls my head down with a hand at the back of my neck.

Her brown eyes are smoldering, and black shit is running down her cheeks, but I don’t care. She’s never looked more beautiful to me. I hold her face in my hands and wipe beneath her eyes with my thumbs. Her breath tickles my lips and she leans over even closer. She’s standing on my f**king boots, and I don’t care. She can do whatever it takes to get her closer to me.

“Why did you do it?” she asks, moving back enough that I can see her lips.

I already told her. I thought she needed a way out. All I added to the tattoo was a keyhole right in the center of the guitar. It’s a simple design really. “I don’t know,” I say. I want to explain it to her, but I can’t. Not right now. Her breath is blowing across my lips and she smells like yeast from the bread and root beer. And I’ve never wanted to kiss a girl so much in my life. But she was f**king crying. I can’t take advantage of her.

She pulls my head toward hers and she kisses the corner of my mouth. Then she kisses the other corner. I can’t take much more. I chase her lips with every move she makes. She’s smiling when she finally presses her lips to mine. I can feel it against my mouth. I keep my eyes open, because I need to see her face. I’m holding her in my hands, and I slide my fingers into the hair at her temples.

I want so f**king bad to kiss her softly. I want to treat her like the treasure she is. But I can’t. She smells so good and she feels so good and she’s in my arms and I don’t know if I can stop. Then she draws my lower lip between hers and sucks it gently. Her eyes are closed, and she’s making love to my mouth. I’m afraid if I close my eyes, that I’ll realize this was all a dream when I open them back up.

I tilt my head and press my lips harder against hers. She’s soft and warm in my arms, and she’s pressed against me from head to toe. Kit starts to tug my shirt from my jeans and I raise my elbows to help her. Her hands touch my waist, and I freeze. I hoist her in my arms, wrapping her legs around my waist, holding her up with my hands palming her ass. I press her against the wall and she laughs against my lips. I can feel the sound of it through her throat, like a gentle hum.

Her hands skim up my chest between us, but I’m still making love to her mouth. Her tongue slides against mine and I press inside the cavern of her mouth. This is the first time my body will enter hers, and I want to take it slow. I want to enjoy every second of it, but she’s not having that. She’s hot in my arms, and wiggling to get closer to me. Her hands stop as she skims up my chest, and she withdraws her lips from mine. I take a moment to try to catch my breath, because I feel like I just ran a five mile sprint. I even have the stitch in my side to prove it. She lifts my shirt up, and touches my piercings with her fingertips.

My breath leaves me. She’s curious and I love that she’s taking the time to look at me. She’s intent upon her task and she explores my nipples, looking down, her bottom lip drawn between her teeth. I pull it free with my thumb, just like I have so many times before. Only this time, I lean forward and draw it into my mouth, nipping it gently. She rolls my piercings between her fingertips, and she’s going make me disgrace myself if she doesn’t stop. I pull back and bury my head in her shoulder, breathing harder than I ever have. This woman has completely undone me.

A hard wrap on the bathroom stall startles me, because I can feel the heavy shake of the metal partition. Kit looks up and says, “Just a moment.”

I’m breathing so f**king hard that I can’t catch my breath. But I put her down when she unwraps her legs from around me. She opens the stall door and steps out, wiping her still-wet face. The guy who banged on the door startles when he sees how wrecked she is. She was crying really hard there for a minute. I close the door and let her talk to him, because I need a minute to compose myself. I reach into my pants and adjust my junk. I have to cover it up with my shirt, because my dick is reaching up past the button on my jeans. Shit.

She felt so f**king good in my arms. I lean back against the wall and try to take some calming breaths. But there’s not much that can calm me at this point. The only thing that would make this better is if she came back in here and we finished what we started.

I open the door and look out. The man is gone, and she’s standing at the sink washing her face. She looks up at me, a soft smile on her lips as she sees me in the mirror. I walk up behind her and put my arms around her, resting my chin on her shoulder. “I’m sorry I made you cry,” I say.

She shakes her head and talks to me in the mirror. “No one has ever done anything like that for me before,” she says. Her eyes fill up with tears again, and I’m sorry that I came out of the stall. I’ll go back in there if she’ll stop crying. But I’m not leaving her. I can see that now. I’m not leaving her, no matter what.

