Page 41 of Senseless
"Hey now, don't insult the cook," she cracked with a grin. "Heidi's orders are for you to eat everything you can, and I'm inclined to agree. You keep walkin' up the eastern seaboard, you're gonna need some meat on you." Her tone had a friendly tease to it and I decided that I liked this bartender.
"I think my days of walking around in the middle of winter are over," I said in return.
Jen laughed as she began washing glasses. "Well eat up, anyway. You need the energy."
I helped myself to the first plate she set in front of me, a rich broccoli-cheddar soup. "What territory is this, anyway?"
"They're calling it New Greenland these days. But it was once the great state ofNawth Carolynah." She exaggerated the southern accent.
"Wow, is nobody original with coming up with new names?" I remarked between spoonfuls of soup.
"Seriously! If you're gonna run a militia through a town of innocent people and claim it as your own, at least put some thought into what you're naming it."
I laughed, tearing off a chunk of bread to dip in my soup. "So are you from here, Jen?"
"Nah, I'm a Midwestern girl from the mitten." At my blank stare, she clarified, "Michigan."
"Oh, gotcha. Yeah, Texas here."
"Well, giddy-up," she cracked. "Is that where you and Ivan met? I heard they make 'em big down there."
My next laugh was forced, the recent interaction with Shadow still a fresh wound. I couldn't even bear to think of him with another name. This Ivan person was a stranger to me.
"No, we met in Arizona." I tried to keep my tone light, despite the tightening in my throat. "After nursing school, I traveled west for a while."
"Never been to the southwest," Jen commented, the tattoos on her arms dancing and jumping as she wiped bar glasses. "Dunno about that desert heat."
"Summers can be rough, but it's not so bad," I said distractedly. "Sorry for my staring, I just love your tattoos."
Jen beamed as she propped her arm on the bar to show me. "Aren't those pretty? Ivan did 'em all."
"He...did?" I had suspected, but having it confirmed seemed to suck all the air out of my lungs.
"Yeah, he's the best." Jen turned her arm over to show me the full extent of the design. "Amazing artist and such a sweetheart." Her eyes found mine. "But I'm sure you knew that already."
I did. And I hated this feeling crawling through my body, this twisting anger and jealousy that another woman knew him like I did.
Both of Jen's sleeves matched, so Shadow had clearly worked on both arms. That must have taken hours, over multiple sessions. Which meant many hours of him touching her. Sitting with her. Drawing on her skin and talking to her about the design, among plenty of other things most likely.
I felt ridiculous for being jealous, but compounded with how he rejected me yesterday, and how our relationship had blossomed over his tattoo sessions with me, it was another twist of the knife already deeply embedded in my gut.
Was there more to this? Did their tattoo sessions lead to anything more intimate? Did he worry about causing her pain like with me? Did they hug afterwards, or do anything else?
I didn't dare ask, afraid of what Jen's answer might be. My once-delicious soup now sat like a brick in my stomach and I lost my appetite for the rest of the food.
"Does Sha-uh, Ivan do a lot of tattoo work here?" I took small sips of tea, hoping it would settle my stomach.
"Oh yeah!" Jen returned to her glass-washing. "He's inked up almost all of the girls."
I nearly choked on my drink. "All of...the...girls?" I thought hearing he had other clients might make me feel better, but it certainly did not.
"Yeah, they made it a little tradition after he got here," Jen went on with a smile, oblivious to my discomfort. "A bunch of them got little matching tattoos to celebrate being freed from the girls' camps. Others were like me," she gestured to her arms with a smile, "and went all-out."
"Oh." I forced a smile. "That's...nice."
"It was a big step for a lot of them," Jen agreed. "Especially trusting a big scary-lookin' man to get it done, but they saw pretty quickly that Ivan's a teddy bear underneath it all." Her voice quieted, hands slowing over the bar glasses. "And it doesn't take a genius to figure out he's been through some shit himself."
"Yeah..."
