Page 11 of Omega Artist
The humor in her gaze is unmistakable, so is her sarcastic tone. “I guess working out isn’t really working out so well for you, then?”
“Right,” I scoff, watching Marco and Lucas snicker at that. I let it slide and ignore the cackling idiots. I owe this woman so much. She’s been running my parlor like a well-oiled machine. She claims that it’s temporary, but the thought of it still overwhelms me.
Celebrating our friendship and partnership has become our new normal. I have yet to completely give up smoking pot because it helped to take the edge off up until recently. Now, between sex and working out, I feel a whole lot better. Plus, I ditched a few toxic friendships, back from my partying days. Guys who heard about my reputation, thanks to my bigmouth cousin. Guys who thought that being around me meant that they’d score easy pussy. Guys who were keeping better tabs on my so-called exploits than I was, myself. It took too long for me to realize that the remaining friends I used to party with weren’t true friends.
Good riddance.
Now that I have a smaller, more intimate group of friends, we spend more time together, but I don’t reveal much about my private life. They call me a loner which doesn’t ring true to me. I became introverted. I became guarded. I became wary.
“Maybeyoushould be the one lifting less.” It’s a low blow on my part, and we all know it; her body is sculpted to perfection.
“I’m too hot for you anyway, Tig. Sorry, not sorry.” With that, she winks at me teasingly and clinks our drinks together. I adore this woman… in a totally platonic way, that is. She basically saved me from bankruptcy… Thank goodness, Graham helped with the finances, but Claire has been there every step of the way to make sure that the quality, service, and art that we prided ourselves on and our clientele came to expect continued while I drifted away. “If it weren’t for me, you’d still be sitting on your ass, wondering how to get back in shape since Graham’s been too busy to convince you to accompany him.”
Spot-on!
There was a time when Graham tried to drag me to the gym, but I didn’t have the energy to travel all the way to his trendy place in Manhattan. There was a time when I cleaned up my act, and I thought functioning was sufficient. There was a time when Claire opened my eyes to a healthier lifestyle, and she pushed the gym door for me to step in. Since then, I joined a local volleyball team—Soraya’s coach taught me that staying away from people wouldn’t make my late wife reappear—anda small gym where I met Lucas, the wiseass chick magnet who’s sitting to my right.
“Damn, right,” the wiseass agrees. Then his attention turns to her while my horny cousin remains oblivious to us, absorbed by the task of checking out a bunch of girls who just sat at the adjoining booth. “You look great, Claire. Don’t let him tell you otherwise.”
He flashes her his flirtatious smile, and it’s their turn to clink the bottoms of their beer bottles and guzzle a liquid that I’ll never taste again.
“Don’t forget that we might be hunting the same prey, dude!” she jokes, her fingers twirling one of her trademark long, thick purple dreadlocks.
I’m glad to see these two finally get along after starting off on the wrong foot when Lucas came on to her too strongly. She had to reluctantly come out to him, which she despises because, according to her, it’s nobody else’s business that she prefers women. Many women at that. Only her hunting ground isn’t virtual and her intentions are perceived as more noble than mine. She claims to be looking for a relationship.
“That can’t be true. I’m after straight women, remember, just like our friend Tig, here... and Marco, obviously.” Lucas waves a hand in front of my cousin’s face, who grins at us while he continues to eye-fuck the impressive rack that is attached to a woman he’s not really paying attention to. But yeah, Lucas is right.
You see, Lucas and I share another interest. We both devote hours of our time to a couple of apps that I call hookup apps and he refers to as dating ones. Same apps, different purposes, uncertain outcomes. He figures that the odds of finding love online are the same as anywhere else. I believed that love meant finding the one person that was right for you. Now, I can’t believe in love. You have no control over it, and as with everything else, I’ve learned the hard way that nothing lasts forever. Needless to say, I don’t believe in love anymore. At best, it’s a useless feeling that translates to hurt, disappointment, and, inevitably, loss. Finding some comfort in a woman’s body is about all I’m capable of lately, and that’s fine by me.
The fact that Lucas used the plural word in his sentence has me chortling, and he looks at me quizzically. Unlike me, I guess he hasn’t come to terms with the true intent behind the use of these apps. He’s not ready to date, but he’s unwilling to acknowledge it because he thinks that it would make him less honorable. At least I’m honest with myself and the women that I hook up with. I don’t lie. I don’t cheat. I don’t pretend. I show them a good time. Period.
Since I’m an asshole and enjoy fucking with him, I tease, “Man, for all you know, your next date could be bi or wanting to experience a threesome with a hot badass woman like Claire here!”
Despite the dim light, within seconds, Claire and I witness Lucas’s face turning beet red. He’s rubbing the back of his buzzcut. It’s easy to figure out that he just got a clear visual of the scene.
Denying it altogether, nonetheless, he mutters, “Not my jam.”
The music barely covers Claire’s laughter that confirms my assumption, and several people turn their heads. She couldn’t care less and smiles genuinely at them.
She sure is a lot to handle. Hot. Badass. Woman. That’s a good way to put it. Over the last couple of years, the number of piercings and brightly colored tattoos that she proudly displays every chance she gets have expanded. She stayed true to her initial theme: an unusual mix of Disney characters and serial killers from famous movies. Mine are black and gray and either tribal, Celtic, or Japanese, depending on where they’re located on my body, but I don’t have any piercings. Delia offered to do one on me several times, and I stubbornly refused. Only now I regret it. She’s not here to perform her art anymore and I can’t let Claire do it on Delia’s behalf, so I simply added more tats.
That and my steady work at the gym, as well as what I put on my plate, paid off. It instantly paid off in the hookup department. Always after advice, feedback, and new challenges, I started to follow a bunch of people on Instagram, YouTube, and whatnot. The profiles of the interested women evolved as my look shifted. From a tormented tattoo artist, I developed into a hot AF, badass tattoo artist and tormented painter. Much more appealing, it seems.
My brown hair is still short, but I’m more than happy to showcase my newly acquired muscles. Shoulders. Biceps. Butt. You name it. I’m not a playful bad boy anymore. I took it to the next level, and I’m loving it. Seriously, though, I’m especially proud of my butt, and the ladies rave about it.
After a while, Lucas dares to offer, “Maybe one day you’ll be less selfish and share your woman, then. Who knows, you might enjoy my—”
Eager to switch to a lighter subject, I interrupt him and redirect the conversation. “So, Claire, what were you saying about paying attention?”
“Oh, good! The seltzer cleared your mind.” She winks at me again. There was a time when I would have made a snide comeback. I was bitter when I first banned alcohol from my daily regimen. That was then, this is now. “Yup! Now tell me: what exactly should I be paying attention to?”
“You mean,whoshould you be paying attention to?” Her eyes sparkle with amusement.
“What are you talking about?”
“This.” Her phone screen lands so close to my nose that it makes my eyes cross.
“I can’t see anything.”
