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I blink at him, at this stranger, while still holding onto his hand, not wanting to let go. I like the feel of it, the weight of it in my own grip.
“Like...you’re named after the whole country?”
Tommy (Russia) laughs, his head bowing back to glance up at the ceiling. Even the column of his throat is ridiculously attractive, all that perfect skin that could be tatted up, and would look beautiful in colorful geometric designs.
My fingers itch to draw something out right here, right now.
There’s an explosion of fireworks going off in my brain, bursting with colors and whizzing sounds all around as I keep looking at him.
“Your nickname is based off an entire country? Is that allowed?” I ask, realizing too late how much I sound like an idiot.
But honestly...Russia? Who gets a nickname like that?
Is this some sort of willy joke that just went completely over my head? Are guys naming them after whole countries now? Is it supposed to be huge because Russia is the world’s largest land mass?
I glance down at the crotch of his jeans, a fleeting movement of my eyes, but I’m pretty sure he catches me looking down and investigating, so there’s that, and I’ll probably be thinking about this moment, wanting to die of embarrassment, from now until I leave this poor planet behind.
Shit, shit, shit.
“I’m from there,” he says, and I drop his hand like a hot potato, rubbing my palm against the thigh of my jeans, wishing I could go out on the balcony for fresh air, but I don’t want to seem rude.
Sorry, I’m having some sort of allergic-type reaction to your hotness, and it makes me want to run away! Especially when you’re sort of looking at me like you’re interested back.
Yeah, that’ll go over well.
“Oh, cool, cool, cool.”
It’s not cool, it’s definitely not cool enough to say it three times in a row. What the hell?
I’m never tongue-tied, twisted up like this.
He’s just attractive! I’ve found guys attractive before, there’s nothing to it! So why is my brain having an epic fart and refusing to engage and work at 100%?
“When did you come to Canada?” I ask, and Katie snorts behind me like she knows how hard of a time I’m having and having a grand old time at my expense.
“When I was twelve. Cool?” He grins at me, and there’s an explosion of butterflies in my belly, and that’s it, that’s it, I’m not doing this again, falling for good looks with nothing to back them up because I’m always being the idiot who wants more.
Nope, this guy is probably Casual City, and I’m not looking for that right now. I’ve got shit to do and banging a hot guy on the side and then questioning what everything means after the fact does not sound like my idea of a good time.
Thanks, but no thanks.
I nod dumbly, then whirl around to Elena. “I forgot something in the car!” I practically yell, needing space, needing to get myself together, because yeah he’s hot, and it’s been forever, but I’m not going to be a slave to my ovaries, definitely not going to be a slave to my ovaries.
Nope, nope, nope. Not me. Definitely not me.
“Yeah, yeah,” Elena says, champion friend that she is, hustling me out the door too quickly that we both realize I don’t have my boots on, and I’m staring down at my own feet like they’ve betrayed me.
I press my back against the hallway wall, taking in deep, even and measured breaths, trying to ignore the heat pooling in my belly, appalled at myself that a single look from Russia (Jesus Christ, his name is Tommy. Tommy, Tommy, Tommy!), has made my stupid knees go weak.
This kind of stuff doesn’t happen in real life—it only gets talked about with those dumb idiots who believe in love at first sight. As if. Yeah, right. In the words of Elena DiNovro, ‘no way, no how’.
“I can’t go back in there,” I say, clutching at Elena’s shoulders, fingernails digging in. I shake my head. “It’s been a hell of a day, and I sounded so dumb, and he’s so hot, what the hell? Why is that allowed? I wasn’t mentally prepared for any of this!” I groan, dropping my hands from Elena’s shoulders and bending at the waist, because apparently the air down at this level is a bit better than the air when I’m completely vertical. I haven’t been a teenager in a long time, I’m not prone to these kinds of moments anymore.
What the hell is this!?
“Are you okay? You’re super flushed.” Elena’s voice sounds suspiciously like she’s laughing at me, but I’m not lifting my head to confirm. I need to keep breathing down here until I’m back to normal.
“Yeah, yeah, my skin’s about to melt off. What about it?” I say, smacking my hands against my face, the temperature difference between my cold hands and face startling me, even if it feels amazing.
“Are you flustered because of that guy...Russia? I can’t believe they call him Russia,” Elena says, and the surprise in her voice has me looking up at her. Elena’s shaking her head at the idea of calling Russia Russia.