“The lock?” I ask. She’s leaning back against me, and she wraps her arms over mine.

She nods. She wipes her eyes with a paper towel, swiping the black makeup from under her eyes. Her face is splotchy, but she’s never looked more beautiful. For that one split second, she isn’t hiding anything from me.

“The minute I saw the tattoo, I knew it needed to be changed. I’m sorry if I defiled your art.” She could take exception to my change. But I have a feeling she doesn’t.

“It’s perfect,” she says. She lifts my arm from around her waist, and looks down at it. “It’s perfect,” she repeats, sniffling. “I don’t know how to tell you what I’m feeling.”

I’m the one with the hearing impairment and she can’t tell me something? I laugh and lift her hair from her neck, and press my lips there. “You don’t have to say anything,” I tell her.

She turns around and cups my face in her palm, her hand stroking across my five o’clock shadow.

I take her hands in mine and lift them to my lips, kissing them one by one. Then I look into her eyes and open my mouth to ask her the one question I need to know the answer to. “What’s your name?” I ask.

She freezes. It’s like there’s suddenly a wall between us and I haven’t even let her go. “No,” she says.

I feel like she’s kicked me in the gut. I let her go and take a step back. “Why not?” I ask.

“I just can’t,” she says.

I nod and let myself out of the bathroom. My legs are shaking. The waitress shoots me a glance as I walk back to the table. I sit down. Kit’s still in the bathroom and I can’t help but wonder if she’s ever going to come out. Her guitar is still under the table. So, she has to come back, right?

Emily

I lean heavily on my palms, putting all my weight on the bathroom countertop. My pulse is pounding so loudly that I can hear it in my ears, and drawing in a deep breath is burning my lungs like someone has set a fire inside them. Perhaps that’s what he did. Or maybe he’d just shaken the pieces of me loose and now my body had to work to put me back together.

Either way, I feel like someone has torn me into two pieces. There’s the one piece of me that wants to give Logan everything he wants. It’s the piece that so very desperately wants to bare my soul to him, to tell him all of my problems. He would take them inside himself and then breathe them back out, and all my problems would vanish like in The Green Mile. I know he would. But my problems are too big for him. They’d eat him alive. And I can’t let that happen. Because there’s the other piece of me that knows I need to run like hell. I need to leave him before I hurt him.

I touch the tips of my fingers to my lips. They’re red and swollen from his kisses. I’ve never been kissed like that before. I’ve never had a man make love to my mouth. I’ve never had a man try to work his way inside my body, kissing deep inside me, while touching nothing but my mouth. But that’s what Logan did.

I need to go out there and collect my guitar, and then go. That would be the fair thing to do. But he put the tattoo on his wrist. He marked himself with my brand, and he changed it. Tears flood my eyes again, and I blink them back, using a wet paper towel to wipe the eyeliner smudge from beneath them. I look like a raccoon.

I heave a sigh. It’s no wonder the manager looked at me like I deserved all the sympathy in the world. I told him someone important had died. That’s why I looked like this. But in reality, I’m the one who died. When I left home, I died. I like the peaceful existence I’ve been creating here. I know what to expect. And I expect to face life alone. Now Logan is ruining my almost perfect existence.

I haven’t felt hope in a really long time. But I am hopeful. And that isn’t a good thing.

I push off the countertop and fluff my hair. His hands have been all over it, and it looks like I’d been tumbled in a drier. Laughter falls from my lips, completely unbidden.

I go back to the table, and he’s there. He’s eating a piece of bread, and looking up at me, quiet like he normally is. I slide into the booth across from him and settle against the seat back.

“Are you all right?” he asks.

I nod. “I’m fine.” I close my eyes tightly, trying to find the right words to explain it.

He takes my chin in his grip and I open my eyes to look at him.

“You don’t have to tell me anything,” he says.

I shake my head. The words are right there on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t force them past my teeth. “I want to talk to you,” I start. But then I wince and bite the inside of my cheek.

The waitress comes with two warm dishes, and puts them in front of us. She refills our root beers and leaves.

Logan looks down at his food and smiles. He takes a bite of his chicken, and he’s happy. He points to mine with his fork. I don’t want to eat right now. I want to hash all this out.