Boyfriend Goals

“It’s so cute, though! It reminds me of when we were kids, when you used to waddle around with some kind of candy or cookies or chips in your hands.”

I’d had a thing for treats when I was younger—still did in some ways. Sweet or salty, both did it for me. I’d always get caught sneaking an extra snack, hence the name. “Don’t you have the world to save? A case to win, a little old lady to get out of a tree or something?”

The lawyer and the tattoo artist. Again with the opposites.

Orlando laughed and crossed his arms. “I think you mean a cat.”

“This is Little Beach, so you never know. I wouldn’t be surprised if we had little old ladies getting stuck in trees, and if we did, you’d be the one to rescue them.”

He also had a habit of being in the right place at the right time, once witnessing a car accident and getting the driver out. Another time he’d done the Heimlich on someone choking at a restaurant. He was not only Mom and Dad’s golden boy, but the island’s too. How the fuck did you compete with that? Not that I wanted to, but it had made me feel less than when I was a kid. I didn’t want to make it sound like there was animosity between us, because there wasn’t. My parents loved and supported me just as much as Orlando. Everyone just knew he was a little more perfect than the rest of the world—or at least in Maine.

“I guess I should be on the lookout for old women stuck in trees, then.”

“Yeah, you should.” I placed the tattoo machine in the cabinet and washed my hands again. “To what do I owe this visit from the perfect one?”

“Ha-ha,” Orlando replied. “Heather is having dinner with friends tonight, so I thought I’d come over and see what my troublemaker brother had going on.”

“Oh yeah, such a bad boy. Was it my tattoos that gave me away?” I teased.

“I think you’re a wannabe bad boy. Like you want to project that image, but really, you’re just a big pile of mush inside while sending off that don’t-give-a-fuck, Mr. Brooding attitude. Do the guys dig that?”

“Clearly. Can’t you tell by all the men I have lined up for a piece of me? They travel from all over the state for Gideon Barlow. Also, if you just came to bust my balls, you can see yourself out.”

Orlando chuckled. “I didn’t come for that. It’s a perk. I just wanted to hang out with one of my favorite people. Do you have any other appointments coming in?”

“Nah. I was going to hang out and see if I got any walk-ins. Freddy’s on his way. I can bail when he arrives, and if we stay close, he can hit me up if anyone comes in while he has appointments.”

“Sounds good.”

The tattoo business wasn’t booming in Little Beach, but I did enough to get by. We weren’t really one of those destination islands where tons of rich folks or family vacationers came to stay for the summer. Sure, we had some; we were on an island after all. People trickled in, and we had our own little tourist season, but there were a whole lot more places off the East Coast that people wanted to visit ahead of Little Beach, which was fine by me. The money would be nice, though.

Thinking about that made my thoughts head straight for Wilma. Christ, I missed her. It had nothing to do with the fact that she’d owned the building where I had my shop as well as the apartment upstairs where I lived. Real estate wasn’t easy to come by in Little Beach, but I’d trade it all to get the crazy old woman back into my life. She’d been a hoot, one of the best people I knew, and now her big-city grandson would be coming in to…what? Take over? Sell the building? Start trying to gentrify Little Beach Island?

Who the fuck knew?

Hell, we hadn’t even known she had a grandson before I found out he’d inherited the building. It was all the talk around Little Beach—about how a woman named Beverly had been her biological daughter, much to everyone’s shock. I was too young to have known Beverly, but others did. It was maybe the first secret that had ever been kept in Little Beach.

Freddy arrived a couple of minutes later. He was in his fifties and had married a local. He hadn’t gotten into tattooing until later in life, traveling to Boston to work. After we’d both moved back home and Wilma had rented this place to me, I offered him a chair here.

“I’m gonna grab a bite with Orlando,” I told him. “If anyone comes in wanting some ink, text me.”