“But I guess it makes sense. It’d be like if we moved somewhere else and they’d call us Canada, or Maple Syrup, or something. I don’t know.” Elena shrugs, and I know she’s just babbling to try and calm me down, but it’s not working.
It’s not working!
“I’m...I’m having a crisis, here, Elena. You know me, right? You know who I am, how I am when it comes to guys. And yes, while I have dabbled out and about with many a date, I have never felt this kind of reaction to a guy I just met. I usually get like this after I’ve talked to them for at least an hour and figured out if the date in question is a jerk or not.”
I shake my head from side to side.
“What’s the matter with me? I want to marry him, and you know how I am about marriage! And I want to tattoo every single inch of his skin. He’d make the perfect canvas. Did you see him? Did you see how perfect he would look, even better than he is now? I’d pass out for sure,” I whisper-yell between gulping down breaths.
I chuck off my coat, letting it hang down my arms while I start to fan myself rather ineffectually, feeling sticky and hot.
“Am I dying?! Elena, am I dying!?”
Elena DiNovro, best friend since 2011, is laughing at me in my most crucial time of need and I want to punch her, but I can’t go around hurting my hands like that when I need them to do my job.
So maybe I’ll settle for kicking her hard or stomping hard on her foot, let her hobble around for a bit because I’m having a meltdown
There’s no other reason for me to be acting like this, no reason at all.
“Can you relax? You’re not dying, you’re just about ten years too late to the fangirling game. Jesus, I never thought I would see the day where Sophie Kincaid is losing it over a hot guy. Wow, only you. You’ve got all these feelings and you don’t know what to do with them, right?”
I nod weakly because she’s making a lot of sense, either that or she’s psychic, and I think as her best friend, she would have told me if she was.
“So your fandom isn’t the Habs, or some show, or soccer team or whatever, hell, even a celebrity would make sense right now. Nope, you had to go and make it complicated. Your fandom...” Elena says, knighting me from one shoulder, then pulling her arm up and over my head to land on my other shoulder with an invisible sword, and honestly, who died and made her queen of the land?
“...Is now Russia, I don’t even know his last name, population: one Sophie Kincaid.”
“Why are you grinning at me like that? What did I ever do to you, huh? Huh?” I slap at her placating there, there gesture on my shoulder when I really want to hit something, or hell, draw it out, anything to make me forget about this moment. I want to leave, really.
I don’t want to face my weird reaction to the guy, having a meltdown outside like some dumb kid unable to be adult enough to wrangle her feelings, deaden the sharp brightness of them so that I can last through the night with my sanity intact.
Maybe this time will be different, huh?
I strangle that tiny, little beacon of hope. I don’t believe in any of this. There has to be something wrong with him, and he’ll end up disappointing me like all the crummy dates I’ve had in the past.
I’ll get over this weird initial reaction.
I pull in a deep breath through my nose, exhale through my mouth, square my shoulders and head back towards Katie’s front door, Elena blocking my way.
I can turn off this reaction, I can. I do it all the time at work. Hot guys come in all the time for tattoos, and you don’t see me losing it all the freaking time like this. What makes Tommy so different? I’m not going home, though. I’m going to go straight inside and confront my fears in the form of a man nicknamed after a country. So he knows I find him ridiculously attractive. So what?
Besides, I’m hungry, but I’m also the nervous kind of nauseous and I don’t know if I can eat.
What a dilemma. “Nothing, Sophie, it’s just that you get it now. You totally get it about having these intense feelings for someone you never met before, and I’m going to sit here and watch it all with a big, fat grin on my face, waiting for the prime moment to say I told you so when the time comes.”
I slap at her shoulder. “Rude. The rudest. Help me get back inside.” I hold up a finger. “Wait, if anyone asks, I’ll say I forgot my phone charger, and it ended up being in my coat pocket. No one has to know about this, okay? Okay, Elena?”
Elena takes an extra second to nod slowly, grinning all the while, like she’s got me.
And yup she does.
I take a few deep breaths, the emotional whiplash from this afternoon with tattooing Jackie and now standing here like a horn dog from Horndog City is enough to give me a headache or make me doubt everything and everyone.
Is this The Matrix? Is it glitching?
Can someone fix it so I can go back to normal, please?
We walk back into Katie’s apartment, Elena leading the way, because yeah, I need a few more seconds to compose myself in front of Russia (even his nickname is making me feel tingly, what the hell?) before I take off my coat completely, and Katie lets out a whistle.
I am not embarrassed of my body, I am not.
