Every Night (Brush of Love 1)

Was going out with Bryan a bad idea? Yes, I’d suggested dinner, but I also wasn’t denying how attractive he was. It would be easy to lose myself in him for an evening, to fall into his crisp brown eyes and run my fingertips up along the outline of his tattoos. Even as I watched him smooth his large hand over the sheetrock, I could feel my body shiver for him. My fingertips were electric, wanting to shock his body into holding mine as I felt every rippling muscle of his slide along my skin.

If he offered something more, I wasn’t too sure I would be able to deny him.

And honestly? I wasn’t sure I’d want to anyway.

Chapter 13

Bryan

I went back to the office that evening to take care of some paperwork. Things with Hailey’s project needed to be solidified, and I had to check up on some of the other sites. One of the homeless men from one of my projects wanted to interview for a permanent position, and that meant looking over his job record thus far with the company. I needed to evaluate all he’d learned, look at him as an asset to the company instead of someone I was helping, and that required me to be in a place where I was ready to work.

Which meant an evening in my office.

Much to my surprise, Drew was there. Even though he was on the internet surfing through things, it was almost dinnertime. He should’ve been gone by now, and I was wondering if something had gone wrong on a site or something.

“Knock knock,” I said.

“Hey! Fancy seeing you here, stranger.”

“Dick. What’s up? Everything all right?”

“Yeah. Just doing some research,” he said.

“Into what?” I asked.

“Well, the company’s doing so well that I thought about opening my own tattoo shop. I do them on the side anyway, and I’m in need of a new tattoo gun, so why not just open my own little place? Doesn’t have to be much more than me, my things, and a sterile environment.”

“What happened to running the commercial property part of the business we’re starting?” I asked.

“Oh, I still wanna do that, man. But you know how long it took us to get the residential side up and running. It’ll take a year, maybe two, and in the meantime, I could delve into something else. I mean, the business is doing really well. Neither of us are necessary all the time. Some days, I sit around and stare at the fucking wall, dreaming of surfing and shit.”

“Nice to know you’re working hard,” I said, grinning. “That what you’re searching?”

“Huh?”

“A new tattoo gun. Is that what you’re looking up?” I asked.

“Yeah. I need a new one anyway, and the idea just popped into my head.”

“Gotcha. How long you been thinking about this tattooing thing?” I asked.

“About a year.”

“A year? Why am I just hearing about it?”

“I wasn’t really serious about it.”

“But you are now.”

“Look. It’s not something I’m really considering now,” he said.

“Drew, I know you better than that. You don’t talk about shit that’s on your mind. I mean really on your mind. So the fact that you’re bringing this up means it’s important to you, so talk me through it. What would you do if you opened up a side-lining gig tattooing in your own shop? Walk me through the vision.”

“This isn’t one of your projects,” he said.

“Why not? It would be a commercial space. Most buildings like that are. We could put it in the portfolio along with the art gallery to get that part of the business up and going,” I said.

“Speaking of the art gallery, how’s that going? That’s not really your thing. I’m interested to know why you took the job.”