There You Stand (Between Breaths 5)

I didn’t know what I was expecting from Jude York. Something having to do with wheels or a board maybe.

“You drew this?” I muttered.

Jude bit his lip, as if nervous about my opinion. He gave a curt nod.

“Nice job,” I said, staring into his cellophane green eyes, which now crinkled in the corners. “And this is what you want inked on you?”

His head moved up and down vigorously. I now saw how easily he could avoid communication, even for an appointment such as this—deciding on a tattoo that would become a long-term fixture on his skin. I was doing all the work, pulling the information out of him.

“Where do you want this to go?”

I’d be placing a permanent illustration somewhere on his body. Just the idea of it made me shiver.

He stood up suddenly and swayed toward me as if hesitant or unsure of himself. He huffed out a steady breath and then lifted his shirt. He pulled it over his head and then held it to his side, the material dangling from his fingers.

I held back a sigh, as I regarded him from shoulder to abdomen. He was wiry and fit, not an ounce of fat to be found, only lean muscle. My gaze landed on his pecs, where translucent blond fuzz, similar to the hair on his legs, curled around the light brown areolas. I forced away the thought of my tongue rounding those nipples which now stood at attention like pencil erasers.

We kept it cool in the shop so his tightened nipples could’ve well been from the air-conditioning.

Dozens of tattoos lined both his arms and one curled over his shoulder of what appeared to be some series of flames.

“So you want this on your chest?” I asked, nearly exhausted by the twenty questions game. Almost. Maybe if all of his smooth flesh hadn’t been on display in front of me. As my eyes scanned down his chest again, I noticed the beginning formation of a bulge in the front of his shorts.

Before I could even reason that out, Jude shook his head and my gaze darted back to his eyes. I saw hesitation in his gaze the split second before he spun around to face the wall.

I bit my lip extra hard in order to clamp down my reaction to seeing the blunt and heinous difference between the front and back of him.

Holy shit. There were angry red lines and raised pink circles. These were scars. And not just scars from falling off his skateboard. Somebody or something had done this to him.

Was this the reason he had shown up in town? Had he been in some kind of accident? Was he running from something? Someone?

“Jude,” I said in a croaky voice, because I didn’t have anything else I could say. Not to him. I wanted to ask so many questions but I didn’t think he’d stick around long enough to hear them. He seemed best at avoidance and evasion. Though he’d never truly ran away from me. Not yet. And I didn’t want him to start now.

I finally got my lips to form a sentence. “Do you want this centered on your back?”

His head fell forward as if it could no longer support the weight of his thoughts and he released a heavy breath. As his fists tensed and released, I could only imagine how difficult this had been for him. To expose himself to me.

I gentled my voice. “You want to try to disguise these scars?”

He tipped his head to stare at the ceiling and rolled his lips inward. That was all the confirmation I needed.

“Okay,” I mumbled as if talking to a startled colt. That’s how fragile Jude seemed to me in this moment.

“I’ll work on the sketch. Then I’ll get it on tracing paper. It’ll take several visits to get this inked on your back,” I said gently. “And I’ll probably have to do some of it freehand.”

When he didn’t say anything, I continued. “It might be painful, especially if the skin around those scars is sensitive.”

Silence. Truth was that some scars took ink better that others, but at least the tree would disguise them enough.

“You cool with all that?”

He nodded.

Slowly and carefully, I stepped behind him. “Can I . . . touch your back?”

I saw in my side view that he shut his eyes. Shit. I wish I knew what was happening in that brain of his.

“I want to measure this out, so I can draw it to scale.”

He lifted his head and seemed to be waiting on me.

Fingers shaking, as if I were about to touch a piece of fine china, I reached out my hand. The pad of my forefinger tentatively traced the center of his back.

I felt his skin tremble beneath my touch. “Am I . . . do they hurt?”

He moved his head side to side. So this was emotionally traumatic for him. The scars themselves looked like they’d had years to heal.

I held up his picture and calculated how much larger it would have to be to cover the surface area of his back.

“I’m assuming you want the branches to reach here,” I said, moving my fingers across his flesh from shoulder to shoulder. “To mask most of these.”

His head dipped forward as my fingers glided lower and I felt the ridges and raised edges of his battered skin. I kept my lips tucked closed in a neat straight line so that I didn’t blurt out anything too personal or asinine.

“And these down here as well.” My brain had now switched over into total planning mode so I hadn’t even noticed that my fingers lingered just above his waistline.

I felt the vibration of his skin and looked up, alarmed that I might’ve done something wrong. He rotated around almost painstakingly and stared me dead in the eye.

I was ensnared in his gaze for what seemed like hours. My hands were motionless on his skin because as he turned, my fingers had dragged across his waist to his abdomen.