I love the way it moves and works, the way it keeps my brain and thoughts and feelings swimming around in my skull while the rest of me gets to move around. I like how it bends and twists when I need it to, and I love the way I’m able to make art with what I’ve been given.
I have nothing to be ashamed of.
But I still get shy.
I’m as loud as can be in what I put on my body, both art and clothing, and sometimes that gives people the wrong impression. I’ve been working hard on it being a ‘them’ problem and not a ‘me’ problem.
If it were just Elena, Katie and Dean, I wouldn’t mind so much wearing this blouse, showing off my artwork since Dean’s always curious about getting his next tattoo, Katie sighing good-naturedly (I think, it’s hard to tell sometimes), and he’s always got a million questions that I’m excited to answer.
And while I don’t mind my body jewelry being shown off, or my tattoos, I still get looks sometimes, usually from people older than me sure, but still get quite a few from people my own age, looking at me up and down like I’m seconds away from ruining their lives.
Image still matters, what we look like still matters, even if I’m just a white girl with tattoos. That’s what people see first, and that’s what Tommy sees, too.
Dean clears his throat, then claps his hands together, the sound like a crack of lightning in the living room, making me jump.
“Baby, what the hell was that?” Katie says, and I glance over at her, the look on her face affronted and confused. “We’re right here, right here.”
“Yup, yup, yup,” Dean says, continuing to rub his hands together like he hurt himself after clapping them so hard. Damn it, I love Dean Carter, I really do.
Obviously not in that way or Katie would skin me alive.
Thanks, but I’ll be skipping the whole being flogged alive torture thing.
“Russia, come and help me in the kitchen,” Dean says, clamping down onto one of Russia’s shoulders and dragging him into the kitchen like a puppy that’s been caught by the back of the neck. Russia goes without much fuss, his eyes travelling over me in a way that makes everything in my body (and brain) go yes, yes, yes and not no, no, no.
Huh.
“Wow,” Katie says, crossing her arms over her chest. “Could you two keep your longing looks to a minimum, yeah? I’ve got to eat in front of you two.”
“Shut up, shut up! He can hear you!” I try to bring my hands over Katie’s mouth, that blood-red lipstick that I need to ask the shade of later about to get smeared, but she growls at me, and I resign myself to letting her speak in her own damn house.
“No, he can’t. Dean’s making enough noise for people in Melbourne, Australia to hear. You’re good. Really, though, Sophie—Russia?” Katie notches her thumb over her shoulder, as if I don’t know that Russia is in the kitchen, a half-room away with the way the walls are in this place, maybe even lurking just around the corner.
Another bang comes out of the kitchen and a muffled “sorry” before there’s more banging and I wonder how Katie’s neighbours don’t charge her front door and demand answers for the noise Dean makes all by himself.
“I swear, that man, he drives me crazy,” Katie sighs, looking up at the ceiling. “Wouldn’t want to live without him, though.” She knuckles her forehead, as if coming to this realization again after so many years, and then looking at me, eyes narrowed. Her eyeliner is bomb today, too, the kind of matte black I’ve been looking for but don’t want to spend a fortune on.
Well, I guess I’m going to have to buy whatever Katie tells me to buy.
“How have you two not met before? I’m sure you’ve met before,” Katie says, tapping at her lips with her black-lacquered fingernail, and I’m awed to find that there’s no patchiness to her lipstick, nothing flaking off.
Yup, totally need that shade and brand. Give it to me!
Elena steps up to plate. “Yeah, they did, a couple of years ago, at Sera’s surprise birthday bash you had at your old place. I brought Sophie with me, and we all hung out. It was nice. It was before...yeah, it was fun.” Elena fishes out her phone from her back pocket, looking down at the message or whatever, smiling down at her phone like it’s the most precious thing.
A spike of jealousy rises in me, clogging my throat at the sight of my best friend, my best friend—who has been through so much in the past couple of years with her stupid family, those assholes—being besotted with her boyfriend, Beckett. It took a while to get there, but it’s soft and sweet, and I want it, too. I want it, too.
Aaah.
“Sorry, sorry.” Elena glances up to me watching her, tilting her head at me in silent question. “What? What’s up?”
“You’re happy?” I ask, and Elena blushes, and it’s adorable, and I will kill anyone else who makes her sad, even if it’s Beckett.
I have friends, colleagues I work with who know things, or have watched one too many episodes of Criminal Minds and fancy themselves as amateur profilers.
I mean, sure, but they know things, and in turn, I know things, and fact of the matter is it wouldn’t be that hard to hide a body.
