Page 45 of Tears of Ink

I sit forward a little, close enough that his whisky breath fans across my face. “I doubt that.” I wave my hand at the room but meaning the house outside of the room. “Wasn’t this your idea? Didn’t you want to set something up for the community?”

He snorts and his gaze levels with mine. “People like us should give something back.”

“People like who?” He’s not making much sense, but I don’t know if it’s because he’s drunk or I am. The alcohol burns my stomach and I tug my sweatshirt down lower. He stares at my legs, his eyes drawn to the ink spread across my skin.

“What do you do?” My question is a whisper. “You said before you did ‘stuff’.”

“I’m a lawyer.”

I nearly choke on a swallow of fiery liquid. “That’s not ‘stuff’.” I wipe at my face with the back of my hand in case I’ve dribbled whisky.

That so explains the expensive and beautifully cut suits.

“And you work where?”

His lips tighten. “In the city.”

“What sort of lawyering?” That’s not a word. The alcohol is making up words now. I giggle and slump in my seat a little. My body is heavy, and my head wants to rest on the table.

He flashes me a quick smile. “While lawyering, I work for a corporate firm.”

I make a loud snoring noise, and he chuckles, his shoulders dropping as he shakes his head in what I hope is mock pity at me. “Is that why you walk around looking so pained and uptight all the time?” I ask with a cheeky smirk.

“I don’t look uptight. We can’t all be freewheeling, tattooed artists, like you.”

Something about his words tickles my sixth sense. “Oh my god,” I’m on the verge of slurring. “That’s why you want the art thing here. You don’t want to help local kids; you want to play with the clay and paints yourself.”

I knock my hand against his shoulder and he catches my fingers, turning my wrist up to investigate my lightning bolt.

“Sometimes I take pro bono cases. If I’ve got to do this boring career chosen for me by my family, then I want to help others as much as I can…” he trails off with a shrug, while I stare at him like a lunatic.

My mouth dries as I sweep my gaze across him in his waistcoat and shirt. His jaw flexes as he thinks and his long fingers turn the whisky glass.

He is a good guy. I shake my head a little, muddled. Didn’t I know that last week when he helped me pack up without question? Not once mentioning he might have an important job… people waiting for him… clients who needed him. No, instead, he sat on my studio floor and wrapped ceramics in paper, ignoring my heavy and stewed silence.

“And the art?”

I watch in silence as his lips set into a straight line, my wrist still in his hand. “A forgotten dream.”

I hate the fact I want to know more. That tingle of inquisitiveness creeps under my skin. Didn’t it start like that with Gerard Steers? Aren’t I like that with everything? It’s an obsession, a chase—until I get it and then I don’t ever want it again.

“You could get involved here. Maybe rebuild the dream?” Why am I saying this? His handsome face stretches into a tired smile. His eyes are bleary, tired, and red with drink. “Maybe then you won’t sit in the kitchen getting drunk by yourself.”

His index finger traces the zigzag of the lightning bolt and my heart accelerates in my chest. “I need to be in London.”

I try to ignore my stomach plummeting when I realise he’s not going to be here.

“Oh.”

“Oh?” His fingers still skim over my skin, delicately following the trail of ink.

“I should go back to my room.”

But I don’t want to. I want to sit in the kitchen and drink whisky with him until the sun comes up and I’m probably too drunk to see it.

I can’t remember the last time I wanted to chat with someone of the opposite sex. Apart from Dan, but he’s different—he’s family.

It’s like he knows my mind has wandered. His next question takes me by surprise. “Why did you run from Brighton?”