I don’t think.
“Yeah. I am. You?” Elena nods, like she’s expecting a positive answer from me, too.
“I’m pretty good today. Did a tattoo on this kid—she’s not that little, she’s like twenty-one, she had to get a double mastectomy, and she wanted me to tattoo over the scars. Wanna see what I came up with?” I ask, turning to get my phone out of my coat pocket, bringing up my sketch that only had minor alterations to it once it was on her skin, taking into account the slopes of her body, the muscle tone underneath.
“Oh, shit, that’s beautiful, Sophie. Holy shit, no, really, that’s amazing. Aaah, if I wasn’t so chicken-shit I’d get one done, too.”
I snatch my phone back from Elena. “Nope. I am not tattooing the Habs logo on you. Not happening. You gotta pick something else.”
Elena shakes her head. “But then I won’t be able to get a discount from you and be able to afford it!”
“You can’t have a tattoo!” I crow, batting at her when she tries to reach for my phone again. “You’re a first-grade schoolteacher! You have to sort out your priorities!”
“You idiots,” Katie says, voice a little on the harsh side, but that just means that she loves us more than anything, and I can get behind that, sure can. “Come on, I need a drink, and I need to figure out a way where I can’t see you and Russia looking at each other like that. This is my house, what I say goes.”
“Oh come on, I can control myself.”
Katie’s eyebrows go up and up in a ‘can you?’ gesture that has me swallowing hard, already doubting myself.
“I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve this kind of treatment,” I say, grabbing the pumpkin beer she hands me because it is delicious and one of my favorites in the whole entire world.
“I’m your friend, you shouldn’t be treating me this way. You should be trying to get us together so that if we have children, we name them after you and Dean.”
Katie chokes on her sip of white wine, coughing and hacking hard enough that Dean comes barrelling out of the kitchen, a baby pink apron on that says Kiss the Cook (that’s me!) on it, and two oven mitts that look like they’re crammed onto his big hands.
It’s freaking adorable is what it is, and it makes me feel all gooey on the inside, like my heart’s a chocolate lava cake and I need to spill out my own affection on anyone who’s readily available.
Russia, Russia, pick Russia!!!
“You okay, kitten?” Dean asks, and Katie waves him off, not before he dives in and kisses her on the cheek after he’s made sure her airway is clear and she’s stopped coughing, looking more embarrassed than anything.
Dean heads back into the kitchen, walking backwards to keep all three of us in his sight, his eyes tracking over Katie, Elena and me, his eyes lingering on Katie before he turns around and gets back to work on finishing up a fabulous dinner for us.
See? Nothing’s going to come between me and my supper. No one. Not even Russia with his mega-hotness.
Not even that.
I smell some meat braising (I think that’s the word I’m supposed to use), the scent of wine and rosemary coming together to make me start drooling, just like the pups sitting on the couch in the living room, watching all of us intently, even if they’re all lying down and looking like they won’t become streaks of lightning if even a scrap of food falls onto the floor.
We’re seated so that I’m sitting to Russia’s right, and my whole left side tingles at his proximity, the guy feeling like a furnace against my heat-cooled exposed skin. Dean’s on his other side, keeping up the conversation about a rugby game of all things, a topic I know nothing about, and a conversation I can’t even pretend to contribute to.
It’s when I’m finishing off my beer before the wine has been poured that Russia—God, Russia—looks over at me, his blue eyes like lasers, and I feel like he can read every thought I’ve had about him since I sat down next to him.
“So, Sophie,” he says, and my belly clenches and swoops and does a roll, and it’s hard to look at him this close, noticing the imperfections in his skin, his face, the way there’s an area around his chin that has a couple of white hairs in his stubble that just makes me want to kiss that little section first out of everywhere else on his face, and honestly, that’s not allowed.
I’ve never felt so dumb in my entire life.
What is this, what is this?
I make some sort of questioning sound, afraid to open my mouth in case I say something really embarrassing and get banned from seeing the dogs (and Katie and Dean, of course, of course) forever and ever.
“I was thinking about getting a tattoo...” he says.
I look over at Katie and Elena, the pair of them seated across the table. I drop my knife and fork from nerveless fingers, mouth popping open in shock. I pull in a deep breath through my nose, ignoring the sudden pounding of my heart that’s more concerning than my ears ringing and my hearing going in and out.
“Let me do you,” I say. “I wanna do you.”
Elena and Katie burst out laughing and I want to